Both Richard Roeper and Roger Ebert have announced that they will no longer host the movie review show 'At the Movies' that airs on ABC. It seems that this is a consequence of the channel's new strategy according to which younger people must be brought in to replace the two very good but older critics.

'At the Movies' was first aired on PBS under the name of 'Sneak Previews' in 1975 and was hosted by Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel, who died of a brain tumor in 1999. The original version of the show gained popularity because of the antagonistic personalities of its two hosts. Both Ebert and Siskel were very well informed film critics, but had different styles and worked for competing Chicago newspapers. The two would frequently engage in intellectual battles over the films they presented in the show.

In 2000, Richard Roeper was chosen by ABC, the channel that was airing the show at that time, as Mr. Gene Siskel's permanent replacement following his death. Since then, the show began to loose more and more audience. During the last few years, Mr. Ebert's medical problems – a throat cancer that left him unable to speak- contributed to the decline of 'At the Movies'.

The two replacements for Mr. Roeper and Mr. Ebert are Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz. Ben Mankiewicz has previously hosted a pop culture show at the Sirius Satellite Radio. Ben Lyons, the son of film critic Jeffrey Lyons, worked as a critic for several magazines, including E!, as well as for MTV.

According to the New York Times, Roger Ebert announced that he plans to take the concept behind the show to another channel, since he and the former wife of Gene Siskel are the ones to own the intellectual property over it.