After months of stalling, it appears that CBS will not present a TV version of Annie Get Your Gun — with country star Reba McEntire — anytime soon. McEntire, who replaced Bernadette Peters in the award-winning revival of the Irving Berlin musical, had inked a deal with CBS Productions in April 2001 to re-create her portrayal of Annie Oakley for TV audiences. The singer-actress, however, recently told the New York Post, "We're not doing it. We've run out of time and my number-one priority is the sitcom ["Reba"]. CBS just kept backin' it up and backin' it up and it was kind of runnin' out of time and getting too close to my August 15 [date] when we go back to shooting the sitcom. So I thought I better tend to business and focus on that."

McEntire also explained that neither a leading man nor a director had been set for the project, which was to star the Oklahoma native in the role originally created on Broadway by Ethel Merman and later in the revival by Bernadette Peters, who won a Tony Award for her portrayal of the sharp shootin' Oakley. The classic Berlin musical boasts such tunes as "There's No Business Like Show Business," "Doin' What Comes Natur'lly," "The Girl That I Marry," "Lost in His Arms," "Anything You Can Do" and "I Got the Sun in the Morning."

McEntire, who made her Broadway debut to enthusiastic reviews in Annie Get Your Gun, said that she still plans to preserve her Annie Oakley for TV viewers. "Down the road, absolutely," she commented.