A FAST streamer aiming to be just more than FAST You’ve probably heard of Xumo, one of those “FAST” apps in the streaming landscape competing with Pluto TV, Redbox, Amazon’s Freevee, and others in the growing Free Advertising Supported Television landscape, with over 190 channels dedicated to a wide variety of genres. But Xumo is aiming for more as it […]
Both the WGA and SAG-AFTRA are om strike outside of Paramount Studios in Hollywood. With no settlement in sight, the entire 2023-24 TV season for scripted shows could be wiped out When SAG-AFTRA joined the WGA on the picket lines on July 12, the entire industry shut down and the thinking was, this would spur some kind of progress in […]
Online reviews, viewer anger sink Mandy Kaling’s Scooby-Doo-less reboot In the 40 years I’ve followed the television business, I’ve never seen a series as panned as Velma – and I don’t mean by TV critics. On its way to becoming one of the biggest flops in television history, HBO Max released the much-talked-about Velma adult animated series from Mandy Kaling […]
On September 14, 1987, NBC’s owned-and-operated stations decided to launch a bold experiment, airing a different sitcom every weeknight leading in to prime-time. It was a disaster. Before streaming, where you can watch what you want when you want – or what day you want, there was a time where local stations did something called “checkerboarding”. As you know, prime-time […]
CW cancellations fuel speculation of deal forthcoming Five months ago, The CW – the joint venture between Warner Media (now Discovery Warner Bros.) and ViacomCBS (now Paramount Global), created by the merger of UPN and The WB in 2006 was up for sale, with Irving, Tex.-based Nexstar the leading suitor. So where does things stand now? A glimpse of […]
Low-income Chicago neighborhoods, suburbs lag behind [Editor’s Note: This story was updated on July 19th with a response from AT&T over accusations of digital redling.] With Dancing With The Stars and Thursday Night Football – two long-time broadcast programs moving to streaming this fall, it signaled something we knew for years – television is shifting to a streaming model […]
What’s happening to the cherished genre these days isn’t funny as it could be reduced to nothing Seven weeks ago, CNN launched The History Of The Sitcom – an unnecessary eight-part documentary on a subject covered to death through books, PBS, and other media celebrating the form stretching from the days of I Love Lucy on your black-and-white mono […]
NewsNation in the fight of its short life after Lyons, key staffers depart Back when NewsNation was announced in January 2020, Nexstar – who just acquired Tribune Media and cable network WGN America, hoped to provide an alternative to what the cable “news” networks were offering – hard news without opinion. NewsNation launched here in Chicago on September 1, hiring […]
But one syndicator is making an actual investment Back last July, this blog detailed how tough it is to launch a weekly show as the weekend landscape outside of sports programming has become dominated by reruns, paid religion, infomercials, and fourth-rate programming. The tough marketplace led to the demise of WGN’s Man Of The People with WGN morning sports anchor […]
Man of the People latest to strike out as viewers head to streaming services on weekends (Editor’s Note: This post has been updated to reflect recent changes in programming schedules.) Funny thing as this person was watching the final Man Of The People Monday night via DVR as in the next-to-last segment, Bill Kurtis said “Tonight we look back at […]
25 years ago this week, Fox’s Rupert Murdoch changed the TV world by inking a deal to trigger the biggest affiliation switch in history. It goes back to what happened on December 17, 1993. The networks were complaining about paying too much for sports – the NFL in particular – as the packages were losing money and looking to pay […]
A: This show has been a successful story for 35 years – even before Ken Jennings and James Holzhauer came on the scene. Q: What is Jeopardy? In 1983, King World was looking to pair something with its already red-hot Wheel of Fortune, an NBC daytime game show debuted in evening syndication and became a smash hit. So they […]
WPWR-CW breakup illustrates how some affiliate partnerships don’t work The major networks have enjoyed long, prosperous relationships with their affiliates. For example, Milwaukee’s WTMJ, St. Louis’ KSDK, and Cincinnati’s WLWT each has enjoyed a long relationship with NBC dating back to the late 1940s. CBS and New Orleans’ WWL have been partners since 1957. And ABC and Dallas’ WFAA go […]
Sun-Times article talks about a future without sports on WGN as station, teams head into transition In 2016, WGN-TV decided to cut their ties to The CW and become an independent station once again, going all in on sports featuring the Cubs, White Sox, Bulls and Blackhawks. Come October 2019, WGN might not have any sports on its schedule at […]
Roseanne not the first media personality to fall from the top When Roseanne Barr made several racially insensitive and anti-Semitic tweets in May, ABC canceled the successful reboot of her 1980s and 1990s sitcom Roseanne, becoming the first top-rated show ever to get canceled and the first one because of a tweet. But to […]