Also: So long My50…again; “Wheel”, “Drew” off to strong ratings start; ABC 7 promotes Nwosu to marketing position While NBC Sports’ other RSNs are preparing for the future, NBC Sports Chicago is ending its 20-year run Monday – but not quietly as the station plans to air over 36 hours of live and past content Sunday, celebrating its time on […]
Also: NBA, Stanley Cup Final earns mixed ratings numbers; Nexstar moves CW affiliations to its owned stations in three markets; “Velma” renewed for season two Usually, trades are reserved for sports teams though this one could be compared to the Chicago White Sox trading a player to the Minnesota Twins. Cumulus Media announced Tuesday the appointment of James Kurdziel from […]
Largest network defection since 1994 when it happened to…CBS With Nexstar acquiring three-fourths of The CW, the network who was once partner in the venture is now dropping the low-rated network from its eight big-market stations by September 1 and is being re-christened as independents. The eight are located in Philadelphia, Atlanta, San Francisco, Seattle, Tampa, Detroit, Sacramento, and Pittsburgh. […]
Here comes another retrans dispute as impasse knocks Fox 32, My 50, FS1 off Dish In a move that surprised and stunned a lot of observers – not to mention Dish subscribers, Fox Corp. announced Thursday it has pulled their signals off Dish. This means Fox-owned local channels WFLD-TV and My Network TV affiliate WPWR-TV are off Dish and their […]
New talk shows do battle this fall; former talk show host now TV’s newest judge (Editor’s Note: This post has been updated. Look in the comments section for more info regarding syndicated programming.) Even though the new broadcast prime-time network TV season doesn’t begin until September 23, syndication’s new season gets underway Monday with staggered rollouts over the next two […]
Move to WCIU takes place Sunday; rebrands as “CW 26” as WPWR returns to “My 50” Goodbye Taye Diggs, hello Vincent D’Onofrio. Beginning Sunday, WPWR reverts back to a primary My Network TV affiliate as CW programming heads to WCIU, who is rebranding as “CW 26” with WPWR returning to “My50”. The affiliation switch was officially announced April 19 as […]
Also: No Blackhawks games on free TV next season; WCIU launches new “CW 26” website and fall schedule; CBS 2 returns to DirecTV. For the first time in its history, The Drive sits on top of the Chicago radio world. The Hubbard-owned station also known as WDRV-FM finished first in the latest Chicago radio PPM rankings spanning from mid-June to […]
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 […]
End of an era arrives as studio is taken over by Disney. On Wednesday, a new day is dawning in Hollywood – for better or worse. Parts of 21st Century Fox – including its film, television studio, thirty percent of Hulu, and other operations are to become the property of The Walt Disney Co. in a $71.3 billion deal first […]
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 […]
The team plans to launch their own RSN in 2020 is full steam ahead After years of planning, it looks like the Chicago Cubs’ plan to launch their own regional sports network is one step closer to reality. As first reported by Bruce Levine at 670 The Score (WSCR-AM) Monday, the Cubs hired Mike McCarthy, a former president of New […]
Plus… My Network TV announces new 2018-19 lineup; Chicago Reader under new ownership; Cubs games to be streamed on Facebook As first reported by Robert Feder last week, WSCR-AM co-host Brian Hanley is being removed from his post as Mike Mulligan’s co-host and his overall role at the station reduced. There is no word on who would replace Hanley in […]
Sinclair selling off WPIX, WGN to win approval? Meet the Shell Answer Man. During the eight years I worked at the Better Business Bureau, yours truly has seen plenty of scams perpetrated onto by the public the organization had to warn about. But even those can’t compare to what Sinclair and the FCC are pulling. In a filing revealed on […]
Interest in genre explodes as off-net debut puts up strong numbers When the news was announced Dateline NBC reruns were being sold into broadcast syndication, the idea was…laughable. After all, since Cops broke the mold in 1992 and became the first reality show to be sold into off-network syndication, others came along and weren’t exactly successful (Rescue 911, Top Cops, […]
Also: Bears renew local deal with Fox; My Network TV also renews; “MeToo’s” odd connection to Chicago TV Despite defending their World Series title from last year, ratings for prime-time Cubs games declined last year, according to a report in Forbes. The Cubs earned a 4.4 Nielsen household rating, down 9 percent from last year. Forbes did not specify […]