Media Notepad: The Score’s Laurence Holmes heads to middays

Also: WLS-AM announces new PD; WBBM reigns supreme; New York’s WPIX sold One of Chicago’s prominent sports radio hosts has a new contract – and a new weekday slot. Longtime WSCR-AM (The Score) veteran Laurence Holmes is getting his own midday slot weekdays from noon to 2 p.m., beginning March 28 – coinciding with the start of the baseball season. […]

The Media Notepad: Mike North calls it a (sports) career; Corey McPherrin promoted

Plus: ABC 7 dominates in ratings AND social media; Minneapolis station latest to drop “My” branding That’s a wrap…for now: Mike North went on television Tuesday night and announced he was “retiring” from sports media, including radio, television, writing, podcasts… you name it. On WTTW’s Chicago Tonight, North told host Phil Ponce talking sports today was just too complicated. He […]

The 2012 T Dog Media Turkey Awards

Get the cranberry sauce ready: it’s time for the 7th annual T Dog Media Turkey Awards where every Thanksgiving, yours truly honors the worst in the media business for the year and 2012 is filled with so many media turkeys! Without further ado, here are this year’s, um… “winners”: Animal Practice. Premiering after the Summer Olympics (or more aptly put, […]

Sports, tech snafus zap media coverage of teachers’ strike

As Chicago teachers head for the picket line, media coverage of the strike has been filled with some miscues and some frustration from local news stations due to sports overruns.  If you watched ABC 7’s (WLS-TV’s) newscast Sunday night, technical snafus took place as video from Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s press conference at the Harold Washington Library often looked choppy and […]

Chicago radio gets Q’d

For the last few months, Chicago-area radio listeners had no alternative rock station. As of Sunday night, Chicago-area radio listeners have… two? In a surprise move, Elmhurst-based WJJG-AM (1530) flipped from talk to Alternative Rock Sunday night – a day before Merlin Media was supposed to launch its new Alternative format on WKOX-LP (formerly Smooth Jazz outlet WLFM-LP, on 87.7 […]

The T Dog Media 2011 Turkey Awards

            Allen Gregory: Worst. Sitcom. Ever. Welcome to the 6th annual T Dog Media Turkey Awards! Every year around Thanksgiving, yours truly hashes out the worst in the media business – in television, radio, and sports. So bring out the stale stuffing and expired cranberry sauce! It’s time to go gobbling! And the “winners” are… […]

The Six Pack: Occupy this!

              While America is holding protests against rampant greed, T Dog Media has the winners and losers of the past week who “occupied” the media spotlight: Winners Last Man Standing. Tim Allen picked up right where he left off – as a prime-time success for ABC. Standing debuted last Tuesday to a 3.6 adult […]

Grab Bag: Savage wrestles down a new outlet in Chicago

Can you smell… what WJJG is cookin’? You most certainly can as another edition of The Grab Bag is upon us… -Mancow Mueller now has a new tag-team partner at WJJG-AM (1530 AM) with syndicated radio host Michael “Macho Man” Savage. Beginning October 3, the duo will enter the ring every day to grope and piledrive their liberal opponents into […]

T Dog’s Six Pack: You can even win by being a loser

More X Factor for everyone – whether we want it or not. This week, Randy Michaels makes a comeback – which sends the Alternative Rock format on the ropes; and the Crosstown Classic – not to mention interleague baseball – is a flop. The week’s winners and losers: Winners Randy Michaels. If this was on an ethics level, The Court […]

T Dog’s Think Tank: Surviving Sheen

There are many reasons why shows get canceled or end their runs: the star dies or retires, declining ratings, getting too expensive to produce, etc. But because of a rant against his boss?  That’s a new one to me! As you’ve heard by now, CBS and Warner Bros. has suspended production on Two And A Half Men again – this […]

T Dog’s Four Pack – Putting the biscuit in the basket

Here’s who is scoring goals – and who isn’t – it’s a hockey-themed T Dog’s Four Pack: Lighting the lamp: Family Guy. No, you don’t see this show in the winner’s circle too often, but Sunday’s night episode – despite some rather uncomfortable dialogue in the first act – was the best of the season and perhaps ever, on a […]

We lose

 No, it didn’t. Even though yours truly provided lukewarm support for the Chicago 2016 effort, I am just as shocked and stunned as everyone else in our inability to land the Olympic games. It kind of reminds me of a rather laugh-free Simpsons episode where Bart did an offensive stand-up routine at Springfield’s Olympic Presentation where International Olympic Committee  members […]

Think Tank Flashback: Grow up

With the national media – and everyone else shitting on Chicago in the aftermath of Governor Arrogant’s arrest, I thought I would revisit this Think Tank from May 19, 2007 titled Grow Up, Chicago. Though it deals mostly with then-WSCR-AM windbag Mike North feuding with White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, the antics are just part of the dysfunctional culture we […]

"Oprah" in trouble?

(Editor’s Note: A rough draft appeared earlier here by mistake, resulting in an error in the second paragraph which has since been corrected. In other words, the word “repeat” should have been where “new” was. – T.H.) Maybe yesterday’s White Sox-Royals brawl may serve as an indication people in Kansas City (and certainly Minnesota) may be sick of anything coming […]

Spanish broadcaster charges racism in Arbitron numbers

Plus other demo ratings news of note Spanish-language broadcaster WLEY-FM is charging that the station’s numbers -as well as those of other Hispanic broadcasters – are down become Arbitron did not send out enough diaries to Spanish-speaking households in the Chicago area. “I question the statistical reliability of this survey,” he said. “They did not have a sufficient number of […]