The Media Notepad: US 99 unveils new morning show

Also: No relief in sight for those missing CBS on DirecTV; Dish drops Fox RSNs; WCIU drops new CW 26 trailer; This TV future? Entercom country-music outlet uS 99 WUSN-FM finally announced their new morning show last week, featuring Jason Pullman and Chicago-area native Katie Bright as they replace Stylz & Roman, who were dismissed in May after three years. […]

Sunday ratings roundup: Viewers friend “God Friended Me”

Cubs, Bears score strong in Chicago Note: All numbers are 18-49 unless otherwise noted. These are finals. In a very contentious time in America, viewers needed a friend. And they found one Sunday night. CBS received strong sampling with new drama God Friended Me Sunday night, with a 1.3 rating/5 share and 10.2 million viewers. The series is about an […]

TCA: Cable Time

The Winter TCA Press Tour concluded last weekend with many panels dedicated to cable. Here is a brief roundup of what went on, grouped in alphabetical order: AMC To the delight of critics (and fans), AMC announced it was extending the third season order of hit series The Walking Dead from thirteen to sixteen as the second season with thirteen […]

TCA: Wasting away on the "Jersey Shore"

The Television Critics Association Press Tour came to an end on Saturday with the last three days devoted to cable networks. In the past, cable usually kicked off the press tour, but this year shoved toward the end of the twelve-day tour. Neverthless, critics stayed through the end, with the HBO presentation playing to full capacity on Saturday. The biggest […]

T Dog’s Four Pack

This week’s Four Pack contains the baseball playoffs, some dancing, and Rachael Ray – oh my! Winners – Postseason baseball. Ratings for the divisional baseball  playoffs on TBS were up from last year…. maybe because the Cubs and White Sox weren’t in it? – Rachael Ray. Her talk show is renewed until 2011-12 in 90 percent of the country, including […]

T Dog’s Groovy Grab Bag

Another edition of T Dog’s Groovy Grab Bag: – As you know by now, Jay Leno’s final Tonight Show was last night. Courtesy of TV Barn, here’s a short transcript of Leno’s monologue from his final program, and here’s an article on how Jay Leno’s reign of The Tonight Show didn’t change much during its 17-year run. And the best […]

T Dog’s Groovy Grab Bag – The Cable Edition

An all-cable edition of the Grab Bag, with the NBA taking center stage: – The rematch of the last year’s NBA Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics was a ratings blockbuster for TNT Thursday night, with the cable network drawing its highest ratings in 13 years (a Feb. 2 1996 between the Chicago Bulls and Lakers – […]

TV Week declares Blu-Ray the winner

After Warner Bros. announced on January 4 that they were releasing its content exclusively on Blu-Ray, with the possibly of Paramount joining them, leaving NBC Universal as the only studio exclusively in the HD-DVD camp. And according to the article, viewers might not want to fork over $300 for a Blu-Ray player but get downloadable HD content from Apple’s iTunes […]

TLC lands Miss America

So viewers can now ignore it on another cable network. Maybe they can acquire the NHL next? Meanwhile, Nick’s Noggin (the pre-school outlet) and The N (a teen-targeted outlet), which shared space on one channel, will be spitting up into two separate 24-hour operations on Dec. 31, with Noggin taking over the channel space now occupied by Nick GAS (Games […]