Derek Chavin murder trial to be streamed, televised

Minneapolis stations, cable networks to carry proceedings in the death of George Floyd The landmark Derek Chavin murder trial began Monday and viewers can get a front row seat to one of the biggest legal proceedings in a generation.  It’s a historic trial to begin with: it marks the first time a Minnesota criminal trial has been televised gavel-to-gavel from […]

Twin Cities riots tests patience, nerves

Media covers disturbances; radio station burns down In what is being described as one of the nation’s worst case of racial disturbances since the 1992 Los Angeles riots, the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul were hit with an orgy of rioting and looting for the last two nights over the death of African-American resident George Floyd by Minneapolis […]

CBSN to expand to other markets, including Chicago

Local news streaming service to be based out of CBS 2 Chicago is about to get its first local news streaming service. As announced on Thursday, CBS Television Stations and CBS Interactive announced an expansion of their local news streaming service to Chicago and twelve other cities, with content provided by CBS owned-and-operated stations in those markets. Modeled after CBS’ […]

The Media Notepad: “Game of Thrones”, Masters score big

Also… Face The Truth won’t be back for a second season; CourTV returns May 8; AT&T sells Hulu strike While HBO turned Chicago’s weather into one big promotional machine (Winter came on Sunday…and left a big, slushy mess), it seemed to have worked: Sunday’s eighth-season premiere of Game Of Thrones proved to be a big draw. The season premiere attracted […]

Think Tank Express: Colbert makes his CBS debut

Stephen Colbert – yes, the real Stephen Colbert – finally made his long-awaited hosting debut last night on The Late Show, only the third time a comedian has hosted under this title. Colbert is no longer chained to his “Stephen Colbert” character he played on his Comedy Central show. While judging a program by one episode doesn’t do it justice, […]

Cubs headed to WLS-TV

  ABC-owned station to run 25 games a season from 2015 through 2019 “Catch the action on WLS”… That’s right, you heard me… ABC-owned WLS-TV (that’s TV, not AM) struck a five-year deal with the Chicago Cubs to air 25 games a season beginning this spring. According to the station’s website, WLS would air games in daytime, primetime, and weekend […]

T Dog’s Think Tank: Idiocracy strikes local news again

Twin Cities’ KSTP makes gaffe, but has nothing on CBS 2’s history of making them If there’s any doubt local news is sometimes a joke, this item should cement the fact. Hubbard-owned Minneapolis-St.Paul ABC affiliate KSTP, a once-proud beacon of journalism, is involved in “pointergate”: a photo of Minneapolis mayor Betsy Hodges was shown in a photo joyfully exchanging pointing fingers […]

Confirmed: “Queen Latifah” to CBS 2… and WCIU

As reported here and on other trade sites last week, Queen Latifah’s return to daytime TV snared its first major deal with Sony Pictures Television: CBS’ owned and operated TV stations signed on for the show in sixteen markets. According to an article in Broadcasting & Cable last Monday, Latifah’s show will in fact, be shown on WBBM-TV next fall, […]

T Dog’s Grab Bag: “Live With Kelly” shifts to WLS-TV in 2013

The Jeff Probst Show finally clears Chicago, landing at WBBM-TV Due to a busy schedule covering and analyzing Upfront Week, there were a lot of notable media stories mentioned in the past week: – First mentioned in Robert Feder’s Time Out Chicago blog last week, ABC-owned WLS-TV has acquired Live With Kelly beginning in September 2013, falling in line with […]

T Dog’s Six Pack: Expanded edition

It’s been awhile, so let’s do an expanded edition of T Dog’s Six Pack – with an extra item in the winners and losers column this week. It doesn’t get any better than that! Okay, yes it can… Winning. Regis Philbin. After 28 years on daytime television. Regis Philbin steeped down as co-host of the popular morning chatfest Live With […]

The race to replace Oprah: "Anderson", "Ellen" benefit

Modern Family syndication sales reaches up to 50 percent of the U.S. Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution seems to benefitting the most thus far when it comes to replacing The Oprah Winfrey Show when it leaves this September, with Anderson Cooper and Ellen DeGeneres’ talk shows snapping up time slots soon-to-be formerly held by the queen of talk. Anderson has […]

Follow up: Is Leno killing late local news?

Remember back last December when yours truly wrote how stripping The Jay Leno Show was a creative counter-programming idea? I think I might want to retract that statement. Since it debuted September 14, The Jay Leno Show has been a hot topic of debate in television circles across the country – especially in newsrooms, where Leno leads in to late […]

Kiernan named news director at WBBM-TV

Jeff Kiernan has been named the new news director at CBS-owned WBBM-TV (CBS 2), being charged of cleaning up the mess former news director Carol Fowler left. Kiernam is a native of nearby Munster, Ind., and has been in charge of news operations for CBS O&Os stations in Minneapolis (WCCO-TV) and Boston (WBZ-TV.) While at WCCO, Kiernan kept WCCO competitve […]

Minneapolis, Cleveland TV stations worry about LPMs

If you think radio stations in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles are worrying about Arbitron’s Portable People Meters – then you haven’t seen anything yet. Television executives in Minneapolis-St. Paul and Cleveland are sweating it out over the next several months as Local People Meters – or LPMs, become the standard of measurement for television ratings measured by Nielsen. […]