Announcement made on the same day he joined the station in 1982 [Editor’s Note: Swapped YouTube video with the Christmas Night edition of WLS-TV’s newscast.] If anything, the year 2022 is shaping up to be The Great Retirement in local media. The latest person to call it a career is Alan Krashesky, who announced his decision to retire from ABC […]
Channels return after weekend standoff After Dish and Sling customers woke up Saturday morning to find Disney channels missing, they returned late Sunday night as the parties came to a tentative agreement. The move to pull the channels came after the contract between the two parties expired on September 30 and neither negotiated an extension to keep the channels on […]
Surprise move came with no warning In a move that has Dish and Sling customers fuming, cable and broadcast channels owned by The Walt Disney Company were pulled off of their systems at 2 a.m. Central Time Saturday morning in a retransmission dispute. The decision to yank the channels surprised everyone as usually, customers are given a heads-up on if […]
Drastically different schedules begins today (Editor’s Note: This post was updated on September 17.) There are a ton of changes in television outside of prime-time with the new season beginning today. For one, there is no more Ellen DeGeneres as she danced off the stage last spring while Maury Povich and his paternity tests retired to Florida, leaving us with […]
Also: ABC 7 hires new person for its creative services programming team; Fox’s Chicago duopoly to air new game show; Devil in White City to be adapted for the small screen After leading the paper through a difficult transition as a non-profit, Chicago Reader publisher Tracy Baim is stepping down after four years at the paper and three months as […]
Local stations pre-empt programming on holiday For a city used to the horrors of gun violence, even this was too much to take. On a sparkly clear day, a Fourth Of July parade in the north suburban community of Highland Park was interrupted by a gunman who opened fire from a roof of a commercial building, hitting spectators below. As […]
Also: All CHGO launches; two network TV shows canceled; restaurant with a sitcom connection burns down Much has been made about the lackluster Winter Olympics ratings, but one angle wasn’t talked about much – their effect on NBC affiliates – or lack thereof. And no one experienced a bigger disappointment than Chicago’s NBC 5 (WMAQ.) As reported by Robert Feder […]
Similar to NBC-owned stations’ recent move; ABC 7 returns to prime-time news Joining fellow large-market owned-and-operated counterparts CBS and NBC, ABC-owned stations have now launched 24/7 local streaming channels of their own, including ABC 7 here (WLS-TV). According to the press release, the eight new channels “24/7 local news coverage, breaking news, weather forecasts, feel-good stories from ABC’s award-winning Localish, and […]
Jackson’s puppeteer work spanned two decades and five local TV stations Even though his profile was a bit lower than other Chicago TV children show hosts, Bill Jackson made an impact nonetheless. Jackson died in his Paso Robles, California home Monday at the age of 86. Jackson appeared on local television during the 1960s and 1970s, fondly remembered by […]
Local stations, broadcast and cable networks battle it out to ring in the new year I think the question we should be asking is who isn’t doing a New Year’s Eve show this year? The major networks and local stations are throwing their hats in the New Years’ Eve ring as they look to capture their share of an audience […]
ACC Network part of pact While retrans disputes are becoming more and more common, at least there are some companies who can come to a deal without any problem. The latest example came a few days ago when The Walt Disney Co. renewed their carriage pact with Comcast to continue carrying their channels uninterrupted on their Xfinity platform. “We’re very […]
Plus…DeDe McGuire returns to Chicago airwaves via syndication; Konkol returns; Judge Steve Harvey? Despite the well-publicized departure of Mark Giangreco earlier this year, viewers are still tuning in to ABC 7’s (WLS-TV) newscasts and is handily beating their competition. Even though 25-54 numbers haven’t been released yet and the following only measures total viewers, ABC 7 easily won the 10 […]
Renewal keeps her show on the air through 2024 Looks like we’re going to hear the phrase “TamFam” for some time to come. Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution announced Monday the renewal of Tamron Hall’s daytime talk show for its fourth and fifth seasons, taking the show through September 2024, thanks to an early pickup by the ABC-owned stations including […]
ABC-owned stations produced documentary on Blago – but you won’t see it on ABC 7 The ABC-owned stations are producing a new documentary on disgraced former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. But in a marked departure, the new series is not appearing on WLS-TV/ABC 7 or any of the ABC-owned stations themselves or even their digital channel Localish. It’s streaming […]
New shows dot local schedules The new television season outside of prime-time begins Monday and you will see some new faces and new places. For one, Jay Leno is returning to daily TV seven years after he left The Tonight Show for a second time. Now, he’s taking his act to earlier time slots with his new You Bet Your […]