NATPE Update

Here is the latest from the NATPE convention in Las Vegas: – The Fox O&Os, as it has been spectacled for the last few weeks, has acquired Warner Bros. new magazine strip, TMZ, for next fall. The program will air locally on both WFLD-TV and WPWR-TV this September. The show is based on the wildly popular entertainment website TMZ.com, which […]

Coors Light and 24….mmmm….

Man… on the day where the TCA and the NATPE shingdings are going on…. the browser crashes. Took an hour and a half to get it back working. That’s why we’re late tonight … anyway… Ed Sherman of the Trib has a review of Fox’s coverage of the Seahawks-Bears NFC Divisional Playoff game yesterday. If I haven’t seen an extended […]

Syndication’s Most Bankable Stars

With the NATPE convention getting underway today, Let’s visit an article TV Week published last week on Syndication’s Most Bankable Stars, picked by a panel of syndication experts. Among the highlights: -Topping the list again is Oprah Winfrey, thanks to her continuing success of new now two- decades old talk show. -Oprah’s spinoff show, Dr. Phil, is number two. -Newcomer […]

TV Week 2007 Winter Critics Poll

The 2007 Winter Critics Poll is out from TV Week, and not surprisingly, The Wire is on top as best show (as it was in Broadcasting & Cable’s earlier TV Critics Poll), followed by Excellent 10 program Heroes (yay!), and The Office. Other notables: –Ugly Betty, another Excellent 10 favorite finished in a tie for fourth with Grey’s Anatomy. –Lost […]

Say so long to "Queer Eye", "Quite Frankly"

The Q’s are out… Bravo dumps Queer Eye for the Straight Guy after five seasons, while ESPN cancels Quite Frankly after two. Rest assured these shows won’t be missed. (Let’s hope Stephen A. stays away from daytime TV… There are already too many bombastic personalties in that field already.)

Lowering the bar

AT&T, which bought Cingular wireless in the Bell South deal, is dropping the popular brand name to go another hot, sexy name…. AT&T. AT&T sold its wireless business a few years back to Cingular, which was created in 2001 as a result of a joint venture of SBC and BellSouth. Customers who had the AT&T Wireless name were converted to […]

Syndication update

– Debmar-Mercury has cleared 85% of the country for the ninth syndicated season of Family Feud, which was previously distributed by Tribune Entertainment. Debmar-Mercury has also recruited Twentieth Television to sell ad time for Feud and off-cable weekly sci-fi hour The Dead Zone. That program has also been sold to 85% of the country, including season two renewals for ABC […]

Alliance Atlantis sold

The Canadian-owned producer of shows ranging from Night Heat to DaVinci’s Inquest to the CSI franchise has been sold to CanWest Global and Wall Street firm Goldman Sachs for a whopping $2.3 billion. Even if it’s Canadian currency, that’s a lot of money! CanWest Global runs Global, Canada’s third broadcast network.

Hey, what ever happened to that Top Model?

For the second year in a row, Chicago Bears offensive linesman-turned-broadcaster Tom Thayer has been selected to become the official spokesperson of the city of Joilet, a suburb southwest of Chicago. The response to the ad campaign has been overwhelmingly positive, according to city officials. Thayer, part of the 1985 Super Bowl Champion team, was a hometown football standout at […]

Fall Arbitron books (Updated)

The Arbitron radio books are out today for Chicago, Milwaukee, Peoria, Rockford, South Bend, Bloomington, and The Quad Cities. Robert Feder analyzes the Chicago book for the Sun-Times, while Tim Cuprisin does the same for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Chicago Winners: Urban Contemporary WGCI-FM Chicago’s tops the fall ratings book. WLIT ought to thank Santa for its Christmas music-fueled ratings jump. […]

The CBS name returns to syndication

They’re back. But the new CBS Television Distribution is in the spirit of the old CBS Films, the syndication division of CBS before the government forced the big three networks to rid itself of the lucrative syndication business in 1970 via the financial interest and syndication rules, which ended in 1995. In 1971, CBS spun-off Viacom, and became a very […]

Tempted

Twentieth Television is bringing back the old game show Sale of the Century — but with a different name. Twentieth cleared Temptation– a new program based on the ’80’s daytime game show on its 10 MyNetworkTv stations covering 24 percent of the country (including WPWR here in Chicago.) The program is produced by FremantleMedia, which owns the rights to the […]

Master Shake and friends to the big screen

While America has to wait until July for The Simpsons to hit the big screen, and Family Guy’s movie eschewed theaters altogether for the safety of your living room via DVD, The Aqua Teen movie will be hitting theaters this March, called The Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters. (I swear I’m not making this up.) Based […]