Maureen Ryan of the Tribune slammed TBS’ My Boys so badly in today’s paper, the program might as well rename itself The New Leave It To Beaver. Proof positive that not every based-in-Chicago series is good (proven a little over twenty years ago with Punky Brewster and continues today with According to Jim.) Yours’ truly complaint: The show pretends that […]
There’s more on the passing of Milwaukee native and television icon Tom Snyder today, with the Tribune’s Phil Rosenthal and the Journal-Sentinel’s Tim Cuprisin weighing in on the talk show host’s career. Snyder died Sunday in his home in San Francisco at the age of 71 due to complications from leukemia (In an ironic twist, another person with S.F. ties […]
A ratings decline of 24 percent for local newscasts over the last ten years on Detroit’s television stations haven’t stopped ad rates for those newscasts from escalating, according to Crain’s Detroit Business. Ratings are down for the early-fringe and 11 p.m. newscasts on the market’s three stations that does late news: Fox owned-WJBK-TV, Post-Newsweek’s NBC affiliate WDIV, and Scripps’ ABC […]
The local Onion continues to stir up controversy in its paper rather than report the facts. Take a look at this article from Friday regarding a racially changing Southwest Side neighborhood. Then there’s the continued loony antics of Jay Mariotti , who continues his assault on good journalism. And check this worthless blog where yours truly posted three times. (Apparently, […]
There is a notable trend of big-market television stations on the East Coast dropping news at 5 p.m. for syndicated fare. WPLG in Miami went to No.1 in the time period when it inserted Dr. Phil several years ago, and its 6 p.m. newscast got a boost, too. WXIA-TV in Atlanta also scored ratings success with a similar move. That […]
No D’ohing here: The Simpsons Movie was a big box-office success this weekend, opening at the top with an amazing $72 million, which is the fifth best opening of the year. The movie, based on the long-running sitcom on Fox, succeeded thanks to a strong marketing campaign (from longtime partners 7-Eleven and Burger King) and turnout from die-hard fans and […]
Host of NBC’s Tomorrow show, a local KABC-TV(Los Angeles) talk show, and a late night show for CBS, dies at the age of 71.
Two news helicopters – one belonging to Belo-owned independent KTVK – the other belonging to Scripps’ ABC affiliate KNXV – collided in mid-air while covering a police chase in Phoenix, killing four people, two each in both choppers.
(Editor’s Note: The links in this story are provided by TV Newsday. Registration may be required.) The news expansion continues: Two NBC owned-and-operated stations in New York (WNBC-TV) and Miami (WTVJ) will be launching 7 p.m. weeknight newscasts, beginning on September 10. WNBC had a 7 p.m. network newscast until several years ago, when it moved NBC Nightly News to […]
ABC’s session gets very testy ABC entertainment chief Steve McPherson was forced to reveal the big news that he was holding for fans of Comic-Con down the road in San Diego on Thursday (thanks to prodding by a lot of pissed-off TV critics:) that Harold Perrineau was reviving his role as Michael on Lost. Meanwhile, the ABC television executive took […]
Television producers and studios are finding that the annual comic book convention held in San Diego called Comic-Con is a great marketing tool for launching their new fall television shows (take that, Promax), especially if the shows are a sci-fi or fan frenzy nature (i.e. Lost, Heroes, Battlestar Galactica…) This year’s convention has more than 100 TV-related projects that will […]
New Vision has acquired NBC affiliate KSN-TV in Wichita from Montecito Broadcast Group, making it the third TV station to be sold in that market this year. Earlier, Schurz Communications purchased Banks Broadcasting’s KSCW-TV to pair with its KWCH-TV in a duopoly, and Fox affiliate KSAS-TV was sold by Clear Channel (as is the rest of its TV group) to […]
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 […]
Aaron Barnhart of TV Barn takes a look at the new Warner Bros.- syndicated show spun off from the popular website premiering in the fall (It airs in Chicago on WPWR-TV at 6:30 weeknights and late nights on sister station WFLD-TV beginning in September.) And that website has scored another coup – it was the first to break news of […]
The free weekly alternative was sold to Creative Loafing of Tampa after 36 years of local ownership, and employees of the Reader aren’t too thrilled about it.