T Dog’s Four Pack: The "C" in CBS stands for crime

The winners and losers of the week:


The stamp of approval:

The Chicago Blackhawks (before Friday’s night’s loss): The Mighty Blackhawks are mighty once again thanks to record-breaking regular season ratings. The Hawks are in the playoffs against the Nashville Predators, which continue Sunday night. Go Hawks!

Conan moving to TBS.
Fox getting out-foxed by Conan. While Murdoch and the boys were stalling around, Turner Broadcasting got down to business and signed the red-haired one to a five-year contract after just three days of negotiations.

Glee.
But the news wasn’t all bad for Fox: Glee returned to its Tuesday night lineup and drew a huge 5.6 rating in the 18-49 demo despite a three month hiatus, while FlashForward recently returned to ABC’s lineup after a similar break and bombed (last Thursday’s episode finished fifth with a 1.4 rating – it was even outrated by CW’s Vampire Diaries!) What’s the difference? Glee kept the promotional machine running throughout this time by visiting Oprah and even the White House, not to mention Twitter, Facebook, magazine covers and a lot more – the anticipation for its return was there.

Dale Hansen’s takedown of WFAA management – on WFAA. The longtime sports anchor of Dallas/Fort Worth’s ABC affiliate said something most of us already know about local news. Hansen’s speech regarding the Belo-owned station airing a secretly-taped video featuring Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones blasting former head coach Bill Parcells and draft prospect Tim Tebow was classic. And what’s even more cool, he made the speech on their air. Hansen’s comments more than applies to Chicago TV stations – just as much as it does to the Metroplex’s.

The stamp of disapproval:

Chicago’s killing spree. 12 dead this past week, many more shot. I was surprised when Chicago did not land on this list (but not surprised Detroit and New Orleans did.)

CBS now stands for the “Crime Broadcasting System”.
And speaking of violence, Saturday night’s Strikeforce MMA event was marred by a brawl between camps of several fighters at the end of the show. Then cue WBBM-TV’s newscast, which lead off featuring video a man robbing a cleaning store with a loaded gun. Then the news of course, is followed by reruns of CSI: Miami and Without A Trace. For violence – made up and real (kind of hard to figure out where Strikeforce would land in this case), you can’t beat the imbeciles at The Church of Tisch.

Broadcast TV. While Conan went to Turner Broadcasting and WWE’s Friday Night Smackdown went to SyFy, what were the broadcast network’s biggest announcement? Another Law & Order series, this time based in Los Angeles. Yay, I can’t wait.

Ryan Seacrest.
The anointed one’s behavior on American Idol this season has been – well, strange. But what about Tuesday’s lame stab at former Idol co-host Brian Dunkleman? It’s worst enough Seacrest the Sap is taking away local radio personalities’ jobs for his lame-o syndication effort, so now he’s acting like an asshole on top of it? If Idol is looking for a new co-host, pairing Seacrest the Sap with Mancow the Moron is a dream team made in hell.

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