With the second cycle sale of Two and a Half Men to the Tribune and Sinclair station groups for seven – count ‘em – seven years, and mega deals by Fox O&Os for The Big Bang Theory and Modern Family, you think syndicators would celebrate the return of the big pay day they reaped back in the day. Right? Think […]
Here’s a jive turkey – LeBron James took an hour of ESPN’s time – and wasted the rest of ours – by announcing he was signing with the Miami Heat. The move so far hasn’t worked out well for the self-titled King. Breakout the turkeys, because it’s that time of year again – it’s the 5th annual T Dog Media […]
Get ready for yet another British invasion – this time from Britain’s top daytime talk show host. As rumored for months, Debmar-Mercury has signed a deal with Jeremy Kyle to host an American version of his hour daytime talk-show strip for fall 2011. Kyle’s show has been cleared in 70 percent of the country, and declared a firm go. The […]
In a humongous move, Weigel Broadcasting sent out a teaser on major changes coming to MeTV and MeToo, the company’s local classic TV channels. In like… MeTV is going national. Weigel plans to announce on Tuesday it will seek to distribute the MeTV concept nationally via a digital subchannel. Weigel’s forthcoming announcement means they are throwing their hat in the […]
The new cast of “American Idol” for 2011, minus Simon Cowell. Fox unveiled its new mid-season lineup late Friday and by doing so, caused a huge stir throughout the industry. The biggest move of course, is American Idol, which now will air Wednesday night and Thursday night. The move means Idol will no longer air on Tuesday – avoiding a […]
Want more Two and a Half Men in syndication? You got it. But if you want more crazy Charlie Sheen going ape in a hotel room moments, you’ll have to wait – those come at random. In a story Broadcasting & Cable broke Wednesday, Tribune Broadcasting and Sinclair Broadcasting announced they has renewed Two and a Half Men for a […]
The first changes since the departure of Kevin “Pig Virus” Metheny has already taken place. In his goodwill mission to win back listeners, WGN Radio boss Tom Langmyer is bringing back Sports Central, and fired two weekend hosts, among other changes. In Phil Rosenthal’s Tower Ticker blog, Langmyer stated: “The goal of WGN weekends is to make our programming more […]
For the second time in two days, an ABC affiliate announced plans to get into the local news business. Chicago-based Weigel Broadcasting announced on Tuesday the hiring of Aaron Ramey to launch a news operation at WBND-LP (low power) in South Bend, Ind., and plans to develop other programming for the station and sister outlets WCWW-LP (CW) and My Network […]
In Chicago, ABC-owned WLS-TV’s newscast have topped the charts for more than 20 years, completely dominating their time periods – and the same can be said for other ABC stations, including WABC in New York, KABC-TV in Los Angeles, WPVI in Philadelphia, WFTV in Orlando, and WSB-TV in Atlanta. KDNL-TV in St. Louis? Not so much. In fact, it doesn’t […]
Jim Laski and Kevin Metheny: Their immortalized testament to their time together at WGN Radio. Guess which one is Metheny… The winners and losers for the past week in local and national media. On we go: The Winning Attitude WGN Radio listeners. With Moo & Oink (Kevin “Pig Virus” Metheny and evening host James “Don’t Drop the Soap” […]
Cue the cute sitcom laugh track: Awwww….. (Photo courtesy of Robert Feder) This farce starring Randy “Court Jester” Michaels and Kevin “Pig Virus” Metheny running WGN Radio would equal a sitcom where everyone is a boob and feature a laugh track. In fact, there was such a sitcom: WKRP in Cincinnati was certainly one of the best sitcoms of its […]
The venerable game show Wheel of Fortune does something it usually doesn’t do: make headlines (and trust me, that’s a good thing.). Syndication’s top-rated program for 26 years running had a stunner on last Friday’s episode as a New York fashion editor correctly guessed the puzzle – with only one letter on the board! And even host Pat Sajak was […]
Conan’s excited to be on TBS. Monday finally marked former NBC late-night host Conan O’Brien venture into basic cable on a network which was once stood as a momument to Ted Turner. Conan’s conquest of the Turner Broadcasting System started in essence with an overnight rating of 2.8 for his Monday premiere. But it gets better: – The program drew […]
Senator-elect Mark Kirk and “Captain Kirk” William Shatner: Separated at birth? Win, Lose, or end up hosting a bad 1980’s game show: The past week’s winners and losers: Win.$#!* My Dad Says. OMG. Believe it or not, thus show is actually getting funnier each week. Thank you, Big Bang Theory lead-in. Kirk. And speaking of William Shatner, his Star Trek […]
In a rare move in the industry, The Walt Disney Company announced the sale of two of its O&Os – back to its previous owners. According to Broadcasting & Cable, WJRT-TV in Flint, Mich. (serving the Flint/Saginaw/Bay City market) and WTVG in Toledo, Ohio were sold back to SJL Broadcast Management, who sold the duo to what was then Capital […]