The Media Notepad: WGN Radio surges in ratings

Also: NBC 5/Telemundo to award nonprofits; Sherri Shepard to succeed Wendy Williams; Introducing Ion Mystery  Is WGN-AM staging a return to the top?  The first PPM numbers released for 2022 shows the Nexstar-owned station placing fourth overall, up 49 percent from the last survey – marking their highest ranking since October 2008 at the dawn of the PPM era. Leading […]

Tegna sold to Standard General

    Beleaguered owner of St. Louis and Moline stations sold to hedge fund Financial hedge fund owner Standard General announced Tuesday it has acquired Virginia-based Tegna, Inc. for $8.6 billion. The deal means the company is being taking private, so it would no longer be trading on Wall Street. An affiliate of Standard General will pay $24 for each […]

The Media Notepad: Sun-Times, WBEZ complete merger

Also: Televisa and Univision become one; Weigel launches another diginet ; The last tie to Marvel at Netflix severs Been away for awhile, so let’s catch up on some items of note making news: The non-profit merger between the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ officially closed on January 31, with $61 million in philanthropic backing, raised by WBEZ parent Chicago Public […]

ViacomCBS rebrands as Paramount Global

The “V of Doom” officially dies as Viacom name is retired after 51 years as focus shifts to streaming During an investor event conference call on Tuesday, ViacomCBS announced a rebrand of its entire company as it becomes Paramount Global, though its being referred to as simply Paramount (the name and website domain of Paramount Global was already taken by […]

Super Bowl LVI viewership numbers are super indeed

    Close game helps ratings After a year of decline, total viewership numbers for the Super Bowl were back on the upswing, achieving the highest total numbers in years.  The game pitted the Cincinnati Bengals – their first Super Bowl appearance in 33 years – against the Los Angeles Rams, who moved back to California in 2016 after 21 […]

2022 Super Bowl Commercial Review: My dreamhouse isn’t your dreamhouse

    Game and Halftime Show were awesome; commercials less so If there were any themes running through this year’s Super Bowl ads, it was a lot of crypto, electric vehicles, sports gambling, and celebrities – lots of celebrities. This sums up the sixteenth edition of the T Dog Media Super Bowl Commercial review, as companies shelled out around $6.5 […]

Jeff Zucker out at CNN

  Failure to disclose romantic relationship with staff member leads to his demise In the sixteen years of writing this blog, there have been a number of media executives I’ve written about who came off as total assholes – Sam Zell, Randy Michaels, Jimmy deCastro, Michael Ferro, Jan Jeffries, Les Moonves, Marv Nyren, Larry Tisch, and probably more, enough to […]