CBS cancels “After Midnight”

Programming plans unknown; may hand time back to affiliates After thirty years, CBS is exiting the late-late night business with the cancellation of the comedy game show After Midnight.  An adaptation of an earlier version titled @Midnight on Comedy Central, the show was brought back to CBS in January 2024 with Taylor Tomlinson as host, airing after The Late Show […]

Dan Bernstein is out at 670 The Score

Social media claims yet another victim WSCR-AM 670 The Score personality Dan Bernstein was fired Friday after approximately three decades at The Score after a social media incident where he openly sparred with a poster over a fish he caught and threatened to dox him. According to the Sun-Times, 670 The Score Vice President and Brand Manager Mitch Rosen went […]

Disney-owned ABC shifts its affiliation in Miami from WPLG to WSVN

WSVN to stay with Fox as ABC shifts to a 7.2; First major affiliation switch in the market since ’95 Affiliation switches are rare nowadays, but when they happen, it’s big news – even in the streaming era.  WPLG Miami-Ft. Lauderdale announced on Thursday that it is ending its 64-year relationship with ABC to become an independent station. Sunbeam’s WSVN […]

The Sun-Times sees 20 percent of staff exit through buyouts

Changes ahead as the sports department is the hardest hit  [Editor’s Note: This post was updated on March 19.] A fifth of Sun-Times employees – roughly twenty percent of the workforce, or thirty employees, have elected to take buyouts from the paper. which the paper offered to employees in January.  Those exiting are longtime writers and editors, including Richard Roeper, […]

FCC Comissioner Geoffrey Starks to resign

Leaves the agency with just one Democrat Democrat FCC commissioner Geoffrey Starks announced Tuesday morning his intention to resign from the agency later this spring, creating a vacancy President Trump needs to fill.  In a statement, Starks said the following:  “Today I sent a letter to the President and Leader Schumer indicating that I intend to resign my seat as […]

Syndication renewal scorecard: “Extra” In; “True Crime News” out

Warner Bros. renews newsmagazine for 32nd season while dumping True Crime News after one season Warner Bros. Discovery announced Monday the renewal of the long-running newsmagazine strip Extra for a 32nd season after securing a deal with Fox Television Stations to carry the show for another year.  Extra had been on the bubble with two other Warner shows Fox carries: […]

Dan Bernstein off 670 The Score after social media incident

He’s off for a week after a confrontation with a user over a fishing incident; this comes as Audacy announces a new CEO and management team  Don’t think Babe Winkleman ever had to put up with social media trolls.  But Audacy’s 670 The Score (WSCR) host Dan Bernstein did after he posted on Friday a picture of a fish he […]

DirecTV offers RSNs as add-ons in skinny bundles

Some relief for starved Chicago sports fans – but will they take advantage?  As hinted at when it was announced in January, DirecTV is adding regional sports network add-ons to its MySports skinny bundle, including CHSN and Marquee for Chicago-area viewers, just in time for baseball season as the former features the Chicago White Sox, and the latter for the […]

Sinclair sells Illinois, Milwaukee TV stations

  Sale includes Sinclair’s SSA agreements in Springfield and Decatur  [Editor’s note: This story was updated March 14 and again on March 15.] In a surprise, Sinclair, Inc., the nation’s second-largest station group, announced Tuesday that it is selling five stations, including three in Illinois as first reported by The Desk.  The five are being sold to Rincon Broadcasting, a […]

FCC Chairman complains about Great American channels not being on YouTubeTV

Claims they air “faith-based programming” – or something like that  So what does the term “faith-based programming” mean?  FCC Chairman Brendan Carr seems to be playing fast and loose with the definition as he blasted Google-owned YouTubeTV for not carrying a pair of channels owned by Great American Media: Great American Family and Great American Faith & Living. The former […]

Going “Beyond The Gates”

Majority-Black cast looking to resurrect daytime serials and daytime TV It’s been 25 years since a daytime serial debuted on television when Passions premiered on NBC.  Since then, the soap opera genre has lost steam through the 1990s and 2000s, as younger viewers defected toward the more real-life (if you can call it that) drama of daytime talk shows such […]

Getting “Busted”: New multicast network launches

  Former Scripps News stations on board Back in 2020, the fallout from George Floyd’s death led syndicators and cable networks to pull all law enforcement-related programming from the air. A&E canceled Live PD. Syndicated repeats of Cops and Live PD: Police Patrol were pulled. Texas even passed a law banning televised police ride-a-longs.  What a difference five years makes. […]