A note about T Dog Media
Hello, everybody.
As you know, this is the 20th season of T Dog Media, a site I created and launched on September 18, 2006 to write about local and national media stories from my own perspective, in a business I’ve followed since I was thirteen, back in 1985. I’ve enjoyed writing about this business and sharing my knowledge of it as much as you reading it, and I thank you.
I had planned to mark the occasion by updating you on the stories I’ve written in the past, with a fresh perspective. Unfortunately, due to a new part-time job at a retail store (I can’t publicly say where), I haven’t had the time to write the kind of extended pieces I want to do aside from the regular breaking news stories, as “enterprise” stories (which generally are a thousand words or more) are time-consuming. My work schedule is very inconsistent, and I need to devote more of my free time to looking for a full-time job with better hours. Therefore, I will be stepping back a bit.
If you noticed, the frequency of posts I’ve written has declined significantly over the years. I was only able to publish thirteen stories last month and eleven in September.
The T Dog Media Turkey Awards and the Super Bowl Commercials reviews – both staples of this site since the beginning – will not be published this year, but the typical year-in-review will be.
Several options are on the table. I am discussing the possible end of T Dog Media, at least as a website. While I have considered adding ads, I feel the advertising on many of these sites isn’t up to quality and distracts too much from the content. Since I am scaling back, I am considering moving my work to a paid subscription model, such as Substack, reinventing T Dog Media as a newsletter. I pay fees to host on this site, and it’s not cheap.
Another option is to end T Dog Media altogether, as writing about this business has been…well, quite depressing since I dread writing about another retrans dispute or media merger, or what kind of dastardly deeds Nexstar, Sinclair, and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr have up their sleeve. Plus, local media announcements are much harder to come by now, unlike in Robert Feder’s heyday. The closure of numerous TV and radio trade magazines hasn’t helped either, as linear TV continues to fade away, and Nielsen ratings aren’t accessible as they used to be.
Since media is evolving, T Dog Media must evolve as well. Any decision about the future of this site and this operation will be made before September 2026, when it reaches 20 years, but until then, I will continue to write here at a reduced capacity.
I will continue to post on X, Threads, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Bluesky, so please follow me on those platforms if you haven’t done so, and those accounts will remain active no matter what happens to this website or to T Dog Media. All links to my stories will be posted on these platforms, ensuring you won’t miss anything. You can also check here regularly for any new stories.
Thank you as always, and I will let you know what I will do next.
Sincerely,
Terence Henderson
T Dog Media
Robert Feder directed me to this site once he retired for similar reasons so it’s understandable but still disappointing. This site has been on my regular rotation to check for news since Feder made me aware of it.
I would be fine with some ads that ran along the side, but I would hope you wouldn’t go crazy like AVClub or similar sites. It’s impossible to read those sites on an iPhone because they constantly refresh for ads or so much of the space is devoted to ads that you can only read a few lines before you have to scroll.
Regardless of the future site, I have appreciated the work you have put into the site.
T Dog. You done good. I remain a devoted follower.
You do a good job T Dog. I understand being busy and work life balance and not a lot comes out like it use to be with trades going by the wayside. As for retrans not many have been blacked out when it comes to local broadcast stations other then Cablevision & LIN TV then owners of WOOD TV in the 90s first 2 times I didn’t have Cablevision had a different cable company at my first house I lived in 93 WOOD TV was dark for a few months on Cablevison wasn’t until a few days before Super Bowl 28 that it returned.
In Jan 96 was off for 10 days or something and Cablevision found a loophole to get WOOD TV back until Jan 97 when it was blacked out for a year wasn’t really about rertrans was where to place a local weather channel which became a general entertaiment in Aug of 99 WXSP LIN wanted it in the basic lineup Cablevison didn’t and why their was a standoff. Cablevision didn’t put a great replacement for WOOD TV which was Romance Classic now WETV in Jan of 97 and had to watch WOOD TV on rabbit ears.
In my bedroom I could get NBC out from Lansing WILX it was fizzy did have a picture did get better rabbit ears a month before WOOD TV returned on Cablevision 2 days before SB32 with hardly any fizz. Funny how the SB played a role to get WOOD TV back on Cablevision which didn’t put the local weather channel on or WXSP wasn’t until May of 2001 when WXSP was added to Charter Spectrum which bought Cablevision in Kazoo. LIN TV & Cablevision like each other LOL, and Charter Spectrum WXMI FOX17 went dark for 9 days in Jan 2019 when Tribune deal expired. Sorry for the novel LOL.