Wake up with Wolf

Bruce Wolf, who joined WMAQ-TV morning’s team after being unceremoniously dumped at WFLD-TV earlier this year, will shine (make that rise and shine) in an new early-morning offbeat news show called Barely Today, that will begin Jan. 15. The program will air at 4:30am (yes 4:30am), which pushes Early Today to 4am. The program launches on Dr. Martin Luther King […]

Big Ten Network to headquarted here (Take that Indy!)

They may have gotten the tournament, but we got their network… The new Big Ten Network announced yesterday that it is basing its headquarters here in Chicago on Chicago Avenue in the renovated Montgomery Wards building. There was a ribbon-cutting ceremony held at the new headquarters, with dignitaries including Mayor Daley and Alderman Walter Burnett Jr.(27th).

Down to the wire

The Broadcasting & Cable TV Critics Poll is out, and HBO’s The Wire topped the charts for best overall show of 2006. The runner-ups included freshman sensation Heroes in second place, and 24 came in third. For best comedy they picked The Office, best drama went to The Wire, and best reality show went to The Amazing Race. As for […]

Toss Up

Welcome to Pardon the Interruption! Filling in for Tony and Mike today, I’m your host, T Dog. The hell with headlines, let’s get to our game today – Toss Up! Let’s go to the producer… Producer: Who is the biggest moron? Jay Mariotti or Bill O’Reilly? Hmmm. That’s a tough one. One is an asshole. The other is an asshole. […]

T Dog Blog Think Tank: Second Chances

Miss USA Tara Conner and Chicago Bears’ defensive tackle Terry “Tank” Johnson may not cross each other in their lifetimes, but they share a lot in common: On Tuesday, they both got second chances from their respective organizations. Both held press conferences, both apologized, and both were told it was their last chance. Tuesday morning, Miss Universe Organization CEO Donald […]

"King of the Hill" is back on at 7:30 Sundays. Central Time.

Yes! Fox’s King of the Hill is back in its original time slot where it launched in January 1997, the plum slot after The Simpsons. This means that American Dad, which has occupied that slot, is moving back to its 8:30 pm (Central Time) slot, all effective January 28. Family Guy’s time slot remains unchanged. King of the Hill will […]

TV Prevue news you can use

Mirror a trend that’s been going on in other newspapers, the Sun-Times is eliminating its TV Prevue section and moving its TV listings online (scroll way down to the end to see article). This comes on the heels on the news that TV Guide Canada eliminated its magazine and moved its listings online recently. I went to the Sun-Times TV […]

The V of Doom lowers the boom

Viacom has backed out of a proposed video website collaboration that included NBC Universal and CBS (which split from Viacom earlier this year.) that would take on independent video sharing site YouTube. Viacom’s pullout now puts the project in jeopardy. (Disclaimer: The T Dog Blog is not responsible for anyone who has nightmares trigged by seeing and/or remembering this logo. […]

Late Friday news update

It’s unusual to have this much news break late on a Friday, so I’ve decided to summarize all the late breaking news into one post: Update: ABC has now decided to yank low-rated and critically blasted game show Show Me the Money off the air immediately, meaning it’s gone for good. The program was to move to Tuesday nights beginning […]

WLS-TV goes HiDef

Robert Feder is reporting today that WLS-TV in Chicago will air all of its weekday programming in High Definition, becoming the first station to do so. That includes all of its newscasts, and syndicated programming such as Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! Meanwhile, Feder finally mentioned the Third Coast Press’ FCC challenge toward Chicago’s television stations, which was soundly rejected […]

Another death: Lamar Hunt dies

I don’t mean for this blog to be an obituary page, but it starting to look that way: Another death of a high-profile person who contributed a lot to the medium. This time, it’s Lamar Hunt, one of the founders of the American Football League, and owner of the Kansas City Chiefs, passes at the age of 74. The AFL […]

UPDATED: Finally! A decision the FCC made that actually makes sense

The FCC rejected a rather bogus license challenge from Third Coast Press over Chicago’s 18 television stations. (I’ve never heard of them either.) While there are problems with local news, it’s not up to special interest groups (left or right) to determine what should be on newscasts, let alone what programming should be on local television stations. Update: Here is […]