Lots of items of note in today’s Grab Bag: – WCFS-FM (Fresh 105.9) has dumped morning man Mark LeBaron. Rick Hall will take over until a replacement is found. Is this a signal something big is coming? Or is the cancellation clock ticking for Fresh FM? – Speaking of which, the clock is up for The Beautiful Life, which CW […]
The last few weeks had some noteworthy stories, and here’s how it all went down: the good and the bad. Winners – Rick Bayless win Top Chef: Masters. Yes, our town’s own Rick Bayless won Top Chef: Masters last week, just giving us more proof he’s more talented than his brother, Skip. – Project Runway. The move to Lifetime and […]
What’s worked the last two weeks – and what didn’t – in the world of media with a basketball theme: Four slam dunks – March Madness. Ratings for the annual NCAA tourney have been pretty good, outperforming the rest of the competition on the boards with year-to-year increases. And tonight’s title game should do well with Michigan St. and North […]
This is the third annual review of the Super Bowl commercials. Believe it or not, this year’s crop was actually better than those that ran during last year’s game. Here are the best and the worst ads of Super Bowl XLIII (Click the link to watch the commercial): Best 1. Free Doritos. This spot was created by two amateurs who […]
Welcome to Sub Sandwich Smackdown! In one corner, you have long-time vet Subway and another you have feisty challenger Domino’s and their new oven-baked sandwiches, which they claim beat Subway’s in a two-to-one taste test. Bunk to that, says Subway. If fact, Subway sent Domino’s a cease-and-desist letter, ordering them to stop airing the ads, claiming they were deceptive. Well, […]
I’ve noticed that hardly anyone has come up with a worst TV show list for 2008 (too easy, perhaps?) Maybe the economy was bad enough not to talk about any bad TV… Anyhoo, here are the worst, the inane, the horrible, horrible, stench of what was left behind in 2008 in terms of media – and remember, we’re not just […]
Happy New Year, everyone! Instead of listing just TV shows, yours truly has decided to include items other than TV shows in the annual Excellent 10 and Toilet 10 lists across this year. Two history-making events happening in 2008 – Michael Phelps’ Olympic Gold Medal run and Barack Obama’s acceptance speech here in Chicago after becoming the first African-American President […]
The last bag before Christmas – unfortunately, it contains some not-so-groovy items: – Majel Barrett Roddenberry, who was a part of Star Trek as much as her husband Gene, died last week at the age of 79. Barrett appeared in all five Star Trek shows and did voiceover work on Star Trek: The Animated Series and as the voice of […]
Well, it’s that time of year again… It’s Thanksgiving… and it’s time for the third annual T Dog Media Blog Turkey Awards, celebrating the worst in media. Gobble, gobble… – Media Rights Capital’s Sunday lineup on CW. The network leases its Sunday lineup to MRC, and programs it with junk like Valentine and Easy Money. The results? CW’s ratings go […]
Yes, the four feature is back! But with a new name. The feature that was Who’s in your four is now the much-catchier T Dog’s Four on the Floor. Why the name change? Because the previous one no longer made sense (and T-Mobile has scaled back national advertising, meaning no more “who’s in your five” spots.) And it’s not original. […]
In a world without the king of voiceovers… it’s not going to be the same. Don LaFontaine, whose work covered everything from thousands of movie trailers to Rick Dees’ Weekly Top 40 countdown show died Monday after being hospitalized for a week due to a blood clot in one of his lungs. He was 68. LaFontaine recently appeared on a […]
This has been a tough 31st year for Star Wars, and it seems this franchise’s soul has been left in a galaxy far, far away. First, it was the all-Star Wars edition of Deal or No Deal last spring that was the wake. Now comes the burial: Star Wars: The Clone Wars movie – which is to set up the […]
Say goodbye to the American-owned beer maker. St. Louis – based Anheuser-Busch was sold to Belgium-based brewer InBev for $52 billion, making it one of the largest acquisitions in history. It will be the world’s largest brewer, ahead of SABMiller, owners of the Miller brand. What this likely means is the company’s ad agency accounts could be up for review. […]
NBC Universal’s The Jerry Springer Show is dispensing with the circus freak-like sideshow and now just featuring the freak-like show. The rabid talk show enters its eighteenth season this fall with a return to a format which features only a single story and more emphasis on the conflicts of the guests, which defined the program in the height of its […]
Oh no they didn’t! An “interstitial ad” for the unfunny The Bill Engvall Show on TBS popped up during a Family Guy episode on Monday night. Engvall simply walked up to the screen, paused it, and plugged his useless sitcom – then unpaused it and was back to Family Guy. Three seconds later, a real commercial popped up (and in […]
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