It’s a home run by the Wizard! Sony Pictures Television had the heart, the courage, and the brains – to clear Harpo Productions’ new syndicated Dr. Oz in fourteen markets, including Fox-owned WFLD-TV in Chicago. No word yet on a time period, but the program could wind up in a late morning time slot, possibly as a lead-out of The […]
The Chicago Chapter of The Church of Tisch opens its new location on Monday. CBS-owned WBBM-TV opens its new “block 37” location in the loop on Monday, a new broadcast facility with its newscasts broadcast in HD. The new 22 West Washington St. location is dubbed “Heart of Chicago”. Sun-Times columnist Rob Feder noted today he didn’t get an invitation […]
Twentieth Television has sold off-network repeats of How I Met Your Mother to the WFLD/WPWR duopoly in Chicago beginning in fall 2010. The CBS comedy has been on the air since 2005, and has seen its ratings rise this past season as part of the network’s Monday night lineup. WFLD/WPWR has already picked up The Office for next fall. In […]
Another installment in the Groovy Grab Bag – let’s see what’s in the sack: – WGN-TV announced it was re-airing the Carlos Zambrano no-hitter on Friday night at 10 p.m. on WGN and WGN America. Zambrano no-hit the Houston Astros Sunday night in Milwaukee in a game moved from Houston because of Hurricane Ike. Zambrano became the first Cubs pitcher […]
Local TV and Tribune Broadcasting have agreed to combine operations and certain programming under a plan to reduce overhead expenses with their respective TV stations in St. Louis and Denver, in which is being called a “virtual duopoly”. St. Louis’ KPLR (CW) and KTVI (Fox) are combining operations in their market, as is Denver’s KDVR (Fox) and KWGN (CW.) KPLR […]
Former Chicago White Sox pitcher – and Chicago Cubs analyst Steve Stone has signed a six-year deal with the White Sox to be their television analyst along side Hawk Harrison, replacing Darrin Jackson in the process. Except for a stint when Joe Carter was in the booth, Stone was the Cubs analyst alongside Haray Caray and later Chip Caray for […]
Roland Martin, a former editor of The Chicago Defender and current host of a morning show on News/Talk WVON-AM has exited the old Soft Sheen building on East 87th Street (right down the street from my house.) Martin has signed a deal to become a contributor to the syndicated The Tom Joyner Morning Show, which airs weekday mornings on WVAZ-FM […]
– Twentieth Television has signed Jeff Foxworthy to host the syndicated version of Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? The daily syndicated strip version of the Fox prime-time game show bows in fall 2009. – Fringe, the new Fox drama from Lost creator J.J. Abrams, averaged just 9.1 million viewers for its premiere Tuesday night, which many consider a […]
Chicago contributes to programs’ decent start The new 2008-09 season in syndication began on Monday with the debut of five new strips – and all got off to a decent – if not spectacular start: Program RTG SHR Lead-In TP 9/07 Bonnie Hunt 1.1 3 -21% 0% Deal or No Deal 1.3 3 -13% -7% The Doctors 1.6 4 -11% […]
CBS-owned WBBM-TV has decided to shuffle the anchor chairs again at its low-rated morning newscast – with the return of Roseanne Tellez from maternity leave, she will return anchoring the news at 5 and 11 a.m., paired up with weatherman Don Schwennker. They replace Jim Willams (who goes back to weekends) and Kristyn Hartman. Tellez, who co-anchored the station’s 5 […]
WGN-TV anchor Allison Payne is headed to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota for tests after dealing with a series of “mini-strokes” that kept her off the air earlier this year. Payne plans to return to WGN just in time for the launch of the station’s new 5:30 p.m. newscast, set for Monday. She apologized to viewers last month after appearing […]
Though it’s retroactive to last week, WWME-TV and WMEU-TV finally posted their fall schedules online on their website(which is still under construction.)New to the Me-TV lineup is Married… With Children (huh?) and That’70’s Show (since it’s a show made in the 1990’s and 2000’s set in the 1970’s, I guess it fits…) Hey, wasn’t Spike TV supposed to have exclusive […]
This is in my four for edition four of Who’s in Your Four this week. Fore! – 90210. Scored the highest ratings in the history of the two-year old network. – Raising the Bar, indeed. Now Turner’s cable networks can actually air a promo with a claim that’s actually true: Despite lukewarm reviews, TNT’s new legal drama Raising the Bar […]
In a move local radio insiders saw coming, Ryan Seacrest’s syndicated radio show is joining WKSC-FM (Kiss FM’s) lineup starting Monday. As a result of this move, Billy Hammond was fired, and in an unrelated move, JoAnn Genette from the DreX morning show was also let go. WKSC will air Seacrest’s morning radio show from KIIS-FM in Los Angeles from […]
The first word and the last laugh: Au revoir, patsy… If Jay Mariotti was a TV character, he would rank up there with J.R. Ewing, Alexis Carrington, Johnny Fairplay, “Q” from Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Vince McMahon – as the most loathsome people to ever grace the tube. So it comes as no surprise when he resigned as […]
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