What’s happening to the cherished genre these days isn’t funny as it could be reduced to nothing Seven weeks ago, CNN launched The History Of The Sitcom – an unnecessary eight-part documentary on a subject covered to death through books, PBS, and other media celebrating the form stretching from the days of I Love Lucy on your black-and-white mono […]
NewsNation in the fight of its short life after Lyons, key staffers depart Back when NewsNation was announced in January 2020, Nexstar – who just acquired Tribune Media and cable network WGN America, hoped to provide an alternative to what the cable “news” networks were offering – hard news without opinion. NewsNation launched here in Chicago on September 1, hiring […]
But one syndicator is making an actual investment Back last July, this blog detailed how tough it is to launch a weekly show as the weekend landscape outside of sports programming has become dominated by reruns, paid religion, infomercials, and fourth-rate programming. The tough marketplace led to the demise of WGN’s Man Of The People with WGN morning sports anchor […]
Man of the People latest to strike out as viewers head to streaming services on weekends (Editor’s Note: This post has been updated to reflect recent changes in programming schedules.) Funny thing as this person was watching the final Man Of The People Monday night via DVR as in the next-to-last segment, Bill Kurtis said “Tonight we look back at […]
25 years ago this week, Fox’s Rupert Murdoch changed the TV world by inking a deal to trigger the biggest affiliation switch in history. It goes back to what happened on December 17, 1993. The networks were complaining about paying too much for sports – the NFL in particular – as the packages were losing money and looking to pay […]
A: This show has been a successful story for 35 years – even before Ken Jennings and James Holzhauer came on the scene. Q: What is Jeopardy? In 1983, King World was looking to pair something with its already red-hot Wheel of Fortune, an NBC daytime game show debuted in evening syndication and became a smash hit. So they […]
WPWR-CW breakup illustrates how some affiliate partnerships don’t work The major networks have enjoyed long, prosperous relationships with their affiliates. For example, Milwaukee’s WTMJ, St. Louis’ KSDK, and Cincinnati’s WLWT each has enjoyed a long relationship with NBC dating back to the late 1940s. CBS and New Orleans’ WWL have been partners since 1957. And ABC and Dallas’ WFAA go […]
Sun-Times article talks about a future without sports on WGN as station, teams head into transition In 2016, WGN-TV decided to cut their ties to The CW and become an independent station once again, going all in on sports featuring the Cubs, White Sox, Bulls and Blackhawks. Come October 2019, WGN might not have any sports on its schedule at […]
Roseanne not the first media personality to fall from the top When Roseanne Barr made several racially insensitive and anti-Semitic tweets in May, ABC canceled the successful reboot of her 1980s and 1990s sitcom Roseanne, becoming the first top-rated show ever to get canceled and the first one because of a tweet. But to […]
Backlash over comments made by the Hip-Hop star about slavery and over Trump have some wondering what to do Urban radio programmers are waiting to see what effect Kanye West’s recent comments would have on their stations with one outlet – Detroit’s WMGC-FM (known as 105.1 The Bounce) taking action and pulling his music. The Classic Hip-Hop station became the […]
Matt Lauer, Garrison Keillor, “Supergirl” showrunner ousted in one day due to sexual harassment charges. The day after the NFL season concludes, it is referred to as “Black Monday” due to the number of head coaches fired. November 29 can be referred to now as “Black Wednesday”. In one fell swoop, two personalities and a showrunner were fired Wednesday due […]
Interest in genre explodes as off-net debut puts up strong numbers When the news was announced Dateline NBC reruns were being sold into broadcast syndication, the idea was…laughable. After all, since Cops broke the mold in 1992 and became the first reality show to be sold into off-network syndication, others came along and weren’t exactly successful (Rescue 911, Top Cops, […]
Game against Eagles last Sunday was shoved onto little-watched outlet in Los Angeles. The Chargers’ move to Los Angeles from San Diego couldn’t have been more disastrous. Game three into this experiment, and the Chargers are only drawing around 25,000 fans per game in the 30,000-seat StubHub Center, a soccer stadium in south suburban Carson, Calif., thirteen miles south of […]
CNN, Fox News lag in Chicago market – as local news expansion is starting to go bust in some markets You’d think with all the local newscasts saturating Chicago television, there would be a lot of people watching, right? A recent study released has confirmed this fact – but cable news may be another […]
Secrets of the company success: reruns, reruns and more reruns – oh, and the occasional original show There is a network that often draw more viewers than The CW and Telemundo in any given week – and yet, it has the lowest profile of any major network. And Ion likes it that way. Ion Media is one of the beneficiaries […]