Nineteen TV stations in Chicago and Milwaukee won vindication from the FCC after the agency rejected another bogus complaint from a media activist group. This time it was the Chicago Media Action and the Milwaukee Public Interest Media Collation, fronts for the Media Access Project, who claims that the stations ignored non-federal races in a month leading up to the […]
One thing Barely Today didn’t want to do is barely get viewers. As a result, NBC-owned WMAQ-TV has dropped the show and will expand its morning newscast to 4:30 a.m. starting Monday, where Barely Today previously aired. The program was hosted by Bruce Wolf, who will now be reassigned to sports anchoring and reporting duties during the morning newscast.
No, we’re not talking about former NFL coach Jim Mora talking about not going to the playoffs. But if WBBM’s newscasts were a sports team, it wouldn’t make the playoffs. And as a result, changes must be made. And so, Antonio Mora is out and Rob Johnson is in after a shakeup at CBS-owned WBBM-TV’s perennially low-rated 10 p.m. newscast. […]
WFLD-TV’s new 10 p.m. newscast called The Ten is clearly struggling in the ratings – but the program is skewing younger, and is exposing problems at crosstown rival WBBM-TV with their 10 p.m. newscast. According to an article in the Sun-Times today, The Fox-owned station’s newscast has surprisingly beat the CBS-owned station’s late newscast in the household ratings on some […]
NBC-owned WMAQ-TV and PBS station WTTW have teamed up to present a documentary on Italian-Americans that will premiere during the Memorial Day weekend. And They Came To Chicago: The Italian-American Legacy, a special tracing Italian-American history in Chicago, is being narrated by native son Joe Mantegna and will air on WMAQ Sunday Night at 11:05 p.m. and again on Memorial […]
Gather around my children, and let me tell you a story about when journalism jumped the shark…. A month ago, radio personality Don Imus was fired for racially insensitive comments about the mostly black Rutgers’ womens’ basketball team, and it opened a debate on race as well as an examination of the radio industry. But it was ten years ago […]
Interesting notes from Feder’s column today: * The game show Let’s Play Crosswords won’t be done in Chicago after all. After the producers decided to shoot the program without a studio audience, Program Partners’ new syndicated strip will originate in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, daytime soap star Ty Treadway has been tapped as host. * The FreeFM (or FraudFM) slogan at […]
The bold station owner, who purchased WGBO-TV in 1985, passed away Saturday at his home in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. In the 1980’s, he founded stations in Dallas (KTXA) and Houston (KTXH), and purchased WDCA in Washington, D.C., but sold them all to Gulf Broadcasting. In 1984, he founded WBFS-TV in Miami, and a year later, he purchased WGBO and WGBS-TV […]
iVillage live, the fledging daily first-run strip that airs on the NBC O&O’s, is coming to Chicago to stay. NBC Universal announced today that the show is moving its production facilities from Universal Studios in Orlando to the NBC Tower here in Chicago. The interactive show will join Jerry Springer, Judge Mathis, the new Steve Wilkos show, and possibly Let’s […]
The Ten, WFLD-TV’s new 10 p.m. newscast, which targets the 18-49 audience, didn’t attract much of that demo it in its premiere Monday night, according to Nielsen and Trib columnist Phil Rosenthal. The Ten didn’t even come close to to achieving that number ratings-wise, scoring a 0.8 rating and 2 share, finishing sixth in its time slot behind the more […]
It’s not a sequel to ABC’s failed drama “The Nine”, but “The Ten” is the catchy name of Fox-owned WFLD-TV’s new 10 p.m. newscast that premieres on Monday. The new show will feature a more faster-paced newscast than its 9 p.m. newscast, and will have a weather report every night at 10:10 p.m. The station is also trying new features […]
Arthur Greenwald of TVnewsday says that many ABC affiliates are passing up a chance to promote Dancing With the Stars locally. He compares the promo efforts of ABC-owned KABC-TV in Los Angeles, Tribune’s WGNO-TV in New Orleans, and Hearst-Argyle’s WTAE in Pittsburgh (which won in his book for its promo efforts over the Tribune station and the network O&O website.)
WCIU-TV is launching a new locally-produced Saturday morning children’s show called Green Screen Adventures, in which Chicago Public School students’ stories will be transformed into real-life television experiences. The show will use the same green-screen technology used in TV weather reports, hence the name Green Screen Adventures. The program airs Saturday morning at 7 a.m. and meets the educational requirements […]
Robert Feder of the Sun-Times interviews Emily Barr of ABC-owned powerhouse WLS-TV here in Chicago on her ten years at the station, and keeping it one of the highest-rated ABC stations in the country. She also talks about how the station is well-prepared for the transition from analog-to digital (if fact – it’s already there – the station was the […]
That’s the question Robert Feder is asking in today’s Chicago Sun-Times, where we writes about WGN-Channel 9’s planned move to air two-minute tourism features weekly between April and July on the station’s 9 p.m. newscast – sponsored by the Illinois Department of Tourism. According to the station’s news director, they will ask the Department of Tourism on advice on the […]
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