Kimmel dustup showcases a forever battle, one FCC Chairman Carr has taken a side on If one were to understand the decision by ABC to temporarily pull Jimmy Kimmel off the air this past week due to the influence of local stations, one would have to look back to the past. Mirroring the attitude of many Southern network affiliates in […]
The “late fringe” daypart of being relevant is over. How did we get to this point? If one were to look at the late-night landscape in the 1970s, it was quite a different world: NBC’s The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson ruled all, while CBS and ABC aired off-network series and movies It’s an era we could be heading back […]
So far, no impact has been felt – but it’s early If you put this trade war in an entertainment context, it’s Kendrick Lamar vs. Drake on a much larger scale. President Donald Trump is taking on the country where Drake is from, slapping tariffs on Canada, urging them to become the 51st state (although the District of Columbia and […]
Former daytime host “rides along” with officials to boost his fledgling TV network This space in September 2023 jokingly suggested Dr. Phil McGraw should come to town and give a hardened pep talk to the Chicago Bears after the Kansas City Chiefs blew out the team in front of millions of viewers and Taylor Swift, who was at the game. […]
As viewers abandon linear TV, the people who run these stations are doing more harm than good Being a meteorologist in the post-Tom Skilling era has been rough. In an unthinkable move just five years ago, Allen Media Group announced nearly two weeks ago that it was firing its entire roster of meteorologists across the station group. The company planned […]
For those who don’t like media consolidation and love net neutrality – you are not going to like what you are about to read If the byline above looks familiar to you, it’s because it’s the same one I wrote eight years ago. The world was shocked when Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016. After losing to Joe Biden […]
Journalists under fire from Trump, the left, and even Mayor Johnson as journalism’s prestige continues to sag If you thought the 2024 Chicago White Sox had a rough year, the media had it worse. Daily attacks on the Fifth Estate have become commonplace in the last few weeks leading up to the Presidential election. And it’s not just coming from […]
Chicago’s South Side MLB team resembles CBS Chicago’s ratings disasters in every way possible In the early 2000s, then-Chicago Tribune media critic Steve Johnson noted the management at CBS-owned WBBM-TV implemented what he called a “Viewer Alienation Plan”, a series of bad decisions repelling viewers from the station throughout the 1990s, including tabloid newscasts, awful anchor pairings, and a deer-in-headlight […]
The newest White Sox PBP is as unprofessional as it comes. So why is he there? I’ve tried to hold my tongue for the last two months and give the new kid a chance, but here’s my verdict on new White Sox play-by-play man John Schriffen. He sounds like ass. But you probably knew that already, given the ridiculous, over-the-top […]
Booing of Bulls GM Jerry Krause is yet another embarrassment to our city What happened Friday night at the United Center during the Ring Of Honor ceremony honoring the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls season was as vile as anything I have seen in the nearly 52 years I’ve lived in Chicago. And I’ve been through the racially-tinged Council Wars when our […]
White Sox debacles, and news crews getting robbed spotlight the tremendous failure of city institutions If you were a kid in the 1970s or 1980s perhaps you remember a commercial for Resse’s Peanut Butter Cups when someone got peanut butter into their chocolate, and vice versa. So what happens when the problems of sports’ worst-run franchise mash-up with the […]
Both the WGA and SAG-AFTRA are om strike outside of Paramount Studios in Hollywood. With no settlement in sight, the entire 2023-24 TV season for scripted shows could be wiped out When SAG-AFTRA joined the WGA on the picket lines on July 12, the entire industry shut down and the thinking was, this would spur some kind of progress in […]
Online reviews, viewer anger sink Mandy Kaling’s Scooby-Doo-less reboot In the 40 years I’ve followed the television business, I’ve never seen a series as panned as Velma – and I don’t mean by TV critics On its way to becoming one of the biggest flops in television history, HBO Max released the much-talked-about Velma adult animated series from Mandy Kaling […]
Twitter’s path under Elon Musk follows those of other media companies In the 37 years I’ve followed media, I have never seen a media company – social or not – that’s been run into the ground quicker than what I’m seeing with Elon Musk and Twitter. In the sixteen years I’ve written this blog, I’ve written about how egotism and […]
West’s comments about Jewish people and George Floyd put him on the spot, but a lack of outrage (outside of social media) may keep him on black radio [Editors Note: This post was updated on October 30.] Here we go again: former Chicagoan and rapper Kanye West (now known as Ye, but for the purposes of this item we’ll call […]
ABC ABC-Owned Stations ABC 7 Chicago American Idol CBS CBS 2 Chicago CBS Media Ventures CBS News And Stations Chicago Bears Chicago Blackhawks Chicago Bulls Chicago Cubs Chicago White Sox ESPN Family Guy FCC Fox Fox 32 Fox Television Stations Los Angeles Milwaukee NBC NBC 5 NBC Owned Television Stations NBCUniversal Syndication Studios New York City Nexstar Media Group Radio Ratings Sinclair Inc. Syndication The Big Bang Theory The CW The Simpsons Tribune Media Warner Bros. WBBM-TV Chicago WCIU Chicago WFLD Chicago WGN-TV Chicago WGN Radio WLS-AM Chicago WLS-TV Chicago WMAQ Chicago WPWR Chicago