T Dog’s Grab Bag: Bears fall again, hit another season ratings low (what else is new?)

Let’s get this over with: the Bears hit another season-low on Sunday with yet another blowout loss –  a 22.6 Nielsen household rating according to Chicago Business Journal, down 16 percent from last week’s game against Miami. The Bears lost to the New England Patriots 51-23, with the team trailing by 38 at halftime. Ratings have plunged 28 percent since their last […]

CBS (finally) gets into the digital subchannel business

Chicago’s last digital subchannel holdout is about to convert. WBBM-TV owner CBS – who operates Chicago’s only TV station not operating a digital subchannel – is entering a new venture with Weigel Broadcasting in launching Decades, a new digital subchannel network scheduled to launch in the second quarter of 2015 (in layman’s terms, next spring.) The channel has been cleared […]

Tyra’s back in new daytime show

New panel talk show called The Fab clears ABC-owned stations, including WLS-TV Guess who’s back in daytime? After a five-year hiatus, Tyra Banks is back as host of a new one-hour daytime talk show strip called The Fab from Disney-ABC Domestic Television Distribution, scheduled to debut next fall. The program also features four other co-hosts in a panel format. They are: […]

Bears bumble, stumble, and fumble in the ratings

Loss to Miami Dolphins cements team as a punchline; ratings plunge  If you were to compare sitcoms to NFL teams, the Dallas Cowboys would be like The Big Bang Theory (accurate given both are successful and bring out a lot of distractors) and the New England Patriots would resemble Modern Family. As for the Chicago Bears? The team is looking more like Mulaney. Or […]

T Dog’s Grab Bag: Seattle’s KCPQ to stay with Fox after all

– Sun-Times reverses decision on endorsements – Premiere week shows cool off, but Jane The Virgin and Criestla debut to respectable numbers with cancellations coming from other places – Florida Panthers attendance woes * Fox announced Friday morning it had a new affiliation deal with Tribune Broadcasting’s KCPQ, but with a few catches – the deal only runs through July 2018 and […]

Let’s go over the top

HBO, CBS bypass middlemen to provide content to you, the customer If there was a turning point in the cord-cutting movement, remember this week. HBO announced it was launching a streaming service on Wednesday, attempting to attract those “cord-nevers”, the term thrown around for those who refuse or can’t afford to subscribe to cable or satellite. It was followed by […]

T Dog’s Grab Bag: Sunday belonged to Cutler, “Walking Dead”

– Also: other Sunday, weekend rating results – The Game to stick around, while another The Game ends – Goodbye, Everybody Loves Mancow Jay Cutler and the Chicago Bears’ winning performance Sunday also translated to a ratings victory – the game against the Atlanta Falcons drew a 31.5 Nielsen household rating according to Lewis Lazare at Chicago Business Journal – […]

NBA re-ups with ESPN, Turner

Fox shut out of rights The NBA maintained the status quo when it came to the league’s television rights as both Turner Sports and ESPN renewed their respective deals for a whopping nine years, bringing in a total of $24 billion, with yearly payments increasing from $930 million to just over $2.6 billion a year, according to the New York Times. […]

Bears commit Epic Fail on field – and ratings take hit

Bears may be losing grip of city again After yet another agonizing baseball season which saw disinterest from Chicago sports fans, a lot of them hoped the Bears would cure what ailed them. Well, keep looking. Sunday’s game featured yet another disastrous performance by Jay Cutler and numerous miscues by the team as the Bears fumbled away a victory and […]

Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin save Fox

Crossover classic, death of “Simpsons” character fuel Fox After a week where many of Fox’s new and returning shows tanked, the network received some much-needed adrenaline shots from two reliable standbys. The 26th season premiere of The Simpsons and the 14th season premiere of Family Guy – which featured a crossover episode between the two – scored their highest ratings […]

How to get away with a hit show

Viola Davis and her students murder the competition The good news continued to roll on for the broadcast networks (except Fox) in the young television season thus far with ABC scoring a hat trick victory last night among entertainment fare, led by the successful premiere of How To Get Away With Murder. The debut of the Shonda Rhimes-produced show drew […]