“South Park” creators strike deal with Hulu

Three year deal gives Hulu exclusive streaming rights. Good news for fans who can’t get enough of South Park. Hulu and Hulu Plus have acquired exclusive streaming rights of the entire library of 293 episodes, effective immediately. The free and subscription versions of Hulu will carry the library until September 24, when South Park’s eighteenth season begins. Afterward, only Hulu […]

T Dog’s Grab Bag: ChicagoSide shuts down

Also: Fox swaps for San Francisco’s KTVU. Seattle next? Indianapolis TV station under fire for interview Wil Wheaton’s new show fails to find an audience – In a shocking (and sad) move, it appears sports website Chicago Side has closed its doors after just two years. Founded by author/journalist Jonathan Eig and Sol Liberstein, ChicagoSide featured long-form articles about the […]

Viewers flee Chicago’s evening, late newscasts

Chicago’s news stations might want to rethink their news presentations. An analysis of May local news sweeps numbers in the adult 25-54 demographic in the nation’s ten largest DMAs from TVNewsCheck showed Chicago’s local newscasts losing ground faster than those in New York and Los Angeles. In fact, Chicago’s 21 percent drop overall was second only to Boston (down 23 percent.) […]

“Community’s” renewal in a nutshell

In case you haven’t heard, Sony Pictures Television somehow managed to get an unnecessary and unneeded sixth season of Community, perhaps the most overrated sitcom in the history of television. The sitcom, which was picked up by Yahoo (I didn’t know they were still in business!) already had five seasons under its belt from its NBC run and already enough […]

Supreme Court to Aereo: You’re Out

Ending months of wondering and worrying, the nation’s major broadcasters dodged a major bullet Wednesday when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of them in their case against Aereo (ABC v. Aereo), an Internet startup company which took (or some say stole) broadcasters’ signals and allows subscribers to watch on their laptops, smartphones, and other devices – without Aereo […]

T Dog’s Grab Bag: CBS 2 unveils new weather vehicle

– How to get ahead  by channeling the Xbox One and the PS4: CBS-owned WBBM-TV has unveiled its latest weapon in the weather war, with the look and feel of a video game – one you can play on the road. WBBM’s new toy is a new vehicle called The Mobile Weather Lab, and the Columbia Puslar 600 ultrasonic weather […]

Remembering Casey Kasem

The media world spent Father’s Day mourning the loss of radio legend Casey Kasem, who died early Sunday morning from Lew Body’s disease and dementia, at the age of 82. Rather than focus on the last few months of his life – which featured a rather nasty battle of his care between members of his family, let’s talk about the […]

T Dog’s Grab Bag: WCIU expands “You and Me” to three hours

Also: Tyra Banks plans returns to daytime TV – Good news for fans of WCIU’s  You and Me in The Morning (and for local television overall): the two-hour morning strip hosted by former Chicago radio personalities Melissa Forman and Jeanne Sparrow is expanding to a third hour in September. Now airing from 6 to 8 a.m. weekdays, the show is extending […]

ABC to close Live Well Network

Turns out Live Well Network wasn’t living well after all. ABC announced Monday it was shuttering its food, fashion, and travel diginet after nearly six years on the air. ABC carried Live Well on its .2 channel in 720p on its owned-stations, one of the rare digital subchannels to be presented in HD. In a statement, ABC Owned Television President […]

Sorry…not sorry: Round 2

(Editor’s Note: This piece contains… oh, you know the drill. Reader discretion.) You thought I was done? Another has-been celeb gets into the ring with T Dog Media After eight years, T Dog Media is finally making a name for itself. In the most asinine way possible, of course. And believe it or not, that’s a good thing. Last week if you […]

It’s official: Cubs head to WBBM-AM

CBS scores 7-year mega deal with the Chicago Cubs Seattle (yes, Seattle) – could play a role on where the Cubs local TV rights would land in 2015 More information surfaced on the new deal the Chicago Cubs struck with CBS Corp.’s radio station group. The team held a press conference at Wrigley Field Thursday to officially announce the new […]

Report: WGN America to dump Chicago sports

Also: WBBM-AM nears deal to land Cubs telecasts Back in 1978, WGN-TV in Chicago joined WTBS in Atlanta and WOR-TV in New York (now WWOR) and uplinked their signal to a satellite to deliver their signal throughout the country as a “superstation”. In 2014, the “superstation” era is nearing the end. In a report surfacing on Crain’s Chicago Business website Friday, […]

“Arsenio Hall” canceled

Once again, Arsenio’s “bark” has lost its “bite”. To the surprise of some since it was renewed for a second season (but not others), CBS Television Distribution canceled The Arsenio Hall Show Friday after nine months on the air, official ending his comeback attempt – twenty years after he departed his original show. This comes after several station groups belonging […]

Kevin Reilly out as Fox chief

Fox announced Thursday the resignation of Entertainment President Kevin Reilly, who has held the position for the last seven years. His departure is scheduled at the end of next month. Since coming over from NBC, Reilly was credited for bringing aboard people who created hit shows for the network, including Glee and New Girl, and to a lesser extent, Bob’s […]