It appears Jay Leno’s new 9 p.m. (Central) show isn’t having the drag many affiliates feared it would have on their late local newscasts. While ratings in the key 25-54 audience were down 12 percent from NBC affiliates and O&Os, ratings declines were also clocked in at ABC and CBS stations as well. To sum it up – ratings for […]
WARNING: This Think Tank contains material not suitable for more sensible readers (but of course, so has every item on this blog for the last three years!) Reader discretion is advised. This piece is rated B – for brutal. On Friday, the International Olympic Committee told Chicago to get lost as the organization picked Rio as the site of the […]
Spent so much time on WFLD lately (Mike Barz’s firing and the station’s 10 p.m. newscast cancellation), now there’s a story of Chicago’s other ratings-losing news operation – CBS-owned WBBM-TV. But while both news stations are still trying to find an audience, NBC-owned WMAQ-TV’s 10 p.m. newscast has seen a 13% increase in household ratings since January and is now […]
CBS O&O WBBM-TV plans to overhaul its news operation. Again.According to this article at B&C, WBBM General manager Bruno Cohen plans to once again remake the station’s newscasts, which ratingswise, lag behind others in the market. Cohen, who came from sister station KOVR-TV in Sacramento, said the station is underperforming in many time slots. Despite the fact the station airs […]
Well, I suppose its a sign of the times… Chicago’s news outlets announced they will pool their raw video in order to keep expenses down. The news-sharing model was adopted by NBC-owned WMAQ-TV and Fox-owned WFLD-TV last fall (along with sharing a job), but now they have invited CBS-owned WBBM-TV and CW affiliate WGN-TV to join in. This means a […]
From the recently concluded March ratings period: Chicago: WLS-TV remained on top, as usual at 10 p.m., but CBS-owned WBBM-TV is up 50 percent in the same time period in households. At 9 p.m., WGN-TV’s newscast had a 43 percent advantage over an above-average WFLD-TV, despite popular Fox prime-time lead-ins. Milwaukee: And lead-ins didn’t matter here either, as NBC affiliate […]
Thursday was a tough day in Chicago media, as it was announced another well-known personality had died. Retired WLS-TV restaurant critic James Ward died on Thursday afternoon after a long battle with cancer. He was 76 – the same age as Johnny “Red” Kerr, who died the same day. Also passing on Thursday was Chicago Bull legend Norm Van Lier, […]
The fifth season-premiere of Lost didn’t gain viewers as the event notched its lowest-rated season-premiere to date. Lost averaged a 5.0 rating and 12 share among adults 18-49 and drew 10 million viewers for ABC in the 8-10 p.m. (Central) time slot Wednesday night for ABC. While the results were still pretty good, it’s still down from the fourth-season premiere […]
Inauguration ratings; Litton clears Street Court in New York and Chicago; Erica Cobb has a new gig. – The Inauguration of Barack Obama scored in the ratings yesterday, with the most watched swearing-in ceremony since President Reagan in 1981, with a 29.2 rating in the 56 markets metered by Nielsen on an “overnight” basis. In Chicago, here’s how the household […]
Longtime political reporter Andy Shaw is retiring from ABC-owned WLS-TV after 25 years.Shaw has covered the political beat at WLS since 1983, when he covered Harold Washington’s rise to history when he became Chicago’s first African-American mayor and ending with Barack Obama becoming the first African-American President – not to mention the fall of Governor Rod. Shaw began his television […]
ABC and its O&O in Chicago (WLS-TV) took home the ratings crown on Election Night, a night where Barack Obama was elected the nation’s first African-American president. ABC led all networks on a national basis with 13.6 million viewers. Locally, ABC’s coverage led with WLS-TV leading the 10 p.m. hour (when Obama gave his victory speech) with a 17.6 household […]
If you think radio stations in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles are worrying about Arbitron’s Portable People Meters – then you haven’t seen anything yet. Television executives in Minneapolis-St. Paul and Cleveland are sweating it out over the next several months as Local People Meters – or LPMs, become the standard of measurement for television ratings measured by Nielsen. […]
The new syndication season begins next Monday, and its going to be tougher to launch a new show than ever before, thanks to the upcoming election and the exploding number of alternative choices available in the marketplace. There are seven new first-run strips invading the airwaves this year, but all of them will have to face competition from cable news […]
It looks like Mark Suppelsa’s move to Tribune-owned CW affiliate WGN-TV is all but a certainty, while handling Steve Sanders’ situation could be dicey, according to this article from Robert Feder in today’s Sun-Times. WGN is expected to sign Suppelsa to a contract after June 17, the day WFLD’s option to match any offer a competitor may have expires. If […]
Staying on the subject of local news, it was a good May book for all of Chicago’s news outlets -(second item) despite the fact the networks lost audience share due to the after-effects of the recent writer’s strike with something for everyone to crow about: ABC-owned WLS-TV’s newscasts won the May sweeps in households (second item) – however, NBC-owned WMAQ-TV […]
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