"Legend of the Seeker" seeking new outlets

Disney/ABC’s weekly action-adventure hour Legend of the Seeker is going to have an adventure of its own – trying to find new outlets after a major station group carrying the show declined to renew it. In a memo obtained by TV By The Numbers, Tribune Broadcasting said it would not renew the sci-fi/fantasy action hour after two seasons. Tribune is […]

Local Feburary "sweeps" good as Gold for WMAQ and WCIU

NBC-owned WMAQ-TV won the Gold when it came to Olympic ratings, but it was WLS-TV that grabbed the medal where it really counts: late news. And WCIU-TV came home with some Gold itself. The February “sweeps” period ended on Wednesday, but this ratings period won’t be as important because of the heavy skew of the Winter Olympics. Some stations (notably […]

"Ellen" renewed on NBC O&Os through 2014

You can take Ellen DeGeneres off the list of potential replacements for Oprah Winfrey on ABC’s O&Os. Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution’s Ellen was renewed by all ten of the NBC owned-and-operated stations (including WMAQ-TV in Chicago) through 2014, when it reaches its 11th season.  The NBC stations have been with Ellen since day one, when her show began in […]

Living Well HD is doing… um, well

ABC’s new high-definition subchannel network titled Live Well HD is certainly doing well in this tough economy (believe it or not, it’s already profitable.) So much so, it has expanded its programming lineup effective yesterday. In addition to the six health-and-beauty related programs to its lineup, the nine-month old channel adds Mary Talks Money, a show produced by ABC-owned WPVI […]

Chicago ratings box

Here are some notable ratings items: – Lewis Lazare’s Sun-Times column noted ABC-owned WLS-TV’s continued ratings dominance in the month of December. According to the ratings “book”, WLS finished first at 10 p.m. in households, followed by CBS-owned WBBM-TV and NBC-owned WMAQ-TV, which continues to suffer from having Jay Leno as a news lead-in (though that may not be the […]

Vikings-Bears score in the ratings

Well, well, well… I guess the Bears are still relevant in Chicago after all. Despite a losing season, Bears fans turned out by the boatload for Monday night’s game between the Brett Favre-led Minnesota Vikings and the Chicago Bears. Locally, ABC-owned WLS-TV averaged a 20.6 Nielsen household rating for its ESPN simulcast of the game. ESPN itself added 10.5 rating […]

WBBM-TV 10 p.m. news soars in the ratings

Leno hampering NBC affiliates’ late news; other November “sweeps” notes ABC-owned WLS-TV dominated the ratings in households and key demos in the just concluded November “sweeps” period (do we still have those in this LPM era?) but it was the two other network O&Os who made headlines. NBC-owned WMAQ-TV slipped to third place in households at 10 p.m., behind a […]

T Dog’s Four Pack -The Oprah Winfrey Edition

Welcome to a special edition of T Dog’s Four Pack (special because this is a bit serious in tone.) On Thursday, Oprah Winfrey announced she was leaving her syndicated daytime talk show after 25 years and ending the program on September 9, 2011. She is focusing on launching her new cable network with Discovery Communications, which goes live in January […]

Follow up: Is Leno killing late local news?

Remember back last December when yours truly wrote how stripping The Jay Leno Show was a creative counter-programming idea? I think I might want to retract that statement. Since it debuted September 14, The Jay Leno Show has been a hot topic of debate in television circles across the country – especially in newsrooms, where Leno leads in to late […]

KPRC changes doctors

Your station has a ratings problem. So if the person in charge of the time period isn’t doing the job of tending to it, what would you do? Change doctors. That’s what KPRC did. KPRC-TV, Post-Newsweek’s NBC affiliate in Houston, has replaced CBS Television Distribution’s Dr. Phil, with Sony Television’s new hotcomer Dr. Oz at 3 p.m., which was effective […]

"Millionaire" finds windfall in Chicago again

“Is that your final answer?” is becoming a popular phrase in Chicago again. While Who Wants To Be A Millionaire has not caught fire in the ratings like it did in August 1999 when it first premiered, it has rekindled its love affair in the Windy City. According to Nielsen, Millionaire’s return to ABC’s prime-time lineup has paid dividends for […]

Harry Porterfield returns to Channel 2

One of Chicago’s most recognizable faces is coming home after… wait for it… 24 years! That’s right. Harry Porterfield – who was an anchor at WBBM-TV for 21 years before moving over to WLS-TV in 1985, is returning to the CBS-owned station on August 10, anchoring the 11 a.m. newscast. The 81 year-old Porterfield is also bringing the Someone You […]

WBBM-TV’s news ratings continue to lag

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 […]

WBBM-TV plans newscast overhaul

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 […]