The Grab Bag: WGN Radio’s Steve and Johnnie to sign off

In the latest Grab Bag, we have items on the departure of a legendary duo from Chicago radio; a welcome departure from the ABC exec ranks; and Bill Cunningham’s talk show is getting outrated by… a 45-year old Western? Steve & Johnnie Exit WGN Radio. It’s official: Steve King and Johnnie Putnam are exiting WGN-AM this Friday after nearly 27 […]

T Dog’s Six Pack: Expanded edition

It’s been awhile, so let’s do an expanded edition of T Dog’s Six Pack – with an extra item in the winners and losers column this week. It doesn’t get any better than that! Okay, yes it can… Winning. Regis Philbin. After 28 years on daytime television. Regis Philbin steeped down as co-host of the popular morning chatfest Live With […]

“Katie” clears 60% of U.S. for Fall ’12 launch

Disney-ABC Domestic Television Distribution’s new fall 2012 talk show strip featuring Katie Couric has now been cleared in 60 percent of the country. Titled Katie, the series has now cleared though several broadcast groups including Allbritton, Belo, Cox, Hearst, Gannett, and Scripps, in addition to the entire ABC-owned-and-operated station group (including WLS-TV here in Chicago.) To no one’s surprise, most […]

The Six Pack: Occupy this!

              While America is holding protests against rampant greed, T Dog Media has the winners and losers of the past week who “occupied” the media spotlight: Winners Last Man Standing. Tim Allen picked up right where he left off – as a prime-time success for ABC. Standing debuted last Tuesday to a 3.6 adult […]

Grab Bag: “Last Man Standing” stands tall

        Plus other news of note, including Rosie Show results; Brandmeier’s return; and a new game show in an unusual time slot. – Viewers welcomed back Tim Allen to network TV Tuesday night with open arms with strong sampling of his new sitcom Last Man Standing. On Tuesday, the series opened with  13.1 million viewers and grew […]

“Charlie’s Angels” clipped

In a move that surprises nobody (and the latest show certain to enter The T Dog Media TV Hall Of Shame), ABC canceled its lame revival of 1970’s crime drama Charlie’s Angels on Friday after four weeks. In its latest Thursday night outing, Angels‘ earned a 1.3 adult demo (18-49) rating, far behind time period leader The Big Bang Theory […]

Bears-Lions tackles competitors onto turf

ESPN’s Monday Night Football tilt between the Chicago Bears and Detroit Lions was a success for ESPN and the city of Detroit – but not for the Bears. The game on WCIU earned a 13.4 household rating and a 20 share while ESPN pulled a 18.8/27, combining for an overall 32.2/47, easily outdrawing other series in the Chicago market, including […]

Grab Bag: Savage wrestles down a new outlet in Chicago

Can you smell… what WJJG is cookin’? You most certainly can as another edition of The Grab Bag is upon us… -Mancow Mueller now has a new tag-team partner at WJJG-AM (1530 AM) with syndicated radio host Michael “Macho Man” Savage. Beginning October 3, the duo will enter the ring every day to grope and piledrive their liberal opponents into […]

The Grab Bag: WWWN isn’t “winning” – it’s losing

Due to my behind-the-scenes-work for the relaunch of The T Dog Media Blog, yours truly hasn’t been able to write about some of the items that has been going on.  So let’s catch up: – Maybe they should change the call letters to WLLL? WWWN-FM, the new all-news station launched a few weeks ago has not gotten off to a […]

The Big Big Bang gets bigger

            Sorry girls, but Charlie’s Angels isn’t “winning”.   If anyone thought CBS’ The Big Bang Theory would lose any stream since moving from Mondays to thursdays last year, they are now considered offically wrong. The fifth-season sitcom – which entered syndication this week as an off-network strip – scored the night’s highest rating in […]

“New Girl” = New hit

Judging by the fawning of “New Girl” Zooey Deschannel (left), you’d think every male in America would want to lay her down by the fire and make sweet love to her. And who wouldn’t? While no one spilled the remains of dead fictional sitcom characters or walked through nude in any of last night’s programming (though a lot of us […]

Katie Couric heads to the Mouse House

After flopping out at CBS, Katie Couric is looking to shine at ABC. In a deal announced today, The Walt Disney Company has signed the former Today and CBS Evening News personality to a multi-year, multi-platform deal, which includes a daily syndicated talk show and beginning this summer, a regular contributor to ABC News. Ms. Couric departed as anchor of […]

T Dog’s Six (Nine) Pack: Upfronts edition

It’s an special edition of T Dog’s Six Pack – a supersized one with nine items related to last week’s upfronts in New York as advertisers, media buyers, and the networks  now have the hardest job ahead of them – negotiations. Here are the hits and misses from last week’s presentations: Epic successes:The return of the sitcom. Just when you’ve […]