Who’s in your four, Edition III

The week that was: T Dog’s Fab Four – Jay Mariotti leaves the Sun-Times. Yes! Oh God, Yes! -Barack Obama’s Acceptance Speech. Drew just as many viewers as the opening ceremonies of the recent Summer Olympics. – The U.S. men’s and women’s basketball team. The ladies brought home the Gold and the Redeem Team did likewise. Way to go! – […]

T Dog’s Groovy Grab Bag

Let’s reach into the bag today and see what we can scoop out… – New fall syndication updates: WPWR plays the Feud again: Debmar-Mercury’s Family Feud returns to WPWR-TV for the third time beginning on Sept. 8, airing back-to-back episodes at 2 p.m, while Debmar’s new Trivial Pursuit: America’s Plays airs at 3 p.m. Family Feud aired on WPWR from […]

Now the real fun begins for San Diego

Comic-Con ended on Sunday, but now the next event for San Diego is on the horizon, and it happens this Friday. For the first time in 31 years, an affiliation switch is set to take place, with founding Fox affiliate XETV heading to CW and Tribune’s KSWB-TV moving over to Fox. The deal was struck last March. Both stations are […]

The TCA Post-Game show : Critics’ roundtable

Before TCA began, Broadcasting & Cable held a critics’ roundtable on what would they do if they ran the networks. Critics who participated included the Chicago Tribune’s Maureen Ryan and the Kansas City Star’s (and TV Barn’s) Aaron Barnhart. Among the observations: – ABC needs more comedies closer to Roseanne and Home Improvement, and not According to Jim and The […]

More sweeps numbers

Philadelphia: Like WLS here in Chicago, ABC-owned WPVI-TV swept away its competition in households (demos were not available.) Fox-owned WTXF also scored with its 10 p.m. news, thanks to American Idol, and managed to tie CBS-owned KYW-TV in rating in late news. Yay for local content? NBC O&O WCAU-TV’s 10! news/talk show, finished dead last in its’ 2 p.m. time […]

David Cook wins "American Idol"

And the early overnight numbers are in: The two-hour season finale (which was surprisingly entertaining), averaged a 17.5 household rating and 27 share, down from the 19/30 the 2007 finale earned. UPDATE: The adults 18-49 ratings are in, and Idol drew a 11.0/29, down slightly from 11.5/31 achieved for last year’s finale. On the other hand, Idol drew 30.6 million […]

Welcome to the Boomtown

Tonight, American Idol will crown its seventh winner, with a David and David finale: David Archuelta and David Cook are competing to win. But does anyone care? I mean, besides Tony Kornhiser’s constant harping of Idol on Pardon The Interruption every day (which is a shark jump ready to happen. Do sports fans really care about Idol?), ratings for the […]

Paula’s off the wagon again

She criticizes Jason Castro for the two songs he sung in round one of American Idol… only problem is… he sung only one! Oh, Paula… you’ve got to lay off those three-martini lunches…

"Price" 2, "Deal" 0

The Price Is Right did it again Friday night, giving away another one million dollars on its Million Dollar Spectacular prime-time special, when a contestant came within $500 of the retail price in the Showcase Showdown. Meanwhile, the hapless louts over at Deal or No Deal have yet to give anyway a million on their program, despite having thirteen million […]

WTMJ wins 10 p.m. newscast in February

Thanks to harsh weather in Wisconsin all month long, Journal Broadcasting’s WTMJ-TV in Milwaukee won at 10 p.m. in February, beating Hearst-Argyle-owned ABC affiliate WISN-TV. The NBC affiliate benefited from a resurgent network line-up (albeit filled with second-hand fare), while WISN suffered without popular ABC shows out of episodes due to the writer’s strike and alt shows like Dancing With […]

Best and Worst Super Bowl Commercials – 2008

For the second year in a row, The T Dog Media Blog picks the best and worst commercials that aired during the Super Bowl. Here are the five best and the five worst: (Click the link to watch the commercial) Best 1. Dwayne Wins (T-Mobile) This ad featuring Charles Barkley and the Miami Heat’s Dwayne Wade was funny as hell. […]

"Idol" hit lowest ratings in four years

The seventh season premiere of American Idol averaged a 18.6 metered household rating and a 13.8 rating among adults 18-49, down 13 percent from last year. Among total viewers, Idol notched 33.2 million viewers, down 11 percent from a year ago. Still, Idol dominated prime on Fox, and should do so tonight, as the auditions head for Dallas (where I […]

Syndicated "Idol" jumps to Fox stations

A month after acquiring the syndication rights to air American Idol Rewind from now-defunct Tribune Entertainment, Trifecta has sold the series’ third season to thirteen Fox O&O markets. That means Idol Rewind in Chicago will switch this October from Tribune-owned WGN-TV to Fox-owned WFLD-TV and WPWR-TV. The program will also shift from Tribune to Fox stations in New York, Los […]

Trump’s got bump

Last night’s debut of The Apprentice: Celebrity Edition on NBC notched a 4.5 adults 18-49 rating, up 9 percent from last January’s edition. The good opening numbers for the reality program marks a continued trend of such shows with increased ratings for The Bachelor and Survivor, two once-struggling reality shows that are hot again. With the absence of scripted programs […]

Trifecta lands "Idol Rewind"

That was quick: Just days after Tribune announced it was shuttering its syndication operations, Trifecta Entertainment announced it was picking up syndicated rights to one of the series Tribune used to distribute: American Idol Rewind, the hour-long weekly series that is currently in its second season in syndication. Two-year old Trifecta is best known in syndication circles for distributing weekly […]