Rewinding media in 2023

it’s Elon Musk, 2023 had No Chance In Hell to be a quiet year. (LA Times) A year dominated by labor strife, awful Chicago sports teams, and – oh yeah, Elon  If you watched the WWE, you remember Vince McMahon playing himself as an arrogant CEO and billionaire, ruling over anything and everything – the ultimate heel. It’s a real-life […]

Bob Barker, former “Price Is Right” host dies at 99

Game show icon also hosted Truth or Consequences Bob Barker, the iconic game show host of The Price Is Right for 35 years died at his Los Angeles-area home due to natural causes at the age of 99 – just four months shy of his 100th Birthday, on December 12. Barker was best known for his long-running stint as a […]

NBC-owned stations add Steve Harvey to fall ’12 lineup

The competition for syndicated daytime clearances for next fall has gotten hotter with the addition of Steve Harvey to the mix as NBC Universal Television Distribution cleared his new, one-hour talk show strip on NBC’s ten owned-and-operated stations, including WMAQ-TV here in Chicago. Harvey is competing with Disney-ABC’s Katie Couric and Twentieth Television’s Ricki Lake for talk show clearances for […]

No fix for what’s left of "Morning Fix" (updated)

The exodus of personalities and personnel from Chicago media outlets continues. To no one’s surprise, WKQX-FM (Q101.1) has thrown what’s left of the Morning Fix under the bus and ran over Alan Cox and Jim Lynam in the process. The duo were axed from Q101.1 after today’s show and are being replaced by the afternoon team of Brian Sherman and […]

The Price Is Right for Primetime

For the first time in a little over 20 years, CBS is putting it’s most successful daytime game show in a regular prime-time slot. Long-time staple The Price Is Right will take up residence on CBS’ Friday night schedule for six non-consecutive weeks beginning Feb. 22. The move is a bid (without going over) to cut down on repeats caused […]

Q101 dumps Morning Fix

After fourteen months on the air (and maybe a moral victory for Mancow), Alternative outlet WKQX (or Q101) has deep-sixed the The Morning Fix. The station is dumping comedy elements from its morning show and is keeping a skeleton staff on hand to do traffic, weather, and sports and re-foucsing its efforts on music in the daypart. The move comes […]

Samantha What?

News and notes, all wrapped up into one: – Leno appears to be unhappy about being forced out of the famed 10:35 p.m. (CT) time slot for Conan O’Brien in 2009. Late shift, part II? – Christiana Applegate returns to the network that launched her career (1986’s Heart of the City) and is the lead in Samantha Who? In it, […]

The price is wrong, so you must be fixed

To coincide with Bob Barker’s retirement from The Price Is Right next month, The Sun-Times reprinted an interview in today’s editions with Robert Feder conducting an interview with him in New York on August 6, 1985. In this article, Feder bought items from a grocery store and played a pricing game on ol’ Bob. He missed every one of them […]