This Bud’s for you – 2017 a carbon city of 2016 2016: The worst year ever. 2017: Hold my beer. Yes, you saw this type of “hold my beer” exchanges this year as 2017 turned out to be lousy as advertised. For one thing, American Idol is coming back thanks to ABC. This and host Ryan Seacrest appearing on TV […]
Also: DeCastro, Nyren return to management roles; Comic-Con HQ closes and shifts to Amazon; Mavs bottom in ratings before Bulls do Chicago’s violence epidemic is once again on the international stage – this time in Canada. Public broadcaster CBC recently aired an Chicago installment of Interrupt This Program, a series about “underground art scenes in cities under pressure and cities […]
Anthem protests, weak record doesn’t deter fans Also news on a former Bears star; NBC 5; FCC (Editor’s Note: An earlier draft of this post mistakenly featured a picture of Drew Brees for the first item. Apologies. -T.H.) While ratings for the NFL have declined nationally – allegedly due to anthem protests, that is not the case in Chicago – […]
Poor writing, poor acting dooms Orville’s mission As one who used to watch Family Guy way back when, yours truly was a Seth MacFarlane fan. I even attended a live reading for the show ten years ago. But oh my, how times have changed. Outside of the brilliant Cosmos remake from a few years ago, he hasn’t done anything of […]
XETV flips to Spanish programming on May 31 after losing CW affiliation (Editor’s Note: It is rare these days for yours truly to write about musings from another TV/radio market since this blog is basically about Chicago radio and TV, and the national TV scene. But this is an unusual story worth mentioning.) After 64 years, it is lights out […]
Third Cup this decade; sixth Cup overall Blackhawks dominate on the ice and in the ratings How sweet it is! The Chicago Blackhawks on Monday clinched another Stanley Cup championship as they defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning 2-0 in front of more than 22,000 happy humans at the United Center – the first time the Cup was won on home […]
Turns out Live Well Network wasn’t living well after all. ABC announced Monday it was shuttering its food, fashion, and travel diginet after nearly six years on the air. ABC carried Live Well on its .2 channel in 720p on its owned-stations, one of the rare digital subchannels to be presented in HD. In a statement, ABC Owned Television President […]
Rogers to sublicense games to CBC; TVA gets exclusive French-language rights; Bell Media’s TSN shut out In one of the biggest TV deals in North American history, Canadian cable giant Rogers Communications – which was founded as a vacuum tube company in 1925 and pioneered FM Broadcasting in Canada in the 1960s, reached a 12-year, $5.25 billion pact with the […]
When rebranding goes wrong; Cubs, White Sox drop in ratings and Dan Harmon returns to Community. While the Blackhawks are grabbing the Windy City’s attention, the same cannot be said for the sorry Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox. Ratings for both Major League Baseball teams are in the toilet, as is their records. According to an article from Danny […]
Well, guess who’s back in the Stanley Cup Final. It’s the Chicago Blackhawks, who are looking to win their second championship in the last four years. They’ll face another “Original Six” foe in the Boston Bruins, who are looking for their second Stanley Cup in three years. Both teams face off Wednesday, with game one scheduled here in Chicago at […]
– In a stunning move, the Chicago Sun-Times fired almost all of its photography staff on Thursday, which left 28 people out of work. The Wrapports -owned paper instead plans to train reports to take pictures with smartphones. Yes, smartphones. Among those who were laid off include 35-year veteran Pulitzer-prize winning photographer John H. White, one of the first African-American […]
Grab baggin’: – ABC-owned WLS-TV widened its lead over its competitors during the just-completed May sweeps, according to Nielsen. According to CRM, ABC 7 swept all local news time periods in households (25-54 demos weren’t available at press time), with a decisive victory at 10 p.m., surging 11 percent from May 2012 with a 10.0/18, leaving NBC-owned WMAQ-TV (5.9/11, +4% […]
Tiffany network looking to maintain dominance CBS released its 2013-14 primetime schedule Wednesday morning ahead of its presentation later in the afternoon – and believe it or not, there were a few surprises in the lineup. For one, CBS is creating a two-hour comedy block on Thursday nights, based on the success of The Big Bang Theory. CBS has slotted […]
The Tribune Co. entered a new era on December 31, exiting bankruptcy after four years. Now it appears the new regime may be without one of its flagship station’s biggest draws. The Chicago Tribune reported on Sunday the Chicago Cubs may exit WGN-TV after the 2014 season, which could end a 66-year relationship with the Tribune-owned station. It seems changes […]
Also: Wheel and Jeopardy! renewed by WLS-TV, other ABC O&Os until 2016 It’s not even the end of October, and already seeing some major shakeups in daytime syndication for next fall: – In news first reported by Deadline, CBS’ owned-and-operated station group has picked up Queen Latifah’s new talk show from Sony Pictures Television for September 2013, clearing sixteen markets, […]
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