As Chicago teachers head for the picket line, media coverage of the strike has been filled with some miscues and some frustration from local news stations due to sports overruns. If you watched ABC 7’s (WLS-TV’s) newscast Sunday night, technical snafus took place as video from Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s press conference at the Harold Washington Library often looked choppy and […]
Local stations, syndicators shuffle the deck As we enter year two in the post-Oprah era, things are finally changing in the syndication marketplace, as five new syndicated talk shows – the most in 17 years – make their debut. As for off-network sitcoms, the pickings are rather slim – just two new entries this year, compared to five in 2011. […]
The Six Pack is back, but this edition is straight out of bizarro world: perennial loser NBC in the winner’s circle while top-ranked WLS-TV is in loserland? As Vince Lombardi would say, “What’s going on here?” Well, WIQI is the loser’s circle again, so it’s all not that unusual… the week’s winners and losers: Winners – NBC. Belated congrats to […]
WBBM-TV (CBS 2) announced the return of weekend morning newscasts to the station after a three-year hiatus. The announcement was made during a meeting in the CBS-owned station’s newsroom with General Manager Bruno Cohen and News Director Jeff Kierman. Beginning on September 22, WBBM plans to air an hour of local news on Saturdays from 8-9 a.m. and from Sundays […]
The Jeff Probst Show finally clears Chicago, landing at WBBM-TV Due to a busy schedule covering and analyzing Upfront Week, there were a lot of notable media stories mentioned in the past week: – First mentioned in Robert Feder’s Time Out Chicago blog last week, ABC-owned WLS-TV has acquired Live With Kelly beginning in September 2013, falling in line with […]
As you know by now, Chicago is hosting the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit at McCormick Place this coming Sunday and Monday. There are numerous street closures, parking restrictions, bus reroutes, and train station closures. Security is being beefed up all over town, including on public transportation and in downtown office buildings. And oh yeah… there’s going to be […]
Last week’s episode told what a lot of us already know: Hollywood really doesn’t respect people of color On Grey’s Anatomy, they had the Ferry Boat accident. For The Simpsons, it was changing the backstory of the series to create a lame plot on how Homer Simpson “discovered” grunge music. For this show, […]
The National Association of Television Programming Executive – or NATPE convention begins Monday in Miami and as always, there’s syndication news to report on. Here’s the latest: – CBS-owned WBBM-TV in Chicago and twelve other CBS markets have cleared TNT’s Leverage for weekend off-network syndication beginning next fall from Trifecta Entertainment, which acquires the syndication rights from executive producer Dean […]
Carol Fowler bounced from station after three disastrous years In a move that was pretty much expected, Fox-owned WFLD has fired news director Carol Fowler and replaced her with Phyills Schwartz, who held the same position for five years at ABC-owned WLS-TV. The changeover is effective immediately. Schwartz was at top rated WLS-TV for thirteen years with five of them […]
Allen Gregory: Worst. Sitcom. Ever. Welcome to the 6th annual T Dog Media Turkey Awards! Every year around Thanksgiving, yours truly hashes out the worst in the media business – in television, radio, and sports. So bring out the stale stuffing and expired cranberry sauce! It’s time to go gobbling! And the “winners” are… […]
Here we go again: The Church Of Tisch is revamping its perennially low-rated morning show for the 284th time – and there may be changes to WBBM’s dawn patrol newscasts as well. CBS canceled The Early Show on Tuesday and is launching a new two-hour newscast with the rather odd pairing of Charlie Rose and Gayle King with Early Show […]
As you may know – if you’ve been following on Twitter – The T Dog Media Blog is leaving Blogger and is moving to a new home as part of the new website I’m launching officially on September 19, when the sixth season of The T Dog Media Blog begins. Visit https://www.tdogmedia.com to view the progress of the site as […]
Aqua Fraud? In this edition of the Six Pack: The biggest Oprah Winfrey diss ever, Chicago’s news media possibly aiding and embedding a cover-up by city officials, and a sequel of a series that turned out not to be a sequel after all: Winners WFTV and Bob Jordan. WFTV news director Bob Jordan (no relation to WGN-TV’s Robert Jordan) […]
Walter E. Smithe Furniture recently released a two-minute commercial honoring the 22-year legacy of Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. Among those who appeared in the ad were local celebrities like George Wendt, Eric Ferguson from WTMX’s Eric & Kathy, fictional Alderman Ed Bus (from the 53rd Ward), and a few other Chicago dignitaries. Oh, and there were some local news […]
Erica Kane is being shown the door. In a move rumored for weeks, ABC pulled the plug today on two of its longest-running soap operas: All My Children and One Life to Live. Both series have been longtime staples of ABC’s daytime lineup, each of them being on the air for over four decades. Children is scheduled to end this […]
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