Dr. Oz debuts strong – and the rest of the week that was in syndication Family Feud has added a new element – all right, it’s not so new. The Debmar-Mercury syndicated game show has returned the “Bullseye” round to the start of the game, which started on the series’ eleventh season premiere on September 7. The round features contestants […]
The off-net sitcoms are back. After a year without any new major off-network sitcoms debuting (aside from Tyler Perry’s House of Payne), three of them debut today in broadcast syndication – NBC Universal’s The Office, CBS Television Distribution’s Everybody Hates Chris, and Twentieth’s My Name Is Earl. Of these three, The Office is certainly the most successful, given its solid […]
The early returns for Dr. Oz have been positive and Sony Pictures Television and Harpo Productions hope Oz can lead the company down the Yellow Brick Road to riches. The three day average of Dr. Oz – a new medical talk show hosted by Mehmet Oz which premiered on Sept. 14 – had a three day average of a 1.7 […]
WGN-TV announced it has expanded its news and shuffled its weekday programming lineup, just two days into the new syndication television season. Beginning October 5, WGN expands its 5:30 p.m. newscast an hour, starting at 5 p.m. Its midday newscast expands to 11a.m. and now run two hours until 1 p.m. And to go along with the expansion are some […]
CBS Television Distribution surprised many in the industry today by launching a last-minute syndicated show titled Smash Cuts, a weekly hour featuring viral video clips. The all-barter weekly hour has quickly cleared more than 90 percent of the country, including stations from the Tribune and CBS groups. In Chicago, the program will air locally over WGN-TV. Usually, syndicated programs are […]
CBS Television Distribution and Tribune have agreed on a settlement to reduce the license fees the bankrupt television group has to pay to the syndicator. CBS agreed to an $1.2 million payment from Tribune – down from $2.4 million it owed, according to bankruptcy filing papers. The deal covers all CBS Television Distribution properties on the 26-station Tribune group, from […]
Could canceled CW comedy The Game make a return? According to TV Guide, CBS Television Studios (formerly CBS Paramount Television) and Black Entertainment Television (BET) are negotiating a lower license fee so CBS can produce the series for cable. If negotiations are successful, The Game would become the first former live-action network sitcom to be revived on basic cable since […]
Rachael Ray is on the move. After three underperforming seasons at CBS-owned WBBM-TV, Rachael Ray’s talk show is shifting to Tribune-owned CW affiliate WGN-TV this fall. Rachael Ray has not fared well in its 2 p.m. time slot, with tougher competition coming from Chicago native Bonnie Hunt, whose talk show airs opposite it and has beat Rachael in the ratings. […]
Stop me if you’ve heard this before… The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is being criticized by governmental leaders and actor unions for airing too much American programming on the public network – a practice it has been doing for decades. The controversy comes as CBC dropped two Canadian-produced newsmagazine/lifestyle shows: Fashion File and Steven & Chris, due to low ratings and […]
Syndication switcheroo; Universal Sports add more clearances; Young files Chapter 11. – With another ratings period ahead, two Chicago stations have made some major changes to their syndicated lineups: * Beginning today, WCIU-TV is swapping time periods with Warner Bros.’ The People’s Court and Sony’s now-canceled Judge Karen. With Karen now out of production, WCIU has moved the show to […]
It’s back! After a few weeks of being on hiatus, the weekly list of winners and losers returns. The Four Fab Pack – Marie Osmond. What a career comeback. She’s performing with her brother on stage in Vegas and now her new talk show for fall has cleared 70 percent of the country in syndication. And she’s still fine. – […]
Star Trek: The Next Generation is returning home to where it all began. Its mission: to boost ratings in a landscape of tawdry talk shows, crummy courtroom shows, and According to Jim-like off-network sitcoms. Reruns of the sequel to Star Trek, which practically put one-hour scripted action dramas on the map in syndication in the 1980s and 1990s, has been […]
The National Association of Television Program Executives convention got underway today in Las Vegas. While it won’t be as jumping as it was in recent years, there is business to be done here in the world of syndication and beyond. Plus, look for not one, but two T Dog Think Tanks on the state of syndication in 2009. We’ll have […]
Wendy Williams goes forward. CBS Television Distribution has decided to shelve preacher T.D. Jakes’ new syndicatedtalk show until 2010, according to the distributor. The reason given was the tough economic conditions stations and advertisers are facing this year. Meanwhile, Debmar-Mercury’s new Wendy Williams syndicated talk show is going forward, clearing 70 percent of the country.
For the first time in… I don’t know… many years, repeats of The Odd Couple are back on TV. On Thursday (an odd day to start airing a TV show on a “strip” basis), WWME-TV (or Me-TV) began airing The Odd Couple weeknights at 11:30 p.m. The sitcom, based on the Neil Simon play (and also spun off a 1968 […]
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