Bears slide in the ratings

But the Bengals rock the ratings in Cincy No matter how much Ed Sherman of Chicago Business paints a rosy picture of it, the Chicago Bears’ ratings on Sunday were an expected disappointment given the rather unexpected 45-10 blowout of the team by the Cincinnati Bengals. The game, which started at 3:15 p.m. Central and ran until about 6:20 p.m., […]

WNUA-FM to flip to Spanish-language format

After 22 years as a pioneering “Smooth Jazz” outlet, Clear Channel-owned WNUA-FM is changing formats to Spanish Pop, effective Friday at 9:55 a.m. The station is being branded as “Mega 95.5”. and is being made available online at Mega955.com. The move is being made as other stations across the country are dropping the Smooth Jazz format. On Tuesday, Clear Channel […]

T Dog’s Four Pack

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. – […]

This TV clears 60 percent of U.S.

    This TV, the new digital movie channel launched by MGM and Chicago-based Weigel Broadcasting on November 1, 2008, has now cleared 60 percent of the country on digital subchannels, including several major markets. This features movies mostly from MGM’s library (though not from the pre-1986 library, which Turner/Time Warner owns), as well as classic TV series such as […]

Off-network sitcoms on rebound… or are they?

Is the off-network sitcom drought about to come to an end in syndication? It very well may be. But stations may have other ideas. This story from TVNewsday reports on the off-network sitcom drought this coming season and the number of sitcoms coming down the pike in September 2009. For the first time in recent memory, there are no fresh […]

WGN signs Mark Suppelsa to take on Katie, Brian, and Charlie

For the first time ever in Chicago, viewers will have a real option to the network evening newscasts. As expected, Tribune-owned WGN-TV has signed former WMAQ-TV and WFLD-TV Mark Suppelsa, renewed the contract of longtime veteran Steve Sanders and is expanding the station’s newscasts. Suppelsa left Fox-owned WFLD in a contract dispute a few months ago and was slated to […]

Announcing a trade: No.14 for No. 45

Trading the fourteenth-largest television market for the forty-fifth is like trading Kevin Garnett for Adam Morrison. But that’s what the owner of the Seattle SuperSonics (No. 14 and 1,782,040 households) and the NBA exactly did with the announcement of the team’s move to Oklahoma City (No. 45 and 676,850 households.) SuperSonics owner Clay Bennett will pay the city $75 million […]

Report: Mark Suppelsa headed to WGN-TV

Mark Suppelsa, the anchor who left Fox-owned WFLD-TV last March, is rumored to join Tribune’s WGN-TV later this summer, replacing Steve Sanders alongside Allison Payne on the station’s 9 p.m. newscast. Suppelsa is technically still under contract to WFLD – the station has a right to match any offer a competitor offers until June 17. WGN is likely to make […]

Clear Channel TV sold

Providence Equity Partners purchased the Clear Channel TV station group for $1.2 billion, in a deal that should close by this fall. Among the stations included in the deal are top-rated WKRC-TV (CBS) in Cincinnati, WAWS (Fox)/WTEV (CBS) in Jacksonville, and WOAI-TV (NBC) in San Antonio.