In the latest of a slew of off-cable programs hitting the broadcast syndication marketplace, Twentieth Television has cleared FX sitcom It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia for Fall 2011 in 45 percent of the country. Clearing the show are a wide variety of stations, meaning no over-the-board group deals (which is good.) The clearences include WPSG-TV in Philadelphia, the CBS-owned CW […]
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 new Family Guy spin-off got some good sampling last night. Fox’s premiere of The Cleveland Show, featuring the next-door neighbor of The Griffins who moved to Virginia to start a new life drew 9.4 million viewers and a 4.9 rating in adults 18-49, growing 17% from its Simpsons lead-in. The premiere of Cleveland coincided with the season premieres of […]
A ton of news featuring Family Guy and South Park today here in The Grab Bag. It’s like having Cubs fans and White Sox fans together in the same room. Oh-Oh… Hey, no beer throwing! – To build up Emmy buzz for its nomination as a Best Outstanding Comedy Nominee, the producers of Family Guy held a live table reading […]
There is a lot to talk about regarding Fox in their press tour presentations, which took place Thursday and Friday: Fox – Of course, the big story is Paula Abdul leaving American Idol after eight years. At the Fox executive panel, executives Kevin Reilly and Peter Rice said they were talking to her for the last few months regarding a […]
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 […]
A special edition of T Dog’s Four Pack this week, in honor of four individuals who passed away this week – two of these I have already written obituaries for. – Ed McMahon. Click here for the obit on the legendary pitchman and second banana. – John Callaway. Click here for the obit on the legendary interviewer. – Farrah Fawcett. […]
Sadly, the Grim Reaper has been busy. Farrah Fawcett: http://tiny.cc/mVgyv Michael Jackson: http://tiny.cc/BYJX8 With the passing of these two icons – plus the deaths of Ed McMahon and John Callaway, it’s been a very sad week. Rest in peace, all.
The light has gone out for Guiding Light. CBS has pulled the plug on the serial after 72 years on television and radio. The soap began on radio in 1937, went to television in 1952 (its radio run ended in 1956), and is the longest-running soap currently on the air. It marks the first CBS has canceled a soap in […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
No surprise here, it’s Tyler Perry’s House of Payne. But there is a surprise when compared to other programs in the viewer’s landscape: When you take the rating from its’ syndication airings and its cable runs on TBS, Payne tops everything else among African-Americans in all of television among adults 18-34, 18-49, and 25-54, including network prime-time, beating Grey’s Anatomy […]
– SciFi orders new Caprica: The SciFi Channel has greenlighted a new prequel for Battlestar Galactica titled Caprica. The prequel is set fifty years before Galactica‘s Cylon attack, with two rival families dealing with life on Caprica, including an emerging artifical intelligence sector on the planet. – The Big three networks have announced their new mid-season prime-time schedules, if you […]
This week’s winners and losers: T Dog’s Fab Four – Obama’s campaign infomercial. Great marketing ploy to get your message out by buying time on three major broadcast networks and a few cable outlets simultaneously, as the move scored 30 million viewers across all platforms Wednesday night. But will this translate to votes? – ‘Til Death goes on hiatus. Hopefully […]
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