Coronavirus sacks “Jeopardy”, “Wheel” live studio audiences

Decision made after epidemic spreads across globe; Chicago film studio also affected Editor’s Note: This story was updated at 4 p.m. on March 10.  The coronavirus epidemic has affected sporting events, large gatherings, canceled trade shows (including four at McCormick Place) and other places around the world. Now, it is affecting tapings of television shows. Late Monday evening, the producers […]

The T Dog Media TV Hall of Shame

No one expected CNN’s Chicagoland to be a love letter to the city – but no one expected it to be a Rahm infomercial either. A critical and ratings flop, Chicagoland is the one of TV’s lowlights in 2014. Recently, the prime-time portion of The Simpsons marathon on FXX attracted more viewers than Chicagoland did. (As of May 2018, the […]

Grab Bag: “Last Man Standing” stands tall

        Plus other news of note, including Rosie Show results; Brandmeier’s return; and a new game show in an unusual time slot. – Viewers welcomed back Tim Allen to network TV Tuesday night with open arms with strong sampling of his new sitcom Last Man Standing. On Tuesday, the series opened with  13.1 million viewers and grew […]

The Grab Bag: Ricki returns (and unfortunately, so does Paul Reiser)

Twentieth’s game shows canceled, and other news of note  For the first time in a long time, it’s time for The Grab Bag – items not good enough for individual posts – but good enough to be written here: – Ricki returns. In a report confirmed by B&C and TVNewscheck, Ricki Lake signed a deal with Twentieth Television to launch […]

T Dog’s Grab Bag – The syndication edition

The T Dog Media Blog has a lot of syndication items in the Grab Bag this week. Let’s see what we have: – Program Partners, which was burned earlier this year by failing to find the funds to launch Marie Osmond’s daytime talk show, is turning to Canada once again to launch a syndicated program. The syndicator acquired Steven and […]

"Marie" dropped – before it begins

After speculation that Marie Osmond’s new talk show would not go forward, Program Partners made it official today. The daily talk-show strip was to premiere on September 14 in 80 percent of the country, including WCIU-TV in Chicago. It has been reported some stations had been pulling their offers to air the show. The weak ad market, the recession, and […]

Report: Sony cancels "Judge David Young" and "Judge Karen"

Broadcasting & Cable is reporting that two Sony-distributed courtroom strips (Judge David Young and Judge Karen) are expected to be canceled soon. Young will exit after two seasons and Karen after only one. The possible moves come as the tough economy has taken a toll on the first-run syndication business, as ratings and revenue coming in are very low for […]

T Dog’s Groovy Grab Bag

– WLIT has added a new afternoon guy: His name is Kevin Gossett, and he takes over the 2-7 p.m. time slot beginning yesterday at the Clear Channel-owned Adult Contemporary station. One problem, though: he’s being voiced tracked from Phoenix, where he works as PD and afternoon personality at KEZ-FM. So if you hear him talk about how nice and […]

Program Partners offers new shows

Program Partners is offering two new strips in syndication this fall – both coming from north of the border. The company already offers several first-run dramas which have originally aired on Canadian broadcast networks CBC, CTV, and Global in weekly broadcast syndication, including ReGenesis and Cold Squad. Branding the block Daytime Plus, Program Partners is offering Style by Jury – […]

Warner Bros. scores a hat trick

This is the 1,200th post. Hurray for the blog! Three syndicated freshman strips from Warner – Two and a Half Men, TMZ, and George Lopez scored gains in the just-concluded May sweeps, according to Nielsen. Men ranked as the top off-network sitcom in syndication last month, while Lopez surprised everyone by finishing fifth among all off-net sitcoms, jumping up 41 […]

Game shows are hot again

After Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! became major successes in the mid-1980’s, games shows became a hot property in syndication. By 1988, more than ten of them were on the air, including Win Lose or Draw, and Wipeout!, and successful revivals of Hollywood Squares, The Dating Game, and Family Feud. But the game show boom went bust by 1991 after […]

Clean sweep?

In all my years of following the syndication business (since 1985, when yours truly at the young age of thirteen read his first NATPE edition of TV/Radio Age), I cannot recall at any time the entire slate of rookie first-run strips that debuted in the fall were renewed for a second season. In fact, go back to the 1990-91 season, […]

NATPE News

– Syndicated repeats of Fox’s hit Bones has been cleared 45 percent of the country, including all of the Fox O&Os, not to mention station groups belonging to CBS, Tribune, and Bahakel. Weekday airings of the program were sold to TNT. -CBS’ Judge Judy has been re-upped until 2012. – As mentioned earlier, Program Partners has renewed Merv Griffin’s Crosswords […]

NATPE is here

The NATPE convention begins today in Las Vegas, and Broadcasting & Cable has a story on what the nation’s 25 largest TV station groups are shopping for next season. One thing is clear: A lot of veteran syndicated programs (Oprah, Wheel, Rachael Ray, People’s Court, etc.) are sold well into the future – for the next four or five years, […]