T Dog’s Media Notepad: “Supergirl” could fly to CW

With the upfronts a little over a week away, reports are surfacing on not if Supergirl is coming back next season but where: The Wrap is reporting Warner Bros. Television is discussing a plan to move the freshman drama from CBS to The CW next year, where CBS and Warner Bros. have a 50/50 interest. There are concerns if the […]

T Dog’s Media Notepad: Back in the saddle again

Hello, and welcome back to T Dog Media! Here are some notable news and notes from the last two weeks: Tom Doerr has resigned as news director of Fox-owned WFLD-TV here in Chicago after just three years and six years overall at the station. Doerr is heading back to Florida to deal with personal family issues. During his tenure, ratings […]

T Dog’s Media Notepad: White Sox sink into the ratings abyss

The White Sox may not have the worst record in MLB for 2015, but earned an even-worse honor. According to Sports Business Journal, the South Siders again finished dead last among all 29 U.S. teams, with a 0.8 live-plus-same day household rating on CSN Chicago, down 29 percent from 2014, where they finished 27th out of 27 teams excluding Houston […]

T Dog’s Media Notepad: Bears stumble, fumble in the ratings

Haven’t done the Notepad in a while – plus, I’ve been busy with other stuff, so let’s play catchup and see  what’s going on: –The Chicago Bears are back – but apparently, someone forgot to tell the fans: September 13’s heavily hyped home opener between the Lakefront’s NFL Team and their long-time nemesis Green Bay Packers drew a surprisingly low […]

Think Tank Express: A long way to go on diversity

Deadline article, Bernstein’s comments prove women and minorities still face a hostile environment in the media business  It’s interesting we have a “communications” as a college major, and yet have a lot of people who don’t know how to communicate – especially when it comes to gender and race issues. And this week, the point was proven more than once. […]

White Sox, Cubs nail down 2015 broadcast schedules

As expected, WGN-TV announced it was moving 20 or so Chicago White Sox games from Weigel’s WCIU to Fox-owned WPWR-TV. The move to the My Network TV affiliate, means WPWR gets to air baseball for the first time. WPWR is also picking up five Chicago Cubs games WGN-TV is producing. Earlier this season, WGN moved six Chicago Bulls games from WCIU […]

T Dog’s Grab Bag: Mike Caplan, Lesile Keiling ousted

– Life’s tough in the business: ABC-owned WLS-TV meteorologist Mike Caplan was let go from the station last week after 21 years on the air. There was speculation WLS was going to release one of their meteorologists after hiring WMAQ exile Cheryl Scott late last year. In fact, WLS announced it was going to feature Scott during the 4 and […]

Cubs headed to WLS-TV

  ABC-owned station to run 25 games a season from 2015 through 2019 “Catch the action on WLS”… That’s right, you heard me… ABC-owned WLS-TV (that’s TV, not AM) struck a five-year deal with the Chicago Cubs to air 25 games a season beginning this spring. According to the station’s website, WLS would air games in daytime, primetime, and weekend […]

Game Over

Tribune Media pulls plug on The Game; retains Jonathon Brandmeier and cuts Garry Meier Robert Feder reported Thursday that Tribune Media has swung the ax of the sports talk format known as The Game (WGWG-LP), the sports station on 87.7 FM after nine months on the air. The move comes as the station was losing busloads of money on the venture. […]

Cubs, White Sox viewers continue to flee for exits

White Sox now dead last in TV ratings, with Cubs right behind them It’s been a tough summer for local Chicago television. First, Chicago viewers are turning off local news in greater numbers (and as a reward, we’re getting more news!) And now, they’re turning off local baseball – again – as both the Cubs and the White Sox continue […]

T Dog’s Grab Bag: WGN-TV adds 5 p.m. weekend news

– WGN-TV announced last week it was adding additional weekend newscasts in early fringe, at 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays, when not pre-empted by sports. WGN’s 9 p.m. weekend news team would also assume the duties at 5 p.m. A few years ago, WFLD had a 5 p.m. Saturday newscast, but was canceled. WGN, which recently […]

Grab Bag: Craig Ferguson exits “Late Late Show”

– The other shoe has dropped: Craig Ferguson announced Monday he was stepping down as host of CBS’ Late Late Show, effective at the end of 2014. The news comes as David Letterman (who is the executive producer of the show and controls the 11:35 p.m. weeknight time slot), announced his retirement three weeks ago. With this move, he also […]

Jim Corno dies

If there was one name associated with sports television in Chicago, it would be Jim Corno. Sadly, Corno passed away Tuesday at the age of 66 due to complications resulting from cancer. Corno’s career spanned more than forty years in the television industry, most notably for successfully running four sports channels in Chicago, known today as “regional sports networks”, or […]

The 2013 T Dog Media Turkey Awards

It’s a blizzard of turkeys! Welcome to the 2013 T Dog Media Turkey Awards, where every Thanksgiving, we serve up turkeys of bad TV, bad radio, and bad decision making in media for the eighth consecutive year. This year, we have 24 turkeys to hand out. So batten down everyone, because here they come! Crowd Goes Wild. Fox Sports 1’s […]