WBBM-TV names new 10 p.m. co-anchor

CBS-owned WBBM-TV is undergoing yet another change with its 10 p.m. weeknight newscast by pairing current anchor Rob Johnson with Kate Sullivan, a morning anchor at sister station WCBS-TV in New York City, also a CBS O&O. The report first surfaced Wednesday on Robert Feder’s blog at Vocalo. The change is expected to take place in September. Johnson had been […]

Craig Kilbourn returns to TV – sort of

Former late night talk show host and ESPN SportsCenter anchor Craig Kilbourn is making a comeback to TV – well, sort of. Twentieth Television announced it has signed Kilbourn to host a nightly prime-access strip to air this summer, which will be tested on a few Fox-owned stations, including WNYW in New York and KTTV in Los Angeles. The identity […]

Syndie cash is out there – but not much of it

The deals made by Tribune, Fox, and Weigel’s WCIU for Family Guy last week showed a return of cash into the syndication marketplace, something that has lacking for the past year or so. But hold the bubbly; in fact, you might have to take the bottle of champagne back to the store. It turns out Tribune paid less to renew […]

T Dog’s Four Pack -The Oprah Winfrey Edition

Welcome to a special edition of T Dog’s Four Pack (special because this is a bit serious in tone.) On Thursday, Oprah Winfrey announced she was leaving her syndicated daytime talk show after 25 years and ending the program on September 9, 2011. She is focusing on launching her new cable network with Discovery Communications, which goes live in January […]

Upon further review… the Cubs-White Sox TV ratings post

A post I wrote last Tuesday received some negative feedback, as yours truly painted a too-rosy picture of Comcast SportsNet’s ratings regarding the Cubs and White Sox – particularly the latter team. According to an article appearing in Sports Business Journal ranking Major League Baseball’s thirty teams in terms of television ratings on games aired by their regional sports networks […]

KPRC changes doctors

Your station has a ratings problem. So if the person in charge of the time period isn’t doing the job of tending to it, what would you do? Change doctors. That’s what KPRC did. KPRC-TV, Post-Newsweek’s NBC affiliate in Houston, has replaced CBS Television Distribution’s Dr. Phil, with Sony Television’s new hotcomer Dr. Oz at 3 p.m., which was effective […]

"Family Feud" brings back bullseye game.

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 […]

Off to see the doctor… The Wonderful Doctor of Oz

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 […]

This just in: Local news trumps reruns

KRON-TV San Francisco to dump Dr. Phil? It looks like these days viewers prefer the corruption, depression, politics, and crime to escapist fare. It what could be yet another blow to the syndication business, a story by Bloomberg News suggests local stations are dumping entertainment fare to air more local news especially in major markets. This comes as the fight […]

T Dog’s Groovy Grab Bag

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 […]

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 […]

Ahern out at Channel 2

One of the deacons at The Church of Tisch has been shown the door. WBBM-TV General Manger Joe Ahern was fired today after six years at the CBS-owned station, this after they moved into new digs on Washington Blvd. in the Loop and started broadcasting their news in HD. Replacing Ahern is Bruno Cohen, who is currently GM at CBS’ […]