Some sad news to start off this edition of notations: Emmy-award winning actress Kathryn Joosten died on Sunday after a long battle with lung cancer at the age of 72. She was best known for her portrayal of presidential secretary Mrs. Landingham on The West Wing, and most recently, the nosy neighbor on Desperate Housewives. Born in Eustus, Fl. in […]
Fox celebrated their 25th Anniversary in prime-time this past Sunday with a two-hour retrospective, featuring clips of past shows and a few cast reunions. While the network officially launched its primetime lineup on April 5, 1987 with three airings each of Married… With Children and The Tracey Ullman Show, the network actually launched on October 9, 1986 with The Late […]
Does the headline of this post look familiar to you? Well, aside from the “again” part. It should. I wrote this headline five years ago when the Chicago Sun-Times decided to put then-Chicago Bear Greg Olsen on the front page of the newspaper amid the controversy over a rap song he participated in while at the University of Miami, […]
The 49th annual National Association of Television Programming Executives closed its three-day run on Wednesday from the Fontainbleau Hotel in Miami. The gathering attracted many attendees from the around the globe, especially from South American countries, who were seeking Spanish-language programming. In addition, NATPE had a growing digital contingent, thanks to the growing influence (and clout) of Amazon, Hulu, and […]
Yeah, you’re going to need a lot of liquor when you read this news. Man, you really got to weep for the media business these days. Tuesday was clearly a dark day for those who still care about the integrity of the business as two (more) dark clouds are descending on the horizon. One cloud […]
The National Association of Television Programming Executive – or NATPE convention begins Monday in Miami and as always, there’s syndication news to report on. Here’s the latest: – CBS-owned WBBM-TV in Chicago and twelve other CBS markets have cleared TNT’s Leverage for weekend off-network syndication beginning next fall from Trifecta Entertainment, which acquires the syndication rights from executive producer Dean […]
With NATPE just around the corner (it takes place in Miami later this month), here what’s making waves in the syndication business: – Twentieth Television announced a new syndicated strip titled Dish Nation, a new entertainment magazine show featuring the nation’s radio personalities dishing dirt on the hottest pop culture topics. Dish has already cleared 55 percent of the country, […]
Remember when I wrote a think tank on WFLD’s news ratings struggles earlier this year? Well, you’ll be happy to know that things haven’t changed – if fact, they’ve gotten worse: During a report on how the struggling economy was affecting gift-giving during this holiday season on Tuesday night’s 9 p.m. newscast, WFLD co-anchor Robin Robinson obviously blurted out there […]
It’s been awhile, so let’s do an expanded edition of T Dog’s Six Pack – with an extra item in the winners and losers column this week. It doesn’t get any better than that! Okay, yes it can… Winning. Regis Philbin. After 28 years on daytime television. Regis Philbin steeped down as co-host of the popular morning chatfest Live With […]
Jeremy Kyle renewed for a second season; Katie and Steve Harvey hit clearance highs Fox-owned WFLD has picked up Ricki Lake’s new talk show strip from Twentieth Television for next fall, finally notching a Chicago clearence days after the first deals were made as The Great Talk Show Rush of 2012 steam rolls on. Ricki Lake previously hosted a syndicated […]
Anderson renewed for a second season; Bill Cunningham is putting up solid numbers for WGN – but not in his home market of Cincinnati. It seems like syndicators are ready to party like its 1995 again, when a slew of Ricki Lake– talk show knockoffs flooded the market. Well, here we go again as already four talk shows have been […]
NBC to launch Non-Stop Network; Bounce expands to N.Y. and L.A. Significant developments regarding digital subchannels on Thursday: – Don’t you wish it would stop? NBC announced it was overhauling its strategy for its nine-station Non-Stop digital subchannels, which is on the .2 (Channel 4.2, Channel 5.2, etc.) of all-NBC-owned stations except the Hartford/New Haven market, where […]
As a reward for upgraded timeslots and ratings growth among women 25-54, Debmar-Mercury announced yesterday the renewal of its game show strip Family Feud through the 2014-15 season. In addition, Feud will be shot in HD starting next season. Station groups renewing the series through 2014 include Fox, CBS, Capitol, Sinclair, and Tribune. So far this season, Feud has scored […]
But no Belo deal…yet In good news for fans of Sons And Anarchy and soccer, DirecTV and News Corp. have come to a deal to continue to carry all nineteen Fox cable channels on their system, according to TVNewscheck. The deal is only for the cable channels and not for other News Corp. entities, such as their owned-and-operated broadcast stations, […]
Judging by the animosity between the two, you’d would never know News Corp. and DirecTV were once sister companies. On November 1, the satellite-service provider is planning to pull nineteen News Corp. cable networks from its system if they can not come to an agreement on a new deal. And now, Fox is saying all 26 of its owned stations […]
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