Chicago sports teams now have something in common with media companies – rebuilding when the good times end Chicagoans better get used to a word they’ve been hearing a lot: rebuild. Last week, two of Chicago’s sports franchises – the Bulls and Blackhawks announced changes that dramatically overhauled their lineups for next season. On the day of the NBA Draft, […]
And… other news of note To the surprise of absolutely nobody, Fox has pulled the plug on 24: Legacy after one season. The series was left off the fall schedule when it was announced last month, increasing speculation its days would be numbered. In addition, Fox said it was putting the brakes on more episodes of its Prison Break revival after […]
The Golden Boy ascends to another gig – the highly coveted co-host slot on Live While it is a surprise to some (really?), Monday’s announcement of Ryan Seacrest as the new co-host of Live With Kelly gives the long-running franchise more name power. The venerable personality, who was host of American Idol and seemingly a million other things started in […]
A rebuttal to Harry Jessell’s piece: Media consolidation has resulted in bad managerial decisions and lots of layoffs. But bad decision making knows no size. For the last eleven years, yours truly has been writing about media consolidation and how bad it is. On Friday, TVNewscheck’s Harry Jessell wrote a piece saying “bigger is better”, regarding the growing profiles of Sinclair Broadcasting […]
Half-hour roadblock on 47 radio stations unimpresses listeners It looked like a good idea on paper: get together 47 Chicago radio stations – including suburban sticks – and Rahm Emanuel was going to address the city on major issues. At the same time, local radio stations were demonstrating their commitment to their communities. The result was anything but. Chicago Mayor […]
A Chicago radio legend passes at 88 Chicagoans and radio fans everywhere are mourning the loss of radio personality Herb Kent, who passed away Saturday evening at the age of 88. His death marks the end of an long career – 72 years working in radio, a Guinness World Record. Most recently, he was handling daytime weekend shifts for iHeart […]
Can’t we all get along: With the Chicago Cubs and the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS, leave it to those idiots at Tronc to ignite a war between the two cities’ newspapers – given the company runs newspapers in both cities. On Friday, overrated Chicago Tribune columnist Rex Huppke wrote a column bashing Los Angeles, saying the city is a […]
Two of chicago’s most-listened to afternoon radio personalities are trading in their gold chains for cowboy boots. B96 afternoon boys Doug “Stylz” Bobrowski and Justin Moran are heading to US99 as the new morning drive team. That’s right. You heard me. Beginning on September 6, US99 (WUSN-FM) is installing Stylz & Roman as replacements for Lisa Dent and Ramblin’ Ray […]
Stevens heads to WLS-AM to pair up with ol’ buddy Big John Howell in mornings WUSN loses its prime attraction; personnel loses their jobs For CBS-owned WUSN-FM, everything suddenly isn’t so beautiful. As first reported by Robert Feder Wednesday, WUSN morning personality Ramblin’ Ray Stevens, shocked the radio world yesterday by streaking over to WLS-AM to join former co-worker Big […]
WIND should fire controversial former politician for a tweet featuring racist comments and threatening the President. If not, yank the damn license. Enough is enough. Former politician-turned-talk show host Joe Walsh (not to be confused with the Eagles guitarist) should be terminated for his comments he posted on Twitter calling for President Obama and police brutality protesters to be attacked. As you […]
Cubs ratings; Carsey-Werner comedies head to LAFF; Media Life radio survey and more The Chicago Cubs have started off the 2016 season in style and viewers are watching: Monday’s home opener against the Cincinnati Reds drew a whopping 11.4 household same-day live rating, easily finishing as the most-watched program of the evening topping ABC’s Dancing With The Stars (always popular […]
WGN adds Wood and Dempster, plus Manley’s idiotic comment Media Life magazine article on iHeart causing a stir Empire roars back BET to add “Soul Train” WGN-AM has recruited former Cubs pitchers Kerry Wood and Ryan Dempster to provide weekly baseball analysis on Thursdays for the Tribune Broadcasting-owned radio station. Beginning this week, Ryan Dempster will talk baseball with Steve Cochran […]
The state of the Chicago market: population loss may effect media properties If last week’s bad census news is any indication, Chicago may be in for a rough few years. And the local media scene could be affected. Figures released by the Census Bureau last week showed the Chicago market losing more residents over the last decade than any other […]
It’s an end of an era. CBS Corp. announced on Tuesday it was exploring several options of its radio station group, including a sale. The stations could be spun-off, swapped, or sold outright. CBS owns several radio/TV combos in most large markets, including Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston, Dallas, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Detroit, Sacramento, and Baltimore. In […]
Ploy to keep anti-police demonstrators out? When it was announced in September, Chi-Town Rising hoped it draw more than 100,000 people and help the city ring in the New Year outdoors for the first time since the early 1980’s. But the event – originally free admission – is now ticketed and yes, you would have to pay to get in. […]
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