Fox Chicago duopoly announces Sheila Oliver as new VP/GM

Succeeds the retiring Dennis Walsh in role Fox’s Chicago duopoly quickly found a new leader by announcing Tuesday the hire of Sheila Oliver to run Fox 32 (WFLD) and My50 (WPWR). Oliver moves over from the Fox-owned Seattle duopoly of KCPQ and KJZO. “Sheila is a Fox Television Stations veteran of both news and sales who leads with her Midwestern charm […]

The “Live” mess

Michael Strahan’s unexpected departure from Live stuns industry insiders – and Kelly Ripa The announcement of Michael Strahan’s departure from Disney-ABC Domestic Television’s Live With Kelly and Michael stunned the entertainment world Tuesday – perhaps none other than co-host Kelly Ripa herself, who reportedly wasn’t happy about the news. The NFL Hall Of Famer and former New York Giants defensive back accepted an […]

T Dog’s Grab Bag: WCPT launches show targeted to LGBT community

– As first reported by Robert Feder, Newsweb WCPT-AM announced it was launching a new weekly program targeted to Chicago’s LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) community. Titled Out Chicago, host Scott Duff takes on issues relevant to the LGBT community in the Windy City and surrounding area. WCPT also plans to air Out Chicago vignettes, from 6 a.m. to […]

“TMZ Live” heads to Fox Chicago

Ricki Lake changes EPs on her newly relaunched show WFLD and four other Fox-owned stations announced they were slotting Warner Bros.’ TMZ Live, a spin-off of the popular half-hour strip beginning Monday. TMZ Live features TMZ creator and executive producer Harvey Levin talking to his staff about the day’s entertainment stories in an expanded, hour-long format. Launched in 2007 as […]

NFL agrees to new deals with CBS, NBC, and Fox

The National Football League has secured deals with three of its network partners to keep football on over-the-air broadcast TV for the next decade. The deals keeps everything status quo – Fox continues to broadcast the NFC package it has held since 1994; CBS retains the AFC package it has held since 1998; and NBC keeps the Sunday night package […]

“Regis” finale scores for WGN-TV

Regis Philblin’s departure from Live with Regis & Kelly on Friday drew big ratings for Tribune-owned CW affiliate WGN-TV. According to numbers obtained from Marc Berman at TV Media Insights, WGN scored a 6.9 Nielsen household rating and a 22 share with Regis’ farewell, and coasted past ABC-owned WLS-TV’s local morning show Windy City Live, which replaced departing The Oprah […]

WBBM-TV 10 p.m. news soars in the ratings

Leno hampering NBC affiliates’ late news; other November “sweeps” notes ABC-owned WLS-TV dominated the ratings in households and key demos in the just concluded November “sweeps” period (do we still have those in this LPM era?) but it was the two other network O&Os who made headlines. NBC-owned WMAQ-TV slipped to third place in households at 10 p.m., behind a […]

Local May sweeps numbers, Part 1

Overall analysis: While the major networks lost steam in the recently concluded May sweeps, many local stations actually saw increases year-to-year in late news and in other time periods. Translation: Viewers are tuning out the prime-time shows on the major networks, but not local programming or local news on their affiliates. Boston: CBS-owned WBZ-TV pulled off a major upset by […]

Sweeping up

We’re back, and we’re sweeping up from the recent February ratings period in local markets (All ratings are measured by Nielsen): New York: WABC-TV dominated the ratings and in all local news time periods as usual, but it was WCBS-TV that surged to second place overall. A bad book for WNBC-TV, which fell to third, but it was an even […]