T Dog’s Grab Bag: NBA Finals score a slam dunk

– A lot has made of the Stanley Cup Final ratings between the Boston Bruins and Chicago Blackhawks, but what about the NBA Finals you ask? Well, the seven-game series between the San Antonio spurs and defending champion Miami Heat drew the highest rating overall for ABC since 2010 and the third highest-rated Finals series during its tenure, dating back […]

The race to replace Oprah: "Anderson", "Ellen" benefit

Modern Family syndication sales reaches up to 50 percent of the U.S. Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution seems to benefitting the most thus far when it comes to replacing The Oprah Winfrey Show when it leaves this September, with Anderson Cooper and Ellen DeGeneres’ talk shows snapping up time slots soon-to-be formerly held by the queen of talk. Anderson has […]

Bending for news

For the second time in two days, an ABC affiliate announced plans to get into the local news business. Chicago-based Weigel Broadcasting announced on Tuesday the hiring of Aaron Ramey to launch a news operation at WBND-LP (low power) in South Bend, Ind., and plans to develop other programming for the station and sister outlets WCWW-LP (CW) and My Network […]

Local newscasts return to St. Louis’ KDNL

In Chicago, ABC-owned WLS-TV’s newscast have topped the charts for more than 20 years, completely dominating their time periods – and the same can be said for other ABC stations, including WABC in New York, KABC-TV in Los Angeles, WPVI in Philadelphia, WFTV in Orlando, and WSB-TV in Atlanta. KDNL-TV in St. Louis? Not so much. In fact, it doesn’t […]

Tribune and The CW: Culture Clash?

While the Tribune Co. is struggling with the antics of CEO Randy Michaels and Chapter 11 bankruptcy, its TV division is actually taking care of its own business – despite the struggles of The CW – the network which thirteen of its stations (including WPIX in New York, KTLA in Los Angeles and WGN-TV in Chicago) are aligned with, in […]

KPLR shifts CW primetime to 8 p.m.

Tribune’s KPLR-TV in St. Louis is moving its half-hour 9 p.m. newscast to 7 p.m. and expanding it to a hour beginning on Sept. 8. This means CW primetime fare currently airing at 7 p.m. is shifting to 8 p.m., with KPLR taking the Mountain Time feed. For example, when 90210 airs in St. Louis (8 p.m. Central), it’ll air […]

Off-network sitcoms on rebound… or are they?

Is the off-network sitcom drought about to come to an end in syndication? It very well may be. But stations may have other ideas. This story from TVNewsday reports on the off-network sitcom drought this coming season and the number of sitcoms coming down the pike in September 2009. For the first time in recent memory, there are no fresh […]

Tennis fans cry fault to KSDK

You’d think KSDK-TV in St. Louis was doing the right thing when it decided to drop its Wimbledon coverage to air something they thought was more important, like a Cubs-Cardinals game. Nah. The Gannett-owned NBC affiliate shunted the Men’s Final featuring Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer to a split-screen while the Cubs-Cardinals game was on and with audio, meaning tennis […]

Local station roundup

Let’s see what’s going on in local markets around the country: -According to Nielsen, KETC-TV in St. Louis was the nation’s highest-rated public TV station in October, even outperforming WTTW in Chicago. The station’s total-day ratings were up 8 percent from a year ago and up 39 percent in primetime. It’s same to assume that this station outdraws Sinclair’s weak-kneed […]