ABC at TCA: Trying to get out of the basement

The Television Critics Association Press Tour rolled on Thursday and Friday with ABC up. We’ll start with Friday and work our way backward to Thursday as the juicier stuff is up front: – ABC executive session: Entertainment Chief Paul Lee addressed the press at TCA on friday, and was unapologetic about ripping off CBS’ Big Brother with The Glass House, […]

CBS revamps morning show – again

Here we go again: The Church Of Tisch is revamping its perennially low-rated morning show for the 284th time – and there may be changes to WBBM’s dawn patrol newscasts as well. CBS canceled The Early Show on Tuesday and is launching a new two-hour newscast with the rather odd pairing of Charlie Rose and Gayle King with Early Show […]

T Dog’s Grab Bag – The syndication edition

The T Dog Media Blog has a lot of syndication items in the Grab Bag this week. Let’s see what we have: – Program Partners, which was burned earlier this year by failing to find the funds to launch Marie Osmond’s daytime talk show, is turning to Canada once again to launch a syndicated program. The syndicator acquired Steven and […]

T Dog’s Groovy Grab Bag

WFLD relaunches web site; More Howie; NATPE Wrap-up. – Fox-owned WFLD has relaunched its website (myfoxchicago.com), as part of an effort to revamp its websites in all eighteen markets where it owns stations. WFLD is the second to get a makeover; Fox’s WNYW-TV in New York was the first. WFLD’s new website looks more clean and organized than the previous […]

T Dog’s Four Pack

It’s back! After a few weeks of being on hiatus, the weekly list of winners and losers returns. The Four Fab Pack – Marie Osmond. What a career comeback. She’s performing with her brother on stage in Vegas and now her new talk show for fall has cleared 70 percent of the country in syndication. And she’s still fine. – […]

T Dog’s Groovy Grab Bag – The NATPE edition

This version of the Groovy Grab Bag comes to you from the National Association of Television Program Executives convention going on in Las Vegas. Before we start on a barrage of news and notes, let’s talk about the convention itself: things are not going so well. Attendance at the convention is way down, as station managers and others have decided […]

"Rachael Ray" out at WABC? (updated 2)

The New York ABC-owned station is considering axing the program from its 10 a.m. time slot due to mediocre ratings, according to this article in the New York Post. Or is it because ABC parent Disney wants to reclaim the time period for its own fare (remember Wayne Brady’s and Tony Danza’s talk shows? Works of masterpiece right there.) If […]

NATPE News

The latest from the convention: – In a coup for small syndie Program Partners, the company signed Marie Osmond to host a one-hour talk show strip for fall 2009. Marie Osmond last co-hosted a talk show with her brother Donny back in the late ’90’s for Sony. – MGM has decided to bring back Gladiators 2000, a teen-oriented game show […]