"In the Loop" closes

The NBC-owned stations and iVillage has canceled the hour-long embarrassment that was In the Loop With iVillage, a daytime talk show taped at NBC Tower at 454 North Columbus Drive – not in the Loop , but on the city’s Gold Coast. The program will continue until March 28. No word on what WMAQ-TV will air in the 11 a.m. […]

Channel 5 to go all out on election night

NBC-owned WMAQ-TV plans to go all out on Super Tuesday primary night with comprehensive coverage on the station and on its’ website. The multi-platform plan go into action at 7 p.m. with coverage on WMAQ and real-time election updates on the station’s website, NBC5.com., with election coverage streamed on the web and on the station’s digital weather channel (WMAQ-DT 5.2.), […]

NATPE News

– Syndicated repeats of Fox’s hit Bones has been cleared 45 percent of the country, including all of the Fox O&Os, not to mention station groups belonging to CBS, Tribune, and Bahakel. Weekday airings of the program were sold to TNT. -CBS’ Judge Judy has been re-upped until 2012. – As mentioned earlier, Program Partners has renewed Merv Griffin’s Crosswords […]

NATPE is here

The NATPE convention begins today in Las Vegas, and Broadcasting & Cable has a story on what the nation’s 25 largest TV station groups are shopping for next season. One thing is clear: A lot of veteran syndicated programs (Oprah, Wheel, Rachael Ray, People’s Court, etc.) are sold well into the future – for the next four or five years, […]

Mora departs Channel 2 for WFOR in Miami

Antonio Mora is going back home to South Florida – the co-anchor of WBBM-TV’s 6 p.m. newscast is leaving for an anchor job in Miami at WFOR-TV, where he will front the news at 5 , 6, and11 p.m. He begins on January 28. His final day at the station is Friday. WBBM and WFOR are both owned by CBS. […]

WNBC goes off the wagon

NBC owned WNBC-TV in New York has decided to accept hard-liquor ads after 11 p.m. (except during Saturday Night Live.) A New York station can do it because they don’t have the holy rollers (i.e. Rev. Pflager) that Chicago has (of course, Comcast SportsNet and the former FSN Chicago has been accepting hard-liquor ads for years. Who is the sponsor […]

WMAQ hit with kids’ programming fine

Still on holiday, but this news is important since this involves FCC action against a local TV station: WMAQ-TV, owned by NBC Universal, was hit with a $10,000 fine from the Federal Communications Commission for failing to publicize the “existence and location” of its children’s TV programming reports. Click here for more details. Also on the FCC beat, former CBS […]

How the L.A. and San Diego TV stations covered the wildfires

TV stations in Los Angeles and San Diego had their hands full covering major wildfires in their respective metro areas this week, and they did so by expanding their on-air coverage (including pre-empting network and syndicated programs) and expanding their web presence. Many stations like NBC-owned KNBC in Los Angeles and McGraw-Hill’s ABC affiliate KGTV in San Diego provided live […]

WBBM-TV continues to struggle in the ratings

This week’s issue of Crain’s Chicago Business details the continuing ratings struggle of CBS-owned WBBM-TV. Joe Ahern, who helped rocket competing WLS-TV into a ratings powerhouse in the ’80’s and ’90’s, is finding it a difficult task to repeat the same feat at WBBM. At issue is the station’s poorly-rated newscasts, which places behind not only ABC-owned WLS and NBC-owned […]

Chicago is "Family Guy’s" kind of town

It looks like Family Guy has succeeded where The Simpsons succeeded. According to numbers supplied by Twentieth Television (from a banner ad that appeared on TV Week’s website), Family Guy’s airing at 10 p.m. on WGN-TV finished number one in the time period between Sept. 17 and Sept. 21 among men 18-34 (2.2) and women 18-34 (2.6). It beat not […]

WNBC blinks first

The first station to make a move in the new fall season is NBC-owned WNBC-TV in New York, which is dropping its soft news-oriented News4You, and replacing it with a traditional newscast at 5:30 p.m. Ratings for the show were behind ABC-owned WABC-TV, which ranks number one at 5 and 5:30 p.m. WNBC has also removed the second half-hour of […]

It’s a "Deal" for WMAQ-TV

Note: The link to the story may require registration. NBC Universal’s Deal or No Deal weekday syndicated strip has been sold to a few NBC O&Os, including WMAQ-TV in Chicago, as well as to stations owned by CBS, Allbritton, Scripps, and Sinclair. The program will be hosted by Howie Mandel and feature the same elements as the prime-time show – […]

Warner, NBC O&O’s come to long-term deal

It doesn’t give them TMZ, but it does give the ten O&Os a new talk show hosted by Chicagoan Bonnie Hunt for fall 2008 (with the exception of WCAU in Philly); a renewal for Extra through 2012; and a renewal for Ellen through 2011. Both programs air on NBC-owned WMAQ-TV in Chicago.

Bill Rancic to host new talk show set in Chicago

Apprentice winner and Orland Park native Bill Rancic will co-host In the Loop with iVillage, a reincarnated version of iVillageLive, a show that aired on the NBC O&O’s from Universal Studios in Orlando and flopped with viewers. The new version of the program will air live weekdays at 11 a.m. (CT) on WMAQ-TV here in Chicago from the NBC Tower. […]