Nik Wallenda draws a crowd – inside and outside

Wallenda’s stunt over Chicago skyline draws viewers Biggest draw for Discovery since 2010 – or is it? As far as we know, there was no trickery involved in Nik Wallenda’s wire-walking stunt, which he successfully walked from Marina City to the Leo Burnett Building and between the Marina City towers themselves, high above the air with no net or no […]

T Dog’s Grab Bag: Sunday belonged to Cutler, “Walking Dead”

– Also: other Sunday, weekend rating results – The Game to stick around, while another The Game ends – Goodbye, Everybody Loves Mancow Jay Cutler and the Chicago Bears’ winning performance Sunday also translated to a ratings victory – the game against the Atlanta Falcons drew a 31.5 Nielsen household rating according to Lewis Lazare at Chicago Business Journal – […]

Growing opposition to dropping sports blackout rule

  Illinois’ Black Caucus latest to voice objection With the NFL now selling out stadiums coast-to-coast with the increased popularity of the league, the logic would be the rule that blacks out home National Football League games on TV 72 hours before a game is sold out would be outdated. You might want to think again. Led by FCC Democratic […]

TCA Summer Press Tour 2014: CBS sessions turn testy

Even though many people view CBS’ primetime time lineup with about as much excitement as watching an ice cube melt, their TCA Press Tour presentations are something different entirely. There were a lot of people here on the hot seat, including CBS Entertainment President Nina Tassler and Dawson’s Creek creator, Kevin Williamson, whose new show (Stalker) drew the wrath of […]

Chicago Cubs to leave WGN Radio; head to WBBM-AM

Welcome the newest member of the CBS family – the Chicago Cubs. After 56 years, the Chicago Cubs are moving to a new radio home – Newsradio 780, or WBBM-AM, which is long been speculated. A press conference has been scheduled for Thursday morning at Wrigley Field to announced the new, seven-year deal between the team and the CBS-owned radio […]

The Upfronts post-game show

Another upfront is in the books as the five major TV networks released their 2014-15 campaign to win you, the viewer. And they are going to have a hard time doing so. This year’s upfronts have not been impressive, with a lot of programming missing original concepts, innovation, and creativity – all you have to do is point to the […]

The address is CBS for 2014-15 (or not)

CBS unveiled its 2014-15 primetime schedule at an upfront presentation in New York Wednesday and introduced eight new series to the world. Among the announcements made at the conference call was the (not-so-surprising) end to Two And A Half Men in May 2015 after twelve seasons – the longest running live-action sitcom since My Three Sons, which also lasted twelve […]

TCA: Plenty on the plate for NBC

NBC and two of its cable networks  took to the stage last weekend at the TCA Winter Press Tour in Pasadena to tout its post-Olympic schedule – which contains a major realignment of its late fringe schedule. While NBC has improved its programming under Entertainment President Bob Greenblatt, there are still many weak spots, including Thursday night. – Executive session: […]

“Scandal” remains red hot

Super Fun Night has Super Fun ratings Crazy Ones decline; NBC Thursday sitcom block flops Judging by all the viewing parties held nationwide for this show (yours truly even got an invitation to one,) you’d think Scandal would be the hottest thing since the advent of the pancake. You’d be right. Scandal skyrocketed in popularity over the past year thanks […]

Fox threatens to move its programming to cable

Is this legitimate? Or nothing more than an empty threat? Who’d thought something as small as a dime-sized antenna would cause this much trouble? The industry was a buzz about on Monday at the annual National Association of Broadcasters gathering in Las Vegas after comments made by News Corp. president and COO Chase Carey in the opening session, threatening to remove Fox […]

Best and Worst Super Bowl Commercials – 2013

Welcome to the seventh annual wrap-up of the best and worst Super Bowl commercials (man, time flies!) The ads were featured in Super Bowl XLVII, a matchup between the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers televised over CBS. Here are the five best (and a few honorable mentions) and worst ads (you probably guessed by now who finished first) […]

The 2012 T Dog Media Turkey Awards

Get the cranberry sauce ready: it’s time for the 7th annual T Dog Media Turkey Awards where every Thanksgiving, yours truly honors the worst in the media business for the year and 2012 is filled with so many media turkeys! Without further ado, here are this year’s, um… “winners”: Animal Practice. Premiering after the Summer Olympics (or more aptly put, […]

ESPN re-ups with Major League Baseball

(Editor’s note: the wrong draft of this article was posted earlier. This is the correct version. -T.H.) It’s been the mantra for the last couple of years now: whatever ESPN wants, ESPN gets. I guess there are some benefits to being The Worldwide Leader in B.S. ESPN announced on Tuesday a renewal deal with Major League Baseball, with the sports […]

The Excellent 10 of 2011

There is a lot of mediocrity that abounded in the media business this year. But in this post, T Dog Media is honoring the standouts of 2011 – the year’s ten best shows and the best media items. Let’s countdown the best shows of the year first… Best shows of 2011 10. Bob’s Burgers (Fox). What could’ve been the next […]