Charlotte’s WCCB added MeTV last month. Now nearly half of the country will hear the word “Berwyn”. Chicago-based Weigel Broadcasting Co. and MGM announced today its MeTV digital subchannel network has now cleared 45 percent of U.S. households after three and a half months on the air. Station groups who have cleared MeTV on their digital subchannels include Bahakel Communications, […]
Want more Two and a Half Men in syndication? You got it. But if you want more crazy Charlie Sheen going ape in a hotel room moments, you’ll have to wait – those come at random. In a story Broadcasting & Cable broke Wednesday, Tribune Broadcasting and Sinclair Broadcasting announced they has renewed Two and a Half Men for a […]
It look like Sean Compton has decided to make his legancy known before he is shown the door. In the huge upheaval that was happening last week at Tribune (which saw the exit of CEO Randy Michaels), one of Michaels’ hires cut a programing deal with NBC Universal to continue to carry its conflict talk shows on its station group […]
Here’s what going on: – WGN-AM’s Garry Meier is starring in his own TV special, set to air on WCIU July 11 at 10:30 p.m, titled The Garry Meier Special. Among the featured interviews: George Wendt (Cheers), Cubs broadcaster Len Kasper, Richard Lewis (Anything But Love), Tim Kazurinsky, and the lady who pick the lottery numbers. This sounds awfully like […]
Off-net sitcom clears five more markets. Weigel’s WDJT/WMLW in Milwaukee gets syndie rights to show. Warner Bros. red-hot Big Bang Theory has now cleared five more markets a month after the show cleared ten Fox-owned and operated stations, including WFLD-TV and WPWR-TV in Chicago. Among the five markets cleared is Milwaukee, whose CBS-affiliated WDJT-TV purchased the show to air on […]
Conn Smythe winner Jonathan Toews hoists the Cup, the Blackhawks’ first since 1961. (Photo courtesy of Chicago Tribune) For the first time in 49 years, the Chicago Blackhawks hoisted Lord Stanley’s Cup. And viewers fled into the entrances to see the history making event. Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals between the Blackhawks and the Philadelphia Flyers drew a […]
The ultimate showdown in marquee events took place Sunday when the Game 2 of the NBA Finals took on ABC and Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals between the Chicago Blackhawks and the Philadelphia Flyers took place on NBC. While it was no surprise the NBA finals rolled over the Stanley Cup by the wide margin, in Chicago the […]
What’s the best part of the Winter Olympics? Seeing one of the best hockey tournaments in the world. And this Olympics proved no different. The Gold Medal Game in Men’s Hockey between the United States and Canada drew the largest audience for any hockey game in 30 years on this side of the border and the largest audience ever for […]
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 […]
The NBC-owned stations have made a deal with co-owned NBC Universal Television Distribution to begin airing off-cable repeats of The Real Housewives Of… as a weekday strip beginning in the fall of 2010. Locally, the program will air in a unspecified time period on WMAQ-TV. The program has also been sold to Hearst Broadcasting, which means the series will also […]
The debut of Conan O’Brien on The Tonight Show Monday scored huge ratings, though not as big as Leno’s sendoff on Friday. Conan debuted to a 7.1 overnight household rating and 17 overnight household share, according to Nielsen. Locally in Chicago (WMAQ-TV, NBC5), O’Brien’s debut notched a 8.7/18 (scroll down), tied for fifth with Pittsburgh (WPXI-TV) for the most-watched market. […]
The Super Bowl XLIII matchup between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Arizona Cardinals drew 95.4 million viewers, making it the third most-watched TV show of all time, trailing the 1983 series finale of M*A*S*H and Super Bowl XLII between the New England Patriots and the New York Giants. Here’s the breakdown: – In the 56 markets metered for overnight and/or […]
Trading the fourteenth-largest television market for the forty-fifth is like trading Kevin Garnett for Adam Morrison. But that’s what the owner of the Seattle SuperSonics (No. 14 and 1,782,040 households) and the NBA exactly did with the announcement of the team’s move to Oklahoma City (No. 45 and 676,850 households.) SuperSonics owner Clay Bennett will pay the city $75 million […]
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 […]
Back to serious business: The causality list at CBS just keeps on coming. In addition to the cuts at WBBM-TV on Monday: – New York: WCBS-TV (which was home to “Black Wednesday” in 1996 when seven on-air personalities were laid off) dropped two correspondents, and canceled its Sports Sunday wrap-up show. – Dallas: More layoffs at KTVT/KTXA, where several more […]
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