Also: Fox re-ups Animation Domination as White Sox voices Jason Benetti and Steve Stone get reneweals, too; DirecTV adds a NewsMax replacement; Blackhawks’ ratings sag as does the rest of the NHL Even though it’s a ratings period most radio stations not playing Christmas music ignore, the “Holiday” book for iHeartMedia’s 93.9 FM The Lite dominated to no one’s surprise […]
Also: Mayoral debates scheduled; CBS-owned stations to rebrand news properties Audacy’s all-news WBBM-AM/WCFS-FM announced last week the hire of Craig Schwalb as brand manager and news director of the station effective January 23. He succeeds Ron Gleason, who retired last month. Schwalb comes from Hubbard’s dominant all-news station WTOP in Washington, D.C., a station who typically leads the country in […]
Pritzker, Bailey showdown tops time slot in viewers, demos Chicago viewers obviously love their politics: according to Nielsen in a press release from Nexstar’s WGN-TV, the first of two Illinois gubernatorial debates between incumbent Democrat J.B. Pritzker and Republican Darren Bailey was a big local ratings hit on October 6, winning the 7-8 p.m. time period with an exact total […]
Also: Jennifer Hudson, Sherri Sheppard start off well; Clippers return to broadcast TV in L.A. We won’t go into this as much as we did in previous years when the Bears and Packers play in primetime as what has been said about this…has already been said. The Chicago team’s 27-10 loss to Green Bay drew 20.8 million viewers across NBC, […]
Also: NBC 5 makes a new hire while a Baltimore TV reporter gets fired. The second edition of The Field Of Dreams game didn’t have the theatrics of last year’s contest, but still drew a healthy amount of eyeballs. The game featured two teams who were already out of playoff contention this season: The 44-64 Chicago Cubs and the […]
The “slap seen around the world” takes dominates on night where it should have been about historic wins [Editor’s Note: This story was updated March 29 to add final Nielsen ratings and to make some minor corrections.] Ratings for this year’s Academy Awards telecast increased from last year but as we know, this isn’t the biggest story if the […]
Also: All CHGO launches; two network TV shows canceled; restaurant with a sitcom connection burns down Much has been made about the lackluster Winter Olympics ratings, but one angle wasn’t talked about much – their effect on NBC affiliates – or lack thereof. And no one experienced a bigger disappointment than Chicago’s NBC 5 (WMAQ.) As reported by Robert Feder […]
Close game helps ratings After a year of decline, total viewership numbers for the Super Bowl were back on the upswing, achieving the highest total numbers in years. The game pitted the Cincinnati Bengals – their first Super Bowl appearance in 33 years – against the Los Angeles Rams, who moved back to California in 2016 after 21 […]
The Bears aren’t having fun but the NFL, Packers, and NBC sure are as ratings up from last year’s rivalry game. Meet your new television industry overlord Every year around Thanksgiving, this site publishes a feature honoring the worst in media called The T Dog Media Turkey Awards. But now there is a new yearly tradition on T Dog Media […]
Two bad teams equals good ratings for the NFL…somehow You’d think given the horrid records of two of the worst teams in football playing against each other, people would eschew this matchup to find something else better to do right? Well, that theory was tested on Thanksgiving Day when the 3-7 Chicago Bears took on the 0-9-1 Detroit Lions – […]
First title for city since Cubs championship clincher in 2016 [Editor’s note: This post was updated on October 21st to add local ratings information.] While a certain quarterback for an NFL team north of the state line claims he owns the football team that plays on the Lakefront, there is one team he can’t lay claim to – and it’s […]
Also: Don’t Bet Your Life; Bids made for Tegna; Johnny B to host RHOF ceremony The NFL continues to rack up impressive numbers at a time when viewers are abandoning linear TV in droves. Case in point: The Bears game on Sunday against the Bengals drew a household 22.9 rating and 60 share for Fox-owned WFLD-TV Chicago Sunday, easily making […]
Same old Sunday Night Football story for Bears I’m not going to bore you whining about why the Chicago Bears keep getting national prime-time TV appearances; I’ve covered the topic aplenty over the years, most recently here and here. But the decision to keep Matt Nagy and Ryan Pace around for another year is one of those “Chicago Way” type […]
Featuring the White Sox and Yankees in Iowa was the highest-rated regular season game since 2005 If you build it, they will come. Well, they came all right – and proved to be a boon for Major League Baseball. The inaugural Field Of Dreams game – set in Dyersville, Iowa (located in the Cedar Rapids-Waterloo-Dubuque market) in a newly-built ballfield […]
Lightning’s Stanley Cup Final win is the finale for NBC NBC closed out its sixteen-year run with the NHL with modest ratings for the Stanley Cup Final series between the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Montreal Canadiens, who made their first Final appearance since 1993. According to Sports Media Watch and Nielsen, the entire five-game series drew an average of […]