Year marked by scandals, futility, and other things 2018 wasn’t exactly a repeat of the last two horrendous years in the media world, but scandals and deceit still ruled the roost. Though not topping 2017’s Disney-Fox deal, 2018 had some mega transactions – though the second-biggest merger of 2017 went bust as Sinclair Broadcasting’s $4 billion deal to buy Tribune […]
– How to get ahead by channeling the Xbox One and the PS4: CBS-owned WBBM-TV has unveiled its latest weapon in the weather war, with the look and feel of a video game – one you can play on the road. WBBM’s new toy is a new vehicle called The Mobile Weather Lab, and the Columbia Puslar 600 ultrasonic weather […]
* The first shot has been fired in the Chicago’s new sports-talk wars: Robert Feder reports that Tribune’s new Game has stolen Ben Finfer away from CBS’ The Score (WSCR), where he’ll serve as producer – but also as show host, being paired with David Kaplan at Noon and then joins Alex Quigley and Howard Griffith from 1-3 p.m. Finfer […]
The latest Quick Hits and Bits contains a lot of good stuff, so here we go! – Even though the Chicago Bulls lost Saturday night to the Philadelphia 76ers, the first WGN-TV regular season game featuring Derrick Rose’s return scored gangbuster ratings for the Tribune-owned station – even on a night notorious for low HUT levels. The game earned a […]
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 […]
Trisha also debuts in daytime; Bill Cunningham rolls out nationally Even though the “official” start of the new season doesn’t begin until next week, two new primetime series made their debut Monday night: J.J. Abrams’ Revolution and Fox’s Mob Doctor. Revolution got off to a good start, drawing a 4.1 Nielsen adult demo (18-49) rating and 11.7 million viewers, retaining […]
Reach out and touch someone…. No, not there. Or there. The Grab Bag: – CBS AT&T . CBS Corp. and AT & T have signed a brand new retransmission consent deal, covering all CBS-owned stations (which includes CBS, CW, and independent stations), Showtime, The Smithsonian Channel, and CBS Sports Network. Locally, the deal covers CBS-owned WBBM-TV over all AT&T U-Verse […]
When you come across something like The Puppet’s Court, you’re probably thinking this must be one of those first-run syndicated strips that was being pitched at the recent NATPE gathering in Miami back in January. But believe it or not, The Puppet’s Court was actually a newscast segment earlier this year on a local TV station in Cleveland – with […]
In what can be billed as a blindside announcement, Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution announced Tuesday the sale of ABC Wednesday night sitcom The Middle to 92 percent of the country for off-network syndication beginning in September 2013, with station groups representing Tribune, Sinclair, Weigel, Raycom, and CBS. The swift announcement – and just as swift clearance of the show […]
Anderson renewed for a second season; Bill Cunningham is putting up solid numbers for WGN – but not in his home market of Cincinnati. It seems like syndicators are ready to party like its 1995 again, when a slew of Ricki Lake– talk show knockoffs flooded the market. Well, here we go again as already four talk shows have been […]
Anderson Cooper’s new syndicated talk show began on Monday. Welcome to Life… After Oprah. Monday marked a new era in syndication as repeats of The Oprah Winfrey Show came to an end on Friday (her last original episode aired on May 25) as the broadcast business is without the queen of talk […]
This Grab Bag is for you – that’s right. You – the people. You have the right to gripe about yet another newscast or yet another new daytime courtroom show (We The People) on the horizon. You also have the right to have an alternative to the regular crap on TV – thanks to two new diginet TV channels. You […]
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, […]
The 47th annual National Association of Television Program Executives convention kicked off today in a new location: The Fontainebleau in Miami, Fla. on the East Coast after years of being based in the western U.S. In the past, NATPE has been held in San Francisco, Houston, New Orleans, and Las Vegas, where it was held for the last several years. […]
Bagging a renewal: Sheldon and the gang are around for three more years. The Grab Bag is actually living up to its name today by grabbing some baggage and some renewals: – WCIU here in Chicago and nine stations owned by Sinclair Broadcasting quietly began testing an off-cable dating game show this week called Baggage, with a format that combines […]