T Dog’s Groovy Grab Bag

– The ALCS Game 7 between the Boston Red Sox and the Tampa Bay Rays on TBS last night drew a record-setting 13.4 million viewers, making it the highest-rated baseball game in cable TV history. Boston made a historic comeback in Game 5 being down 7-0 and winning the game 8-7, and winning Game 6. But the Rays beat Boston […]

T Dog’s Groovy Grab Bag

– WWE’s move of Friday Night Smackdown to My Network TV drew 3.2 million in its first airing Friday night, finishing first in the time period among males 18-34 and 18-49, and giving the small net its largest audience ever. However, the premiere of Star Wars: The Clone Wars on Cartoon Network drew 4 million viewers, setting a record as […]

T Dog’s Groovy Grab Bag

In celebration of post number 1400, let’s see what’s in the bag (some celebration, huh?) – How about this? With the White Sox victory over the Twins in last night’s tiebraker game for the American League Central Division Title, both the Cubs and the White Sox are in the postseason for the first time in 102 years. But if you […]

Off-network sitcoms on rebound… or are they?

Is the off-network sitcom drought about to come to an end in syndication? It very well may be. But stations may have other ideas. This story from TVNewsday reports on the off-network sitcom drought this coming season and the number of sitcoms coming down the pike in September 2009. For the first time in recent memory, there are no fresh […]

R.I.P. Skip Caray

The longtime Atlanta Braves announcer on radio and on WTBS died in his sleep Sunday. Skip Caray was the son of broadcasting legend Haray Caray (who died in 1998) and was current TBS/WPCH-TV baseball broadcaster Chip Caray’s father.

TCA Notes: Spending a day with Turner

Turner’s networks took center stage on Friday at the TCA Tour with a added bonus – a preview of Cartoon Network’s Clone Wars: –CNN: The all-news network unveiled its latest gizmo: A high tech touch screen used during this election system to break down election returns from counties. Yours truly saw this first-hand when it was used during the Indiana […]

Now a word from a total douche

Oh no they didn’t! An “interstitial ad” for the unfunny The Bill Engvall Show on TBS popped up during a Family Guy episode on Monday night. Engvall simply walked up to the screen, paused it, and plugged his useless sitcom – then unpaused it and was back to Family Guy. Three seconds later, a real commercial popped up (and in […]

Superstation WGN in for makeover

The national version of WGN seen on cable systems and satellite (except in Chicago, where Superstation WGN is seen only on satellite), is in for a major Extreme Makeover-type overhaul. Specifics weren’t mentioned, but Superstation WGN is scheduled to be re-launched in May, but the changes may only involve imaging, and not programming. WGN went national in 1978, linking national […]

NLCS bombs in the ratings

No surprise here: The National League Championship Series between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Colorado Rockies averaged an anemic 2.8 rating and 6 share on TBS, down 61 percent from last year’s series between the New York Mets and the St. Louis Cardinals, which aired on Fox. This year’s NLCS ended in a four game sweep with the Rockies sweeping […]

Sports broadcasts continue to struggle in the ratings

If you thought Chicago sports teams were having a bad year… ratings for live sports broadcasts are still struggling just as badly, and no wonder: – The National League Championship Series between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Colorado Rockies on TBS had a household rating of 2.2 for Game 1. Colorado swept the series from Arizona 4-0 with last night’s […]

Cubs fans not happy with playoffs on TBS

And the fact that games one and two are on at 9 p.m, Game 4 on Sunday at noon, etc. (just be grateful your team made the playoffs, okay?) This article from the Trib is about TBS getting the divisional series and the NLCS on an exclusive basis (no over-the-air broadcasts) per the new deal. Chicago (city proper, excluding the […]

Wilkos leads first-run syndicated rookies…

with a huge, huge, gigantic 0.9 rating. Meanwhile, Family Guy finished ahead of Friends and Seinfeld among off-network sitcoms and finished only behind Everybody Loves Raymond, whose rating fell thanks in part to downgrades by several stations (including WGN-TV here) into the wee hours because of an expiring contract that comes next spring. In other words, Raymond is in “lame […]

TBS grabs black viewers

And they are doing this on the strength of House Of Payne and the theatrical Diary of a Mad Black Woman. With the broadcast networks abandoning the African-American audience in prime-time (or any audience that isn’t a female aged 18-49), TBS has taken up the slack and has benefited greatly, with Payne the numero uno show in black households and […]