A new size for the Trib; A new FCC Chairman (hooray!); Stargate Atlantis exits with a bang; Fox cancels Prison Break. – One advantage the Chicago Sun-Times had over the Trib was its tabloid-like size and the ease of reading it on the bus or on the “L”. Now, that’s gone. Oh-oh… Chicago Tribune introduces a new size: The paper […]
– Station swap: Raycom and Local TV are trading stations with each other and maybe one to be named later… Raycom has traded CBS affiliate WTVR in Richmond, Va. to Local TV for Fox affiliate WBRC-TV in Birmingham. Raycom, which is based in Alabama, will now have a presence in most of the state. Earlier, the Justice Department rejected Raycom’s […]
The ongoing saga of Tribune bankruptcy will have a big effect on the syndication business. Tribune owes four major syndicators money: Warner Bros., NBC Universal, Disney-ABC, and Twentieth. As a result of the Chapter 11 filing (with Tribune restructuring debt), the studios aren’t going to see a dime of the cash anytime soon. This puts some stress on the studios’ […]
– WLIT has added a new afternoon guy: His name is Kevin Gossett, and he takes over the 2-7 p.m. time slot beginning yesterday at the Clear Channel-owned Adult Contemporary station. One problem, though: he’s being voiced tracked from Phoenix, where he works as PD and afternoon personality at KEZ-FM. So if you hear him talk about how nice and […]
It’s another edition (and another new name) of the weekly winners and losers list, now called The T Dog’s 4 pack. Let’s hope this one sticks, as the last two titles were quite clunky. There are two 4-packs: one Fab, another Flop. Simple for you? I know it is for me… – T Dog’s Fab Four-Pack: President-Elect Barack Obama. Yes, […]
This week’s winners and losers: T Dog’s Fab Four – Obama’s campaign infomercial. Great marketing ploy to get your message out by buying time on three major broadcast networks and a few cable outlets simultaneously, as the move scored 30 million viewers across all platforms Wednesday night. But will this translate to votes? – ‘Til Death goes on hiatus. Hopefully […]
Another edition of The Groovy Grab Bag: – A report in the New York Post states the long-running The Simpsons may be picked up for not one but three more years, taking the program through 2012. After this season, The Simpsons will become the longest-running scripted program in television history (the all-time champ is NBC’s Meet the Press, which has […]
In this week’s edition, we have a renewal, a couple of layoffs, and two firings… T Dog’s Fabulous Four Gossip Girl and One Tree Hill. Say what you want about The CW (I know I have), but last Monday’s duo finished second in its time period among women 18-34 (with One Tree finishing first among women 12-24), doing what the […]
Forget the goat, it’s this guy’s fault the Cubs didn’t win. There’s only one Floptober… Remember when I said Darkmane (from those X Games spots) couldn’t foil the X Games but could show up at Wrigley to foil the Cubs chances at going to the World Series? Not only he succeeded, but he also managed to find time to show […]
– NBC’s new remake of Knight Rider couldn’t start the car with a lackluster third place finish in adults 18-49. Maybe they should have remade My Mother, the Car instead? (Oh God, no!) – Oxygen has acquired the exclusive cable rights to reruns of America’s Next Top Model, currently on MTV. The move takes place in January, when the show […]
There’s going to be a new name for this, I swear… T Dog’s Fab Four – America Ferrera slams The Hills, 90210, and Gossip Girl. The Ugly Betty star says the shows are mean: ” Like, if you’re watching The Hills or 90210, all the backstabbing shapes the way we act – you go to school, and you think you’re […]
It looks like there’s another television show that is going to outlive all of us… Scooby-Doo, a program that been around in one form or another since 1969, is spurning a live-action movie for Cartoon Network that’s being billed as a prequel to the two-live action movies. Titled Scooby-Doo: In The Beginning, it details how the Mystery, Inc. gang met. […]
Comic-Con ended on Sunday, but now the next event for San Diego is on the horizon, and it happens this Friday. For the first time in 31 years, an affiliation switch is set to take place, with founding Fox affiliate XETV heading to CW and Tribune’s KSWB-TV moving over to Fox. The deal was struck last March. Both stations are […]
Media news-related items from the third day of Comic-Con: Time to get Lost with some Heroes Two of television’s most discussed shows on the Internet took center change at Comic-Con today: – Lost had a panel in front of thousands of people today, and while few surprises were revealed – there was an appearance by cast Matthew Fox, which sent […]
It’s official. The Simpsons is poised to surpass Gunsmoke as the longest-running prime-time scripted TV show in history after Fox revealed to a Newsday reporter (albeit reluctantly) that the network has started production on the 21st year, slated to air in the 2009-10 season. Gunsmoke ran on CBS from 1955 to 1975, running twenty seasons. Law & Order, which debuted […]
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