Legendary, pioneering talk show changed TV Phil Donahue, who put the issues-oriented daytime talk show on the map in the 1970s, died Sunday at the age of 88 in his New York City home after a long illness. Even though Donahue’s talk show wasn’t the first syndicated talk show to originate from Chicago, he was an innovator in discussing taboo […]
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 […]
Fox 32 to air new show in fall Chicago-born Grammy, Emmy, and Oscar-award winning actress Jennifer Hudson’s new talk show from Warner Bros. is officially a firm go for September with a wide-ranging deal with the Fox-owned stations, including Fox 32 (WFLD) here. The program is also landing on Fox-owned WNYW New York and KTTV Los Angeles in nation’s […]
News and notes from around the industry – WSRB, a Crawford-owned urban adult contemporary station previously known as Soul 106.3, is trying its luck with an other former WGCI alum – Tony Sculfield, who’ll soon take over the evening slot vacated by Ramonski Luv, who was out after less than six months on the air. Recently, Sculfield was part of […]
Remember when Thursday night belonged to NBC? Seems so long ago, doesn’t it? The Tiffany network won the first Thursday night of the 2012-13 season in households, total viewers, and in adults 18-49 (Fox won in adults 18-34) thanks to the season premieres of The Big Bang Theory, Two And A Half Men, and the series premiere of Elementary. All […]
Modern Family syndication sales reaches up to 50 percent of the U.S. Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution seems to benefitting the most thus far when it comes to replacing The Oprah Winfrey Show when it leaves this September, with Anderson Cooper and Ellen DeGeneres’ talk shows snapping up time slots soon-to-be formerly held by the queen of talk. Anderson has […]
You’d think with recently disposed former NBC talk show host Conan O’ Brien possibly headed to Fox, you think the news would thrill affiliates, right? Well, think again. With news yesterday of Fox and O’Brien negotiating a deal to host a late-night talk show – something the network hasn’t had on a nightly basis since the debacle of Chevy Chase’s […]
It appears Jay Leno’s new 9 p.m. (Central) show isn’t having the drag many affiliates feared it would have on their late local newscasts. While ratings in the key 25-54 audience were down 12 percent from NBC affiliates and O&Os, ratings declines were also clocked in at ABC and CBS stations as well. To sum it up – ratings for […]
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 long national nightmare is over – the Bulls Ballboy is moving on. NBC Entertainment Co-Chairman Ben Silverman resigned today after two years to start a new company with Barry Diller’s IAC. He’s essentially returning to his entrepreneurial roots: he founded production company Reville, producers of The Office and Ugly Betty. His replacement is Jeff Gaspin, who will now add […]
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 […]
With Oprah Winfrey scheduled to run her new cable network in a joint venture with Discovery beginning next year, there is increasing speculation she may discontinue her daily talk show strip when her contract with CBS Television Distribution expires in 2011. The speculation increased when Discovery Communications CEO David Zaslav revealed in an earnings report a few days ago that […]
Continuing our look at local May sweeps numbers: Denver: NBC affiliate KUSA-TV swept local news (except 9 p.m. on KTVD) in all time periods. At 10 p.m., KUSA was up a share point from May 2007. Buffalo: CBS affiliate WIVB-TV won at 11 p.m., but the big story here was NBC affiliate WGRZ-TV’s 11 p.m. news show improving from its […]
Last week’s purge at the CBS O&Os is just another reminder of how tough things are going on the local TV level, especially in the newsrooms. This article from the Baltimore Sun details how things are really going in the market’s local station community, where CBS’ WJZ-TV laid off four people last week and ABC affiliate WMAR-TV axed three employees. […]
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