Arsenio Hall mulling late-night return

Get ready to woof again: there’s a possibility Arsenio Hall may return to late-night television with a new version of his talk show. According to Broadcasting & Cable, CBS Television Distribution and Tribune Broadcasting are looking to bring the Cleveland native and recent Celebrity Apprentice winner back into the fold, with an eye toward a September 2013 launch. CBS and […]

T Dog’s Grab Bag: “Live With Kelly” shifts to WLS-TV in 2013

The Jeff Probst Show finally clears Chicago, landing at WBBM-TV Due to a busy schedule covering and analyzing Upfront Week, there were a lot of notable media stories mentioned in the past week: – First mentioned in Robert Feder’s Time Out Chicago blog last week, ABC-owned WLS-TV has acquired Live With Kelly beginning in September 2013, falling in line with […]

Chicago’s media prepares for NATO (Update 1)

As you know by now, Chicago is hosting the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit at McCormick Place this coming Sunday and Monday. There are numerous street closures, parking restrictions, bus reroutes, and train station closures. Security is being beefed up all over town, including on public transportation and in downtown office buildings. And oh yeah… there’s going to be […]

The Puppet’s Court

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 […]

T Dog’s Think Tank: “Survivor” tackles race and fails

              Last week’s episode told what a lot of us already know: Hollywood really doesn’t respect people of color On Grey’s Anatomy, they had the Ferry Boat accident. For The Simpsons, it was changing the backstory of the series to create a lame plot on how Homer Simpson “discovered” grunge music. For this show, […]

The Sevens have it

Want a winner? Bet on seven every time – NY, LA, Chicago ABC O&Os dominate February sweeps No Oprah? No All My Children? No One Life to Live? No problem. Even without three of their long-time stalwarts of their schedule (and threats from soap opera fans never to watch ABC again), ABC owned-and-operated stations continue  their  ratings domination in the […]

Grab Bag: NATPE edition

The National Association of Television Programming Executive – or NATPE convention begins Monday in Miami and as always, there’s syndication news to report on. Here’s the latest: – CBS-owned WBBM-TV in Chicago and twelve other CBS markets have cleared TNT’s Leverage for weekend off-network syndication beginning next fall from Trifecta Entertainment, which acquires the syndication rights from executive producer Dean […]

WFLD hires Phyills Schwartz as new news director

Carol Fowler bounced from station after three disastrous years In a move that was pretty much expected, Fox-owned WFLD has fired news director Carol Fowler and replaced her with Phyills Schwartz, who held the same position for five years at ABC-owned WLS-TV. The changeover is effective immediately. Schwartz was at top rated WLS-TV for thirteen years with five of them […]

The T Dog Media 2011 Turkey Awards

            Allen Gregory: Worst. Sitcom. Ever. Welcome to the 6th annual T Dog Media Turkey Awards! Every year around Thanksgiving, yours truly hashes out the worst in the media business – in television, radio, and sports. So bring out the stale stuffing and expired cranberry sauce! It’s time to go gobbling! And the “winners” are… […]

“Regis” finale scores for WGN-TV

Regis Philblin’s departure from Live with Regis & Kelly on Friday drew big ratings for Tribune-owned CW affiliate WGN-TV. According to numbers obtained from Marc Berman at TV Media Insights, WGN scored a 6.9 Nielsen household rating and a 22 share with Regis’ farewell, and coasted past ABC-owned WLS-TV’s local morning show Windy City Live, which replaced departing The Oprah […]

CBS revamps morning show – again

Here we go again: The Church Of Tisch is revamping its perennially low-rated morning show for the 284th time – and there may be changes to WBBM’s dawn patrol newscasts as well. CBS canceled The Early Show on Tuesday and is launching a new two-hour newscast with the rather odd pairing of Charlie Rose and Gayle King with Early Show […]

T Dog’s Six Pack: Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen

As you may know – if you’ve been following on Twitter – The T Dog Media Blog is leaving Blogger and is moving to a new home as part of the new website I’m launching officially on September 19, when the sixth season of The T Dog Media Blog begins. Visit https://www.tdogmedia.com to view the progress of the site as […]

Stay up late with… Clarissa?

              But you no longer can’t with Monique and soon, you won’t be able to with George Lopez, either. (Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on August 3, 2011. -T.H.) Late-night has become a rather bizarre place lately – outside of the usual nuttiness of course – with an insomniac sheep running around, […]

Stations make post- "Oprah" moves

Local stations nationwide are wasting little time when The Oprah Winfrey Show signs off on Wednesday. And ABC-owned WLS-TV isn’t the only Chicago station making changes Beginning this Thursday (yes, this Thursday), WLS is replacing Oprah at 9 a.m.with a local effort, Windy City Live. Oprah reruns will air on WLS at 11:05 p.m. until September 9. But WCIU (26.1) […]