This week’s issue of Crain’s Chicago Business details the continuing ratings struggle of CBS-owned WBBM-TV. Joe Ahern, who helped rocket competing WLS-TV into a ratings powerhouse in the ’80’s and ’90’s, is finding it a difficult task to repeat the same feat at WBBM. At issue is the station’s poorly-rated newscasts, which places behind not only ABC-owned WLS and NBC-owned […]
A big race is shaping up for off-network sitcom supremacy. Yours truly has been following the syndication business since 1984, and I haven’t seen a race like this since The Cosby Show, The Golden Girls, Roseanne, and Married… With Children were all battling for the crown in the early ’90’s. Three sitcoms – Warner’s Two and a Half Men, Twentieth’s […]
Wheel of Fortune, syndication’s No. 1 show, is coming back to the Windy City to celebrate its 25th anniversary in nighttime. The long-running game show, hosted by South Lawndale/Little Village native and Columbia College alum Pat Sajak and letter-turner (or toucher)Vanna White, will be taping at Navy Pier in March of 2008 for three weeks’ worths of shows that will […]
In a move that may be related to WTBS changing its format and becoming WPCH-TV, a thread on Radio-Info’s Atlanta TV board is stating that Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!, now currently airing on NBC affiliate WXIA-TV, is moving to sister station WATL-TV this fall. Both stations are owned by Gannett. WATL is scheduled to air the game shows between […]
Remember when I said NBC stations get no help from their network lead-ins, hurting them? Turns out they don’t need them. NBC stations in Boston, Milwaukee, and Baltimore won the 11 p.m. late news races, according to recent July numbers from Nielsen. Among the highlights: Boston: NBC affiliate WHDH won the 11p.m. news race, but finished behind ABC affiliate WCVB-TV […]
This week, Marc Berman in Mediaweek details what’s going on in the world of first-run syndication, in a report you can read by clicking here. (Adobe Acrobat required.) Among the findings: – Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! are still tops in syndication (of course), with Who Wants To Be A Millionaire still performing well, and Family Feud taking it on […]
Here is the latest going on at NATPE in Las Vegas and TCA press tour in Pasadena, Calif.: -Warner Bros. has pulled its proposed new show, Celebrity Jury– for now. Warner Bros. was unable to come to an agreement with the Fox-owned stations on the program, but may be launched at a later date. Meanwhile, the chances for Dr. Keith […]
http://www.cbscorporation.com/Roger King, who became rich in the 1980’s as the little company that could (Thanks to he and his brother Michael discovering Oprah Winfrey and acquiring the syndicated rights to “Wheel of Fourtune” and “Jeporady!”), will head the new CBS Television Distribution Group. The sales people will be selling CBS Paramount and King World syndicated product so they won’t have […]
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