Andy Shaw retires

Longtime political reporter Andy Shaw is retiring from ABC-owned WLS-TV after 25 years.Shaw has covered the political beat at WLS since 1983, when he covered Harold Washington’s rise to history when he became Chicago’s first African-American mayor and ending with Barack Obama becoming the first African-American President – not to mention the fall of Governor Rod. Shaw began his television […]

T Dog’s Think Tank: So what happens if "Oprah" exits?

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 […]

WLS-TV, ABC dominate Election Night

ABC and its O&O in Chicago (WLS-TV) took home the ratings crown on Election Night, a night where Barack Obama was elected the nation’s first African-American president. ABC led all networks on a national basis with 13.6 million viewers. Locally, ABC’s coverage led with WLS-TV leading the 10 p.m. hour (when Obama gave his victory speech) with a 17.6 household […]

WLS celebrates 10 years with "190"

At a time when stations across the country are slashing local non-news related programming, one station’s local magazine show is still going strong. Tonight, ABC-owned WLS-TV is celebrating 10 years of 190 North tonight with a 30-minute retrospective of the show’s run. Hosted by Janet Davies (who is also the show’s executive producer), the special takes a look back at […]

Bruno the Great

More on Joe Ahern’s sudden departure from CBS-owned WBBM-TV in Chicago: – The Sun-Times Robert Feder looks back at the The Life and Times of Joe Ahern – his rise at WLS-TV and his fall at WBBM. It’s a rather critical look at what he accomplished – or actually didn’t accomplish – at the station. – Phil Rosenthal has a […]

Ahern out at Channel 2

One of the deacons at The Church of Tisch has been shown the door. WBBM-TV General Manger Joe Ahern was fired today after six years at the CBS-owned station, this after they moved into new digs on Washington Blvd. in the Loop and started broadcasting their news in HD. Replacing Ahern is Bruno Cohen, who is currently GM at CBS’ […]

Minneapolis, Cleveland TV stations worry about LPMs

If you think radio stations in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles are worrying about Arbitron’s Portable People Meters – then you haven’t seen anything yet. Television executives in Minneapolis-St. Paul and Cleveland are sweating it out over the next several months as Local People Meters – or LPMs, become the standard of measurement for television ratings measured by Nielsen. […]

Disney: Our stations are NOT for sale

Disney has denied a report from investment research firm Caris & Co. that it planned to sell its ten ABC O&Os, and would focus on distributing content. Disney owns TV stations in the largest markets, including WLS-TV in Chicago. All three major networks have sold stations in the past year, although in smaller markets such as Milwaukee, St. Louis, Kansas […]

Chicago PPM secrets revealed

In addition to the last-ever diary book released in Chicago yesterday, Arbitron’s pre-currency Portable People Meter results were also released, and according to Tom Taylor of Radio-Info and Dave Martin’s blog, they show the following: – WGN continued to rank first among 12+, followed by WDRV-FM (The Drive), WBBM-AM, Ht AC outlet WTMX-FM, and Country station WUSN-FM. – Ranking from […]

All about the Windy City

Broadcasting & Cable has a profile of Chicago in its issue this week, and it talks about how Chicago’s TV stations are handling the economy – as well as possible major events the city may be celebrating in the not-too-distant future (Obama’s presidential bid, a Cubs-White Sox World Series, an Olympic bid…) The article also talks about news expansion and […]

Suppelsa and Sanders

It looks like Mark Suppelsa’s move to Tribune-owned CW affiliate WGN-TV is all but a certainty, while handling Steve Sanders’ situation could be dicey, according to this article from Robert Feder in today’s Sun-Times. WGN is expected to sign Suppelsa to a contract after June 17, the day WFLD’s option to match any offer a competitor may have expires. If […]

WLS sweeps May, but WMAQ shines in demos at 10

Staying on the subject of local news, it was a good May book for all of Chicago’s news outlets -(second item) despite the fact the networks lost audience share due to the after-effects of the recent writer’s strike with something for everyone to crow about: ABC-owned WLS-TV’s newscasts won the May sweeps in households (second item) – however, NBC-owned WMAQ-TV […]

WLS-TV to host another special on youth violence

ABC-owned WLS-TV will host another summit on youth violence this Thursday. The station plans to air Stop the Violence: Conflicts and Solutions in HD at 6:30 p.m. The special is being hosted by Ron Magers and Cheryl Burton, and is being joined by reporters Charles Thomas and Paul Meincke. WLS aired a similar special last spring after 16 year-old Blair […]