Cubs, White Sox announce media deals

Marquee lands on Prime Video and Hulu + Live TV; the White Sox to air ten games in The U this season With the baseball season officially starting in a week, Chicago’s baseball teams have announced additional ways fans can tune in.  The Cubs’ Marquee Sports announced Wednesday it has struck a deal with Disney’s Hulu + Live TV virtual […]

CBS shifts Atlanta affiliation to WUPA, exits Gray-owned WANF

The move gives network an O&O station in the nation’s seventh-largest market Atlanta will get a new CBS outlet later this summer as it will move its affiliation to a station its owns in the market, WUPA (Ch. 69). Like they did in Detroit in 2022, CBS will launch a news operation from scratch (CBS News Atlanta) and a 24/7 […]

Going “Beyond The Gates”

Majority-Black cast looking to resurrect daytime serials and daytime TV It’s been 25 years since a daytime serial debuted on television when Passions premiered on NBC.  Since then, the soap opera genre has lost steam through the 1990s and 2000s, as younger viewers defected toward the more real-life (if you can call it that) drama of daytime talk shows such […]

The Media Notepad: All City announces cutbacks, including five on-air layoffs at CHGO Sports

Also: NBC’s RSN to be made available on Peacock;  Braves baseball return to TBS. Well, somewhat.  The podcast network and website CHGO Sports was hit with layoffs on Wednesday with five employees let go as part of cutbacks by parent company All City Sports, which eliminated seven percent of its workforce across its portals in Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Philadelphia, Phoenix, […]

Nexstar to air LIV Golf matches on WGN-TV – and not WCIU

Not all CW affils carrying controversial golf league funded by Saudi interests In a bit of a surprise, LIV Golf’s first tournament on The CW won’t air on its local affiliate here. Instead it’s airing on its former affiliate. As first reported on T Dog Media’s Twitter and Instagram accounts, the controversial golf league is airing on WGN-TV this season […]

Nexstar to launch new Chicago-based national newscast on WGN America

Broadcast group jumps into the cable news game with a different approach to news – the traditional way With the announcement of a new national newscast originating from Chicago, Nexstar is making a huge financial investment in the Windy City. The Irving, Tex.-based broadcaster announced Wednesday the launch of a three-hour prime-time national newscast originating from Chicago’s WGN-TV Bradley Place […]

AT&T, TimeWarner propose merger

AT&T to purchase TimeWarner for $85 billion Opponents to deal already lining up Bugs Bunny, Sheldon Cooper, and Scooby Doo are getting ready to reach out and touch someone – a lot of people, that is. While Chicago and the rest of America (except in the St. Louis area) was busy celebrating the Cubs’ advancing to the World Series for […]

The future for WGN-TV, The CW, and My Network TV

After Monday’s announcement of The CW shifting to WPWR, where does these channels stand? Back in 2008, WGN-TV aired a retrospective of its 60th year in broadcasting. Hosted by Jim Belushi, the special looked back on the station’s local programming such as Garfield Goose, Ray Rayner, and Bozo. Airing on a Sunday night, the special did better in the ratings […]

WGN America takes the “super” out of its station

  Editor’s note: This post has been updated with additional information since being published on Saturday. – T.H. It’s the end of an era as the last “superstation” rides off into the sunset. By the end of this month, WGN America – which once carried WGN-TV programming across the country, is converting into a basic cable network in most areas […]

Report: WGN America to dump Chicago sports

Also: WBBM-AM nears deal to land Cubs telecasts Back in 1978, WGN-TV in Chicago joined WTBS in Atlanta and WOR-TV in New York (now WWOR) and uplinked their signal to a satellite to deliver their signal throughout the country as a “superstation”. In 2014, the “superstation” era is nearing the end. In a report surfacing on Crain’s Chicago Business website Friday, […]

T Dog’s Grab Bag: WLS-AM fined by FCC

News briefs from Chicago and beyond: – Cumulus-owned WLS-AM has been fined $44,000 from the Federal Communications Commission for failing to disclose eleven news items it broadcast were advertisements.  The “news items” aired on WLS between March and May 2009 (during the ownership reign of Citadel, Inc.), for Workers Independent News, who pretended to interview a local politician. Workers failed […]