A lot of items in The Grab Bag today: – Warner Bros. and HBO has sold the sitcoms Entourage and Curb Your Enthauism to the Tribune station group for late-fringe time periods begining in 2010 on all-barter basis (meaning stations don’t have to pay a dime – just surrender half of their ad inventory to the syndicator.) Locally, you can […]
Fox-owned WFLD-TV here in Chicago (and sis station KTTV in Los Angeles) have picked up the half-hour syndicated version of Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader from Twentieth Television for this fall. The game show, produced by Survivor creater Mark Burnett and hosted by Jeff Foxworthy, has aired on prime-time on Fox to respectable ratings. The program has cleared […]
The alternative title is being used to describe today’s News & Notes, as there is sad news to report: – Chicago Defender sports journalist Larry Gross passed away Wednesday at the age of 59 due to complications from lung cancer. Gross covered mostly local sports for the paper, including Chicago Public School Prep action. The wake will be held Feb. […]
Warner Bros’ move of Judge Jeanne Pirro from The CW to syndication is now complete, with a group deal with the Fox Television Group. The all-barter deal, which includes Fox’s duopoly of WFLD and WPWR, gives Pirro a clearance rate of 75 percent of the United States. Pirro may have benefited from the cancellation of Cristina’s Court on Friday, which […]
Instead, call it a “programming service.” My Network TV is revamping its programming model, with the service airing ten hours of material a week instead of twelve this fall with Saturday nights handed back to affiliates. My Net is also cutting back on original programming, adding a movie night, and instead airing a two-hour block of Law & Order: Criminal […]
Star Trek: The Next Generation is returning home to where it all began. Its mission: to boost ratings in a landscape of tawdry talk shows, crummy courtroom shows, and According to Jim-like off-network sitcoms. Reruns of the sequel to Star Trek, which practically put one-hour scripted action dramas on the map in syndication in the 1980s and 1990s, has been […]
The rumors of Fox-owned local stations laying off appear to be true: WFLD-TV and WPWR-TV recently eliminated seven positions, including the vice president of programming and promotions position, which was held by longtime Chicago TV veteran Dominic Mancuso. Mancusco departed on January 7, though the announcement of the layoffs came on Wedensday. Ironically, Mancuso’s last position before working for Fox […]
More Twentieth Television news: The syndicator has cleared NBC sitcom My Name Is Earl in 47 percent of the country beginning this fall, including nine out of the top ten markets. Fox-owned My Network TV stations are part of the deal, including WPWR-TV in Chicago. The program is also expected to run on sister station WFLD-TV. Earl has also cleared […]
For the first time in… I don’t know… many years, repeats of The Odd Couple are back on TV. On Thursday (an odd day to start airing a TV show on a “strip” basis), WWME-TV (or Me-TV) began airing The Odd Couple weeknights at 11:30 p.m. The sitcom, based on the Neil Simon play (and also spun off a 1968 […]
As the NATPE convention draws closer and closer (next month in Vegas – assuming it doesn’t snow), you’ll be seeing these updates more and more here. So, here we go… – TNT’s The Closer has been sold to all Fox-owned stations for weekend play, including WFLD/WPWR here, as Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution hopes Closer’s success on TNT will translate […]
No surprise here, it’s Tyler Perry’s House of Payne. But there is a surprise when compared to other programs in the viewer’s landscape: When you take the rating from its’ syndication airings and its cable runs on TBS, Payne tops everything else among African-Americans in all of television among adults 18-34, 18-49, and 25-54, including network prime-time, beating Grey’s Anatomy […]
Fox-owned WPWR-TV and the NFL Network scored big with Thursday night’s telecast of the New Orleans Saints-Chicago Bears game. Locally, the game scored a combined 25.2 rating on both outlets. In October, WPWR (as a My Network TV affiliate), finished seventh among English-language households in prime-time, behind WCIU-TV’s House of Payne and The Bernie Mac Show and CW programming on […]
Foxhas announced it is trading in Sonic the Hedgehog – for a bunch of people riding around in Hoveround chairs. In a move that ends children’s programming on Fox after 18 years, the network announced it is dropping the 4KidsTV block it had been airing on Saturday mornings. This comes after 4Kids sued Fox for a refund, alleging it owed […]
In a move that comes as a bit of a surprise, Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution announced Thursday the move of The Tyra Banks Show to CW from first-run syndication – giving the network two hours to fill in its daytime lineup starting next September. CW, home already to Ms. Banks’ America’s Next Top Model, acquired the program to run […]
Twentieth Television has sold off-network repeats of How I Met Your Mother to the WFLD/WPWR duopoly in Chicago beginning in fall 2010. The CBS comedy has been on the air since 2005, and has seen its ratings rise this past season as part of the network’s Monday night lineup. WFLD/WPWR has already picked up The Office for next fall. In […]
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