The Media notepad: Chicago’s African-American radio stations hold their own despite population drop

As yet another report showing the Chicago area’s African-American population on the decline, the market’s black-targeted radio stations seem to be holding their own. Even the entrance of classic Hip-Hop/R&B station 104.3 Jams (WBMX) didn’t have much of an impact on the overall share of African-Americans listening to radio in the Chicago market, though WBMX reportedly had taken audience away […]

Cleveland! Cavs’ title win also one for ESPN, ABC

Highest-rated NBA contest since 1998 In terms of Cleveland media, the last time the city won a championship, WJW-TV was still a CBS affiliate, and the KYW call letters – now used for CBS’ TV and radio stations in Philadelphia – were owned by Westinghouse and used for its TV and radio properties here. And so the Cleveland Cavaliers – […]

T Dog’s Grab Bag: CBS 2 unveils new weather vehicle

– How to get ahead  by channeling the Xbox One and the PS4: CBS-owned WBBM-TV has unveiled its latest weapon in the weather war, with the look and feel of a video game – one you can play on the road. WBBM’s new toy is a new vehicle called The Mobile Weather Lab, and the Columbia Puslar 600 ultrasonic weather […]

T Dog’s Six Pack: Topsy turvy

The Six Pack is back, but this edition is straight out of bizarro world: perennial loser NBC in the winner’s circle while top-ranked WLS-TV is in loserland? As Vince Lombardi would say, “What’s going on here?” Well, WIQI is the loser’s circle again, so it’s all not that unusual… the week’s winners and losers: Winners – NBC. Belated congrats to […]

The Grab Bag: You, the people

This Grab Bag is for you – that’s right. You – the people. You have the right to gripe about yet another newscast or yet another new daytime courtroom show (We The People) on the horizon. You also have the right to have an alternative to the regular crap on TV – thanks to two new diginet TV channels. You […]

Stephen J. Cannell, R.I.P.

Writer, producer, and businessman Stephen J. Cannell, died yesterday at the age of 69 in his Pasadena, Calif. home from complications resulting from melanoma. The news came as a shock to a lot of people, since his illness wasn’t made public. Cannell wrote, created, and produced many television shows, selling his first script in 1968 to Universal for It Takes […]

T Dog’s Groovy Grab Bag

Grab bag time! – Tom Joyner, whose TJMS was disposed of from Clear Channel’s WVAZ-FM (V103) yesterday, has more on the show’s departure from Chicago’s airwaves in an interesting blog read. – George Lopez has signed a deal with TBS to launch a Monday-Thursday late night talk show for the cable network this fall. The program plans to target 18-34 […]

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. […]

Things are tough all over: KTLA, Raycom layoffs

This time, it’s at beleaguered WOIO/WUAB in Cleveland, run by former WBBM-TV boss Bill Applegate. Six were laid off, including four in master control. Tribune’s KTLA in Los Angeles also let a few go, laying off seven people in the news division. ABC affiliate KTVX in Salt Lake Lake City recently cut staff as well. The moves come as stations […]

Oh yeah, I forgot. Happy belated birthday, My Network TV.

So did everybody else, it appears. But what you’d expect when not one show on this network – created by News Corp. after the WB and UPN merged – has been memorable? This story from B&C is about several My Network TV affiliates deciding to take matters into their own hands, as Meredith’s KSMO in Kansas City decided to do. […]