Thursday, July 16, 2009

T Dog's Groovy Grab Bag

- Tuesday night's Major League Baseball All-Star Game drew 14.6 million viewers to Fox, according to Nielsen. Locally, the game drew a 12.8 household rating and 21 household share - a big number despite the fact only two players from Chicago's baseball teams were represented.

In St. Louis (where the game was held), the contest drew a whopping 37 rating and 56 share.

- Also on the sports beat, the NHL and NBC have extended their deal through 2011, coming on the heels of a Stanley Cup Final Game 7 drawing the highest rating for a hockey game in 36 years. NBC's coverage begins on January 1 with the Winter Classic, this year being held at Fenway Park in Boston featuring the Boston Bruins and Philadelphia Flyers.

- Court dismissed: Program Partners and Judge Penny Reynolds have agreed to pull the plug on Family Court, the daily syndicated half-hour courtroom strip, which debuted last fall. Low ratings and a low clearance rate were to blame for the show's demise.

For Program Partners, this is the second strip to get axed in two years - last year, the company put freshman game-show strip Merv Griffin's Crosswords on "production hiatus", with the second season consisting of reruns and unaired episodes. However, Program Partners is expected to go forward with a new talk show hosted by Marie Osmond this fall.

- Despite WFLD dumping its 10 p.m. newscast, more and more stations are adding news, despite the rotten economic conditions: CBS affiliates KOIN-TV in Portland, Ore. and KEYE-TV in Austin, Tex. are adding 4 p.m. newscasts.

There is also a syndicated program shake-up in Portland, with Ellen shifting to NBC affiliate KGW, and the new Dr. Oz added to ABC affiliate KATU's lineup at 3 p.m., replacing infomercials and Millionaire (Infomercials? at 3 p.m.? Good Grief...)

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