T Dog's Grab Bag

Lots of items of note in today's Grab Bag:

- WCFS-FM (Fresh 105.9) has dumped morning man Mark LeBaron. Rick Hall will take over until a replacement is found. Is this a signal something big is coming? Or is the cancellation clock ticking for Fresh FM?

- Speaking of which, the clock is up for The Beautiful Life, which CW canceled today after two episodes. The Wednesday night program barely averaged a little over one million viewers in its twin airings. And you know where all TV programs head when they are on the air for less than three episodes.... that's right, The T Dog Media Blog TV Hall of Shame! Soon to feature not just one, but two different shows with the name Brothers!

Beautiful Life is being replaced by repeats of the new version of Melrose Place, soon to be a member in its own right.

- And I thought the reviews for The Jay Leno Show were bad. A promo for Bill Kurtis' return to CBS-owned WBBM-TV - promoting the network's heavily watched Tuesday night lineup - has been panned by ad execs. Click here to see and judge for yourself. As for the critics, aren't they being a little bit too melodramatic here? When was the last time these ad execs created a commercial that isn't worth skipping over with a DVR?

- Not exactly a strong start for new syndicated programs premiering this week: Monday's overnight rating for syndicated reruns of The Office was a 1.1 household rating and a 2 share - and this was the leader of a group that included My Name Is Earl, Everybody Hates Chris, Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?, and Cold Case Files (From Trifecta Entertainment.) Ouch.

- More good news for Chicago-based Weigel Broadcasting and MGM in their joint venture for This TV: it added Belo-owned ABC affiliate WFAA-TV in Dallas and independent KTVK in Phoenix. The network is being added to the stations' digital subchannels.

- It appears Clear Channel has dumped another program from an outside syndicator on one of its radio stations. This time it's Michael Baisden, whose syndicated afternoon show was canceled recently at WXMD-FM (Mix 92.3 in Detroit. In March, Reach Media's Tom Joyner Morning Show was dropped by Clear Channel's WVAZ-FM. (V103) Earlier this week, Reach Media sued Clear Channel to recover lost revenue from the move.

Both Mix 92.3 and V103 are Urban Adult Contemporary stations.

- Speaking of Detroit, the premiere of ABC's FlashForward Thursday night (the best new show of the season, IMHO), had government agents were investigating why people around the world collapsed and blacked out for two minutes, which happened four minutes into the show. Toward the end of the program, one of the agents looked at an online video of fans blacking out at a Tigers game.

Which is funny, given it has really happened to people attending Lions games for the last two years.