T Dog’s Six Pack: Winning and Losing

Harry Teinowitz: "I'm winning." 

Okay, so Charlie Sheen is “winning” – if your definition of winning is being fired off a hit show, having police raid your house, and jumping the shark on Twitter after only a week. But the winners and losers this week are for real: They’re really winning and losing, not some dopey sham job Sheen is foisting on the public. Thus, here are the REAL winners and losers in media this week:

I’m Winning

CBS Radio’s decision to kick JACK-FM to the curb. Out with JACK and in with K-Hits: The Variety/Adult Hits format is being shelved for a Classic Hits one and live and local personalities (with Eddie & JoBo in morning drive) instead of Jack’s goofy one-liners.

Chicago Bulls. Sunday’s game against LeBron James and the Miami Heat drew a whopping 11.5 household rating on ABC-owned WLS-TV during the noon-2:30 p.m. time frame and a 3.6 rating nationally. The next night, the Bulls broke a ratings record for NBCUniversal’s Comcast SportsNet with a 7.2 rating for a game against the New Orleans Hornets. That’s real winning.

American Idol. In its tenth season, American Idol is still a force to be reckoned with – even with Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler as new judges and Simon Cowell nowhere to be found – the series still dominates the ratings pulling over 20 million viewers a week. Mercy!

Charlie Sheen. Um… no you’re not, Charlie. Get your butt back in the other category.

I’m Losing

JACK. Remember, we don’t take requests! During your six-year run in Chicago, you had very few listeners for you to take requests, anyway.

Harry Teinowitz. One of the hosts of Disney-owned WMVP-AM’s (aka ESPN 1000) Afternoon Saloon was arrested last week in north suburban Skokie for DUI for alcohol and cannabis (the latter charge was dropped.) Good grief, was he coming back from a party thrown by Charlie Sheen? Given who his employer is – who suspended him until next week – then extended the suspension after new details came out on his arrest, Teinowitz will likely join Sheen in the unemployment line. Yeah, that’s “winning”.

WFLD’s 9 p.m. newscast. While everyone else made the earthquake in Japan a top priority in their newscasts, what did Fox-owned WFLD lead off with on Friday night instead? The NFL labor dispute pitting millionaire players against billionaire owners. And you wonder why the station’s newscasts languishes in last place (in February, WFLD’s Fox News Chicago newscast at 9 p.m. drew only a 2.3 household rating, down 32 percent from last year.) Really, station management needs to fire the idiot news director (and its someone who Amy Jacobson is familiar with.)

WFLD’s newscast is getting a new producer (veteran Mike Lederman) soon, and boy, will he have his work cut out for him.WFLD won't be "winning" for a long time.