T Dog's Six Pack: Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen

As you may know - if you've been following on Twitter - The T Dog Media Blog is leaving Blogger and is moving to a new home as part of the new website I'm launching officially on September 19, when the sixth season of The T Dog Media Blog begins. Visit http://www.tdogmedia.com to view the progress of the site as yours truly works on it. It's currently in Beta, so the look of the site will change several times as the 19th gets closer.

Due to a major tagging project for the new website, yours truly haven't been able to do much writing in the blog as of late (which unfortunately, meant no Comic-Con or TCA Press Tour posts.) But the tagging project is finally over, so its back to writing about the wackiness and fun that is local and national media. In the meantime, you'll see postings on both the Blogger version of The T Dog Media Blog and on the T Dog Media site. But on September 19, all new material will be exclusively on the new site.

Speaking of goodbyes, there are a lot of them in this edition of the Six Pack - a well-respected media columnist is moving to a new online home; a legendary businessman stepping down due to health issues; a pair of TV show cancellations; and two managers at a local TV station who ought to be packing their bags. A lot to get caught up on, so on we go - the winners and losers for the months of July and August:


Winners


Windy City Live. While it was a given the new local morning would not match the numbers for the program it replaced (The Oprah Winfrey Show),Windy City has done decently well, topping Regis & Kelly, Today, and Good Day Chicago in recent ratings reports, meeting WLS-TV's expectations - not to mention attracting a significant amount of African-American viewers.

Sorry haters - Windy City Live is here to stay.

Steve Jobs. The Apple CEO officially resigned this past week due to health issues, but he'll be remembered for changing the way we consumed entertainment though iTunes, iPods, and iPads. While Hollywood might not want to admit it, Steve Jobs was a visionary who helped give the public more control over when to watch their favorite TV shows and movies and making the Walkman obsolete. 

Marc Berman. It's sad to see the Programming Insider go after twelve years - thanks to Mr. Berman's departure from Adweek this past Friday (Berman originally wrote for the now-defunct Mediaweek, which folded into Adweek after A.C. Nielsen sold the magazines.) But the good news is, you can follow him to his new home at TV Media Insights where you can sign up to receive his new daily column and visit him at his new Mr. TV website. Both links will be included into the blogroll when the new T Dog Media website launches on September 19 (the old PI Feedback site was shut down Friday evening.)

To read his final Programming Insider newsletter, click here.

Best of luck to Marc Berman in his new home! With such a great talent for writing about TV and media, he'll fit in his new home fine.

Losers

As usual, there is a multitude of losers to choose from - the return of the insipid Bachelor Pad, Chicago baseball, the Bears Family Night fiasco, Kim Kardashian and her new, temporarily unemployed NBA "superstar" leech of a husband, Mancow whining about the now-defunct Q101 again (dude, let it go already), the unimpressive debut of WWWN-FM's all-news format (absolutely NOT "winning") and more. But these are the three that stand out:

Judge Jeanne Pirro. The thing is, she's now back to being just Jeanne Pirro: Warner Bros. canceled her Chicago-based daytime courtroom show after four seasons, the first two on CW; the other two in syndication.The departure of Pirro leaves just Judge Mathis and Rosie O'Donnell's soon-to-launch talk show as the only national daily programs produced in the Windy City.


Lopez Tonight. There won't be a Lopez Tomorrow: TBS canceled George Lopez's late-night talk show after two low-rated seasons, which took a ratings hit after being downgraded last November to make room for Conan O'Brien.


CBS 2 blows it again. Continuing our "...blows it again" franchise... CBS-owned WBBM-TV aired a story last month during its barely-watched 4:30 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. newscasts regarding a shooting in the city's Grand Crossing neighborhood, and featured a 4 year-old African-American child who stated on camera he wanted a gun when he was older - giving the impression that the kid wanted to be a gangbanger when he becomes an adult.  But what the station didn't show was footage with the kid saying he wanted to be a police officer to help battle the bad guys. The edited video wound up on YouTube and other video-sharing sites.

The station was criticized by the NAACP, Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), and many other journalist watchdog groups, including The Maynard Institute. Station officials admitted the mistake but never apologized, and there hasn't been any disciplinary action taken that I know of. If you've read this blog for the past five years, you know how really screwed up CBS 2 management has been over the last few decades - from erroneous reporting regarding Fred Hampton's death in 1969 (those "bullets" were just ordinary holes in the wall) to coverage of a "pot party" in 1971 to the tabloid-like newscasts that dotted the station in the '90's to the Amy Jacobson bikini fiasco in 2007. And oh yeah, there's the matter of a boycott by Operation PUSH in the mid-1980's after the Harry Porterfield debacle at a time when CBS ownership was in turmoil.

And you wonder why the station has never been able to attract African-American viewers. And Les Moonves' and other CBS executives' silence on the matter speaks volumes.

Yep, just another typical day at The Church of Tisch.

To borrow a phrase from Chicago Tribune's Steve Rosenbloom... News director Jeff Kiernan and GM Bruno Cohen: your plane is boarding. Hopefully, we'll see WFLD's GM Mike Renda and news director Carol Fowler on the same flight out of town.