Sweeping changes at Channel 2, CBS (updated)

Burns, Childers, Malone out at Channel 2; layoffs at other CBS O&Os

The ax fell at CBS-owned WBBM-TV on Monday, with eighteen people either laid off or their contracts not being renewed. The causalities include on-air veterans Mary Ann Childers, Diann Burns, and Mark Malone.

Burns was the highest-paid anchor at the station, making a reported $2 million per year.

The hirings on the three on-air personalities were heralded as a strategy to bring more viewers to the perennially ratings-challenged station by using familiar faces. But the numbers continued heading south, with WBBM's 10 p.m. newscasts often losing to WFLD's 10 p.m. news show among adults 18-49.

The firings are reminiscent of the "Black Wednesday" firings at sister station WCBS-TV in New York back on October 2, 1996, when a total of seven on-air personalities were fired.

"Black Monday" at WBBM was the largest purge of employees at any television station in a single day Chicago history.

This comes as major media companies across the country are making major cutbacks. A few weeks ago, Citadel laid off staff at WLS-AM & WZZN-FM and other stations across the country.

WBBM isn't the only CBS O&O station to feel the pinch:

- Dallas: KTVT let three people go, including longtime investigative reporter Robert Riggs.

- Minneapolis: WCCO-TV dropped a weekend anchor.

- Sacramento: CBS' duopoly of KOVR-TV and KMAX-TV laid off an unspecified number of employees.

- Denver: Employees at KCNC-TV are being told layoffs are coming this week, and one video editor has already been let go.

Classic Think Tank: The mess at Channel 2

Power 92 morning co-host exits

More firings: Say au revoir to Kendra G as her time is up at WPWX-FM (Power 92). The co-host of Chicago's only local morning program targeted to an urban audience is out after three years at the station, where she was on The Trey Choklit Jok Morning Jumpoff. Power 92 is now looking for a replacement.

Despite the fact Power 92's morning show has a distinct advantage in being a local voice, the program continues to trail the The Steve Harvey Snore n' Bore Morning Yawnfest on WGCI.

Game shows are hot again

After Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! became major successes in the mid-1980's, games shows became a hot property in syndication. By 1988, more than ten of them were on the air, including Win Lose or Draw, and Wipeout!, and successful revivals of Hollywood Squares, The Dating Game, and Family Feud.

But the game show boom went bust by 1991 after several highly anticipated game shows flopped. A total of twelve games were canned in syndication over a two-year period, claiming veterans (Win Lose or Draw), freshman entries (Remote Control, Talkabout, The Challengers) and revivals (The Joker's Wild, Tic Tac Dough and The Krypton Factor) alike. Even Donald Trump had his name on a game show, aptly named Trump Card. And that flopped, too.

When the carnage cleared, there were only five game shows on the air. Total. And none of them were in prime-time (of course), and only The Price Is Right and Classic Concentration were on networks' daytime schedule. Even Bill Cosby's jump into the fray with the revival of classic game show You Bet in Life in 1992 was a bust.

Fast forward to today, where it is a completely different story. Game shows aren't only prospering in syndication - they're prospering in prime-time as well - something we haven't seen since the 1950's, pre-game show scandals. Last Thursday, NBC's Deal or No Deal drew 11 million viewers - even without the Million Dollar Mission episodes. The Price Is Right may have a shot of CBS' fall schedule for the first time after its prime-time specials have been deemed a success (and this comes after two syndicated nighttime versions failed.) And more are in development.

In syndication, Wheel and Jeopardy! continue their two-and-a-half decade dominance in the ratings, while the weekday strip version of Deal or No Deal and Trivial Pursuit debuts this fall and joins other successful games (Millionaire and Family Feud) and a mediocre-performing one (Merv Griffin's Crosswords).

This TV Week article details this and more, and why game shows are hot in syndication again.

"Quincy" sues NBC Universal

Jack Klugman, who starred in the NBC crime drama Quincy, is suing the network over the show's profits.

Klugman has filed a lawsuit against NBC Universal over the program's revenue, and claims the studio is being dishonest over the issue. In the contract, Klugman and his production company was entitled to a quarter of the profits. Klugman claimed his agent "lost" the copy of the contract and NBC has refused to issue their copy.

Universal Television produced Quincy for NBC between 1976 to 1983 for NBC. In 2004, NBC and Universal merged to become NBC Universal.

Quincy is the forerunner to future forensic programs such as DaVinci's Inquest and the current trio of CSI dramas, and has been successful in off-net syndication since the early 1980s. It was still so popular that CBS-owned KCBS-TV in Los Angeles replaced the low-rated The Joan Rivers Show in its 3 p.m. weekday time slot with Quincy reruns in March 1991.

Quincy currently airs on MeTV (WWME-TV) in Chicago.

Klugman is a noted dramatic actor - in addition to playing Quincy, he also had roles on Naked City and The Twilight Zone, but he's best remembered for playing opposite Tony Randall on ABC's sitcom The Odd Couple from 1970 to 1975.

"Celebrity Apprentice" wins Thursday

And Piers Morgan (who?) wins the whoring-for-Trump competition, which beat CBS' NCAA Tournament coverage, which means America treasures its sleazy TV as much as it does Mom, Apple Pie, and foreign cars (it used to be Chevrolet...)

And this has-been TV critic raves so much about this show, you think he was working for NBC's PR department...

Big Media does it again!

On Tuesday, I had a post up on a story in which Jay Mariotti bashes Cubs fans, and the Sun-Times feedback section below was filled with anti-Mariotti comments. Late Tuesday evening, the feedback section disappeared not only from the Cubs article, but all of Mariotti's articles (All other articles had their comments section intact.)

In today's Sports TV/Radio column in the Chicago Tribune, Teddy Greenstein reports that Mariotti asked Sun-Times management to have the comments section removed from his column online (third item), and they did.

I guess the Reader Alienation Plan continues at the Chicago Daily Onion, who proudly boasts that they are the most-read paper in Chicago. Who' s writing the marketing slogans at the paper, NBC? Or is it Donald ("The Apprentice is the number one show on TV!") Trump?

So now, we can't criticize a slimeball like Jay Mariotti? Did he became a member of the Bush Administration overnight?

Look, jackasses. You either do a feedback section for your website, or not. This is so typical of Big Media. The Parents Television Council wants to squash free speech and so does Big Media.

We should be afraid. Very afraid.

WCIU fined for kids' ad violations

This dates way back when WCIU-TV carried Kids' WB programming, and this is the price they paid for it: The Weigel-owned independent station was fined $16,500 for kids' ad violations by the FCC, regarding Pokemon product placement on Eggo waffles and Fruit By The Foot fruit roll-ups (perhaps this is one of reasons why WCIU dropped Kids' WB from the station in 2004. The animated program block later moved to WGN-TV.)

In other words, don't look for Pokemon to be WCIU's mascot anytime soon.

CW affiliate WNAB-TV in Nashville was also hit by the FCC for failing to properly maintain their public inspection files.

More on Wally Phillips' death

Two wonderful articles here from The Trib's Phil Rosenthal and the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's Tim Cuprisin (it turned out Wally Phillips also had listeners in the Milwaukee area.)

New boss at CBS Television Distribution

And his name is John Nogawski, who'll oversee the world's largest syndication company as president of CBS Television Distribution, whose massive programming library runs the gamut from Everybody Loves Raymond to Everybody Hates Chris and everything in between.

Nogawski steps into a role that was occupied by the legendary Roger King, who died on Dec. 8.

Also, Robert Madden becomes the senior executive vice president of CBS Television Distribution. In the newly created position, he'll oversee the existing relationships CBS has with Sony regarding Wheel of Fortune and Jeporady! and Harpo Productions regarding The Oprah Winfrey Show (and his number one task should be keeping Ms. O in the ranks past 2011 - that's when her contract to do her talk show expires.)

WPWR launches new public affairs show

WPWR also secures rights to Chicago Fire games

Fox-owned WPWR-TV is launching a new public affairs show called Perspective, which will air Sundays at 12:30 p.m. beginning March 30. This marks the first new public-affairs program to air on WPWR under Fox's ownership. Before Fox took over the station, WPWR ran public affairs programming such as Dimensions: Northwest Indiana and a weekly talk show hosted by comedian Aaron Freeman.

The program is hosted by Monique Caradine, and she will interview newsmakers and trendsetters from all walks of life on a variety of topics, ranging from politics to entertainment. The debut episode this Sunday focuses on the controversy surrounding Rev. Jerimah Wright - Barack Obama's former minister, which has been the story here on Chicago's South Side.

Meanwhile, WPWR has secured the rights to air eighteen Chicago Fire MLS soccer games beginning Saturday with a game against Real Salt Lake (FYI, that's the MLS franchise in  Salt Lake City, Utah.) To see the complete schedule, click here.

Chicago radio legend Wally Phillips dies

Photo: Chicago Sun-Times

The undisputed king of Chicago morning radio from the 1960's to the 1980's has passed away at the age of 82.

Wally Phillips began his legendary Chicago radio career at WGN in 1956 and became the station's morning personality in 1965 and had the market's top rated morning show from 1968 until he left for afternoons in 1986. He retired from WGN in 1998 after an incredible 42-year run at the station (however, he did come out of retirement to do a weekly talk show for WAIT-AM a year later.)

To prove how powerful he was in this market, he attracted an average of 1.5 million each day at his peak. In 1986 -the last full ratings book in morning drive, he had a 15 share!

More recently, Phillips had been living in Naples, Fla. and had been battling Alzheimer's disease for the last four years.

Among his numerous accomplishments, Phillips was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1993 and the National Association of Broadcasters' Hall of Fame in 1997.

This team is about as bad as the Orioles

Here's another Channel 2 that can't get arrested in news.

ABC affiliate WMAR-TV in Baltimore has been the long-time ratings laggard in this market. The Scripps-owned station hoped it could inject some ratings juice into the also-ran by switching from NBC to ABC in 1995.

The moves sent WJZ-TV to CBS (as part of a larger CBS-Westinghouse affiliation deal) and WBAL-TV back to NBC (it was a peacock network affiliate until 1981, when CBS had enough of WMAR's frequent pre-emptions of network programming and hooked up with WBAL.)

The same year, WMAR made the really smart decision not to renew The Oprah Winfrey Show (it landed on WBAL.)

The outcome? WJZ ratings remained constant, WBAL vaulted to the top of the ratings, and WMAR - is still in third place. The 5 p.m. newscast crown the station won when Oprah was its' lead-in? It went to WBAL.

But Scripps has a plan in place to make the station competitive again. Here's a story on how WMAR plans to get back into the race.

"Golden Girls" shift to Hallmark

The Golden Girls is shifting from long-time cable home Lifetime to the Hallmark Channel, effective early next year.

The off-network sitcom has been a constant performer on Lifetime, drawing new generations of viewers that never saw the program during its original seven-season run on NBC (1985-92.) However, ratings have been declining over the years, and Lifetime felt the program has run its course.

Girls had been airing on Lifetime since March 1997. Prior to that, Buena Vista Television (now Disney-ABC Domestic Television) had the program in broadcast syndication from 1990 to 1996, where it often ranked as the top-rated off-network sitcom.

"Family Feud" headed back to prime-time

For the first time in 25 years, Family Feud is headed to prime-time.

A celebrity edition of the syndicated game-show strip is being planned by Fremantle for NBC in prime-time, although it's being proposed as a series of specials. If you recall, ABC aired prime-time specials in the 1970's and 1980's, which pitted celebrity casts of shows for charity, i.e., The Eight Is Enough cast against The Love Boat cast. Another edition pitted members of the Philadelphia Phillies against the Kansas City Royals (in 1980, when both teams met in the World Series.)

Celebrity editions also popped up in the second incarnation of the series on both the CBS daytime version (1988-93) and in syndication (1988-95).

Most recently, a special WWE edition and a special NBA edition has aired on the current syndicated version.

Feud is currently in its tenth season in syndication, and is distributed by Debmar-Mercury. The first incarnation of Feud premiered in daytime on ABC in 1976 and in first-run nighttime syndication in 1977 (first as a weekly, then a nightly strip by 1979.) Both versions lasted until 1985.

"South Park" now available for streaming

More Cartman and Timmy than you bargained for. Not a bad thing.

No more going to iTunes and paying $2 for an episode (or getting it free from BitTorrent) - now every episode of South Park ever made is now available for streaming at a revamped SouthParkStudios.com, thanks to Comedy Central and the V of Doom (Viacom.)

Of course, there's the buffering problems and the pausing and the crashing and the such...

Pols not happy with DOJ approval of XM-Sirius merger

Some in Washington are not happy with XM-Sirius merger, with the FCC all but certain to approve the deal (Republican majority... hello?) Some politicians are angry with the Department of Justice's decision, while others think it is good deal.

Here is a Think Tank I wrote last year regarding the approval of the deal, and my support of it at the time. However, yours truly admits the Think tank was more of an anti-NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) piece than anything else. While some satellite radio fans support the merger, are they willing to possibly pay higher prices for their product and support advertising, particularly in an economy that's continuing to sink? The deal was approved with no conditions, which could mean the new company may not lower prices or offer a la carte service like they proposed to do if this merger happened.

Many listeners have also complained about Sirius' lackluster programming (outside of Howard Stern) and excessive DJ talk and XM's music channels, not to mention XM's Internet streams, which are not known for its quality.

Is the FCC willing this approve the deal for the sake of approving mergers? The FCC under the Bush administration has been known as anti-consumer and pro-corporate.

And if XM and Sirius are allowed to merge, who else? CBS and Clear Channel? Entercom and Cumulus? Direct TV and Dish Network? Comcast and RCN? In the media business, the days of a rivalry have long passed, especially when the bottom line is involved. The NAB and other groups will likely demand what remains of any government rules regarding media properties be thrown out. And if McClain gets into the White House, it is almost a certainty.

So, is the merger a good idea? We'll have to wait and see. If the new service becomes anything like terrestrial radio, then you know what the answer is. And if Mel Karmazin (one of those who helped destroy terrestrial radio) ends up running this combined company, then the answer will come sooner than we think.

And the Think Tank I wrote? Well, there's that "delete" button...

More on the Fox-KSWB deal

From The San Diego Union-Tribune's TV Critic Karla Peterson, and the San Diego Business Journal. Phil Rosenthal from the Chicago Tribune also weighs in.

Radio One bats out of L.A.

Radio One has sold its struggling Urban AC KRBV-FM to Bonneville for $138 million. The station, once known as Urban/Hip-Hop formatted The Beat (100.3, KKBT) has tumbled in the ratings over the years, flipping to a Urban AC format two years ago. With Bonneville taking over, a format change is all but certain, as Bonneville does not program urban formats.

In Chicago, Bonneville owns Hot AC WTMX-FM, Classic Rock WDRV-FM (The Drive), and whatever-the-heck-format WILV-FM is playing.

NBC buys, destroys, sells WTVJ

That's according to Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel TV Critic Tom Jicha, who is dead on correct about NBC, who bought WTVJ (a CBS affiliate) in 1987, switched its long-time affiliation from WSVN-TV two years later, then traded in a strong channel position (Channel 4) to CBS for a weak one (Channel 6) in 1995 so they can own WCAU-TV (another former CBS O&O) in Philadelphia.

And what became of WSVN you ask? Well, they hooked up with Fox, expanded local news, caught fire with American Idol, and has beaten WTVJ ever since. (click here and scroll up for my take on the WTVJ mess - and why it was CBS' fault as much as it was NBC's. And no, I do not live in Lincolnwood...)

Justice Department approves XM-Sirius merger

The Justice Department approved the XM-Sirius deal, which clears another hurdle for the two to hook up (only the FCC stands in the way now.)