NBC to leave Burbank for Universal City

NBC is moving their main studios, their network and local news operations, and the Tonight Show with soon-to-be new host Conan O'Brien (in 2009) to Universal City Studios in Los Angeles from its longtime home in Burbank, Calif. NBC has been operating from the Burbank facility since 1955, when it opened as NBC Color City (aptly named since NBC was the first network to broadcast in color.)

General Electric - NBC's owner since 1986 -purchased Universal Studios in 2004, merged it with NBC and became NBC Universal.

The NBC Studios in Burbank was home to Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, who moved the late-night talk show from New York City in 1972. The facility was also home to numerous TV shows including Wheel of Fortune, Chico & The Man, Sanford and Son, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and the original version of Hollywood Squares.

Current shows taped or filmed at NBC include Access: Hollywood, Ellen, and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

The Burbank studios also house the operations of KNBC-TV, NBC's O&O station in Los Angeles, and its Spanish-language sister station, Telemundo affiliate KVEA-TV.

The moves are expected to be complete by 2011.

Official press release: NBC Universal Announces Long-Term Strategic Plan For West Coast Operations

Official press release: NBC Universal Announces Long Term Plan To Create West Coast News Headquarters And Content Center in Los Angeles

updated 2007-10-11 at 5:42 p.m.

Radio One comes to the rescue for Indy's Top 40 fans

Faced with becoming another San Francisco (or Chicago before KISS-FM signed on in 2001), Indianapolis' Top 40 fans were spared the loss of the format completely when Radio One (yes, the URBAN radio experts) bought the intellectual property, the name RadioNow, and format of WNOU and is putting it on its 100.9 frequency, kicking the smooth jazz format to the curb.

On Monday, Emmis' WNOU flipped from Top 40 to Christmas music in preparation for the company to move its talk format(currently on WIBC-AM) to FM in January.

"Deal" has highest web traffic

NBC's Deal or No Deal has the highest web traffic of any TV show site last week with 15% of the market share, ahead of second-place Dancing With the Stars, according to Hitwise. Is it because viewers are being drawn to the site for the chance to win prize money? Or is it because guys like me want the prize money and an opportunity to see pictures of the models?

Remember - I report, you decide!

Miller, Coors to merge

The merger of two of the largest beer makers (behind Anheuser-Busch) will create a huge No. 2 presence in the beer industry, and will have a tremendous impact on buying and selling ad time for major sporting events - not the mention the Chicago based ad agencies who create the spots.

Chicago is "Family Guy's" kind of town

It looks like Family Guy has succeeded where The Simpsons succeeded.

According to numbers supplied by Twentieth Television (from a banner ad that appeared on TV Week's website), Family Guy's airing at 10 p.m. on WGN-TV finished number one in the time period between Sept. 17 and Sept. 21 among men 18-34 (2.2) and women 18-34 (2.6). It beat not only The King of Queens and Law and Order: Criminal Intent but all four network O&O newscasts in those demos, including WFLD's new 10 p.m. newscast, which continues to record losses in households and in demos held by The Simpsons last year.

Family Guy outdrew WFLD's newscast in households, 3.4/6 to 2.0/3. Family Guy also outdrew The Simpsons' 10:35p.m. airing, which had a 2.0/4.

Family Guy's airing at 10 p.m. also ranked number one for the entire day on WGN in those 18-34 demos, outdrawing fare such as Maury, Reba, According to Jim, and the CW primetime lineup.

Meanwhile, WLS-TV continued to lead the 10 p.m. news race in households, with NBC's WMAQ-TV second, and CBS-owned WBBM-TV's late newscast still a distant third.

Sources: Nielsen Media research, WRAP overnights, 9/17-9/21, Katz Media Group.

"Gossip Girl" picked up for full season

And the funny thing about it, Variety labeled this show a hit. Are these people dumb or just plain stupid? (Let's not call it a hit just yet... while the numbers are solid, they are still disappointing.)

WNBC blinks first

The first station to make a move in the new fall season is NBC-owned WNBC-TV in New York, which is dropping its soft news-oriented News4You, and replacing it with a traditional newscast at 5:30 p.m. Ratings for the show were behind ABC-owned WABC-TV, which ranks number one at 5 and 5:30 p.m.

WNBC has also removed the second half-hour of Merv Griffin's Crosswords at 4:30 p.m., replacing it with Access: Hollywood, which also retains its 7:30 p.m. time slot. Crosswords remains at 4.

These changes at WNBC does not affect other NBC O&Os, including WMAQ-TV in Chicago, which will stay the course for now.

NBC Universal to buy Oxygen

NBC Universal has purchased female-oriented cable network Oxygen for $925 million dollars. To pay for the transaction, NBC Universal will sell two TV stations, one in Los Angeles (KWHY-TV), the other in Puerto Rico.

Here is the official press release.

Tom Joyner to stay on V103

In a very smart move, Clear Channel-owned WVAZ-FM (or V103) has renewed the syndicated Tom Joyner Morning Show in a multi-year deal. There was speculation that WVAZ would can the show and replace it with a local morning show.

The TJMS and Radio One would have suffered a big blow if WVAZ didn't renew the show. Chicago is the second-largest radio market with a large African-American population to air the program, only behind Atlanta. Joyner does not have a New York clearance.

Joyner's show is broadcast from Dallas, with its studios across the street from where its Radio One affiliate (KSOC-FM) is based.

Surprise flip in Indianapolis

(Of all of the 687 posts on the T Dog Media Blog - excluding this year's Super Bowl - this is the first item I have ever wrote on Indianapolis media. So a big hearty welcome to Indianapolis readers of The T Dog Media Blog, if any. - T.H.)

Emmis has dumped the Top 40 format on WNOU-FM, flipping to Christmas music as of today (while it's 90 degrees outside no less), and in January, will flip to a talk format on January 8, and change the call letters WIBC-FM. WIBC-AM, now a talk outlet, will flip to sports.

Programming for the IQ deficient

VH-1's I Love New York begins tonight at 8 p.m. with Tiffany Pollard looking for love. She actually found her man. Now, if she can only find a real job...

Bears dominate prime time in Chicago on Sunday

Read 'em and weep: Chicago ratings: Bears-Packers on NBC Sunday night: 30.9 household rating, Diamondbacks-Cubs on TBS Saturday night: 15.3 household rating. I guess the Cubs are not only losers on the field, but in the TV ratings as well. Ha Ha Ha...

It's a "Deal" for WMAQ-TV

Note: The link to the story may require registration.

NBC Universal's Deal or No Deal weekday syndicated strip has been sold to a few NBC O&Os, including WMAQ-TV in Chicago, as well as to stations owned by CBS, Allbritton, Scripps, and Sinclair. The program will be hosted by Howie Mandel and feature the same elements as the prime-time show - the banker, the models (yes!), and the same production team.

The only differences between the new syndicated Deal and the network prime-time version are the daily strip version is a half-hour long, moves at a faster pace, and the top grand prize would be $250,000.

Here is the official press release from NBC Universal.

updated 2007-10-08 at 8:30pm

T Dog's Think Tank: We are pissed, Part II (well, maybe only Cubs fans...)

Let me start off by saying this is the last sports-related column yours truly will write for a long time (unless if it's providing NFL coverage maps or something ratings-related.) In fact, this is a media blog, and not a sports one, and I can tell you readers are already starting to fall asleep, giving the pathetic state Chicago sports is in right now.

The Cubs were swept by the Arizona Diamondbacks in the NLDS as everyone knows and there has been some rumblings from people about being unable to watch the games on broadcast TV (or as the mainstream media would call it, "free TV" - yes, those guys are still living in 1988, and they are fine with that...)

Oh, boo hoo. I don't have cable TV for the games. The games should only be on WGN. Oh, shut the hell up. Some people don't even have food to eat, and you all complain about not having cable TV to watch a baseball game? Leave it to Cubs fans to display such arrogance.

So after the game ended Saturday night, instead of Cubs fans applauding the team after a great season, they booed them off the field.

The fans boo the Cubs. They boo Rex Grossman. They booed the White Sox. They've booed the Blackhawks - wait, there are still Blackhawks fans?

When did Chicago become so vicious you ask? Maybe around the time we recorded our 10,000th murder or something. (That's a play on the Philadelphia Phillies' 10,00th loss they recorded this past season, but on the bright side, Philly suffers worse than Chicago sports fans do.)

Look, there is a lot to despise in this town. Politicians. Government. The media. Traffic. Community leaders who don't know when to shut up. Sports stars were supposed to be our heroes. But when they are taking steroids, drowning dogs, shooting off guns in the parking lots, or getting arrested (and that last part is the Cincinnati Bengals alone), they are not our heroes anymore, aren't they? Like everything else in this town, they let us down.

The Cubs are just a small problem of what's wrong with sports and society at large. They get paid millions of dollars, while we can't get money for public transit, or for a bridge to be replaced, or for gang-prevention programs. And when they suck at it, no wonder we're pissed off. The Cubs obviously haven't been following what's been going on in Illinois as of late.

Sports teams are run by the same type of dolts who have successfully run television and radio stations into the ground - money first, the public later. And yes, the Tribune Co. is so unique that it has managed to pull off two of those three feats.

And of course, the Chicago media is shameful as usual with their excess coverage of a Cubs playoff run, as well as a Bears quarterback switch. You have nobodies writing columns about the Cubs (besides Mariotti, that is), while coverage of the death of a previously missing woman - an African-American woman mind you - gets shuttled off to the back page or to the bottom half-hour of a newscast. Typical.

With the Cubs and White Sox gone, and the Bears struggling (they did win last night though), the state of Chicago sports is not in good shape. Then again, neither is the fall prime-time lineup, where there hasn't been a hit breakout show. Something's wrong when your best buzzed about show is a sitcom based on an insurance ad. What does it tell you when the Cubs get canceled and Cavemen is still on the air? Only in Chicago.

So on Monday morning, we head off to work, resuming our lives. But at least there's that new episode of Heroes to look forward to later that night. A program struggling to get on track after a successful season. Much like the Bears. Hey, Heroes might even nab Rex Grossman as a guest star. If that happens, I'm flipping over to The Game.

Say goodbye to Cubs, Phillies

... and possibly to a decently-rated World Series if either the Yankees and/or Red Sox don't advance in the playoffs. Look for the World Series to join the NBA Finals and Stanley Cup Finals in the ratings dumpster if neither team makes it there.

Cubs a ratings flop?

The only reason yours truly is quoting this article is because the numbers are here. Otherwise, I would not recommend it because Sherman failed to note that DVR usage is at an all-time high, as less and less people are watching TV live and time-shifting their programming, and that includes the Cubs. With the late start for the two games, it makes sense. Sherman and the Trib fail to point that out, as usual (forgive them, they are part of the mainstream media.)

Anyway, Game 1 of the Cubs-Diamondbacks NLDS series on TBS had a 18.1 rating and Game 2 had a 13.9 rating, both easily winning their timeslots in the Chicago market. Even at midnight early Friday morning, the 9 rating the game had still won the time period. It seems the only flop the Cubs are accused of is on the field.

Bonaduce not returning to the Loop

Instead, he is expected to renew his deal to continue on Adam Carolla's morning show on KLSX-FM in Los Angeles, which leaves the Loop (WLUP-FM, 97.9 FM) still without an afternoon personality. The drive-home position has been vacant since Zakk Tyler left.

Loop owner Emmis Communications contends that the former Partridge Family star's antics (i.e. the brawl he was involved in at an awards show Tuesday night) was not a factor in the decision.

LatinNation, American Latino TV get new Chicago home

The Hispanic-targeted weekly syndicated magazines Latination and American Latino TV, which were tolling away in late-night time slots on WCIU-TV and WBBM-TV respectively, moves to WPWR-TV this Saturday where both will air in a hour-long block from 5 to 6 p.m. Both programs are syndicated by Aim Tell-A-Vision group. (Click on the comments section of this post for more information on both programs filming segments in Chicago this coming week. )

Also premiering this weekend is UFC Wired, from Trifecta Entertainment. That show is scheduled to air Sundays at 12:01a.m. on WCIU-TV.

And WFLD-TV has dropped its 5 p.m. Saturday newscast. In its place are repeats of That's '70's Show and Scrubs.

updated 2007-10-06 at 11:08pm

Britney joke backfires

Desperate star meets desperate medium... Clear Channel owned WKQI-FM in Detroit DJ Big Boy started a "Britney suicide watch" and was taking calls on from listeners on when Britney will kick the bucket. The only question now is, when Big Boy's employment at WKQI will kick the bucket...

Mojo, the station's morning DJ, ripped the stunt on the air this morning, ripped Clear Channel Detroit executives on the stunt, possibly putting his own job on the line. Another host, Spike, also ripped the stunt. He is hosting a walk this weekend for suicide prevention in the Detroit area.

Another low point for the medium. Obviously, execs haven't learned from the last time a stunt went wrong.

After all, it's radio!

(I wonder how many more times I will use that closing line at the end of a radio item on this blog. A lot, I suppose...)

Adrienne the nut at it again

This time, the former Top Model star gored former Partridge Family and Loop star Danny Bonaduce into a fight with former Survivor contestant Johnny Fairplay (or Dalton, or whatever) at the Reality TV Awards (and I thought this stuff only happened at the hip-hop awards...)

Note the word "former" in this post. It's used a lot.

Maybe Ms. Curry should replace Courtney Thorne-Smith as Jim Belushi's wife on According to Jim. They would make a great loser Chicago couple on a loser show (wow, it's been awhile since I attacked that program...)

And as for Danny - look for this incident to cinch the deal for him to return to the Loop. After all, it's radio!