Written and created material since high school, including journals, plays, and scripts. Created T Dog Media in 2006 to write and provide analysis on the media business and other subjects, including sports, technology, pop culture, and science fiction. Written work has received accolades from well-known media industry figures.
Commentary
Everyone knows by now how much President Trump goes on and on about Chicago violence, tweeting about it every chance he gets. Well, one of the tools that could be used to help residents of poverty-stricken neighborhoods in Chicago and elsewhere is about to get "weed-whacked" by the FCC.
Special interest group hijacks and derails plan - a situation we're all too familiar with in the media business The Lakefront project Star Wars creator George Lucas wanted to build has been zapped by something more sinister than Darth Vader: An organization who claims they serve the "public interest".
FCC fine against Roanoke TV station could invite special-interest groups to influence newsroom content As you recall, the FCC proposed a fine of $325,000 against WDBJ in Roanoke, Va. last March after inadvertently showing a three-second video clip of a porn site with male genitalia during a 2012 news story about nearby Cave Springs, Va.'s effort to prevent a former porn star from joining its volunteer fire department.
Deadline article, Bernstein's comments prove women and minorities still face a hostile environment in the media business It's interesting we have a "communications" as a college major, and yet have a lot of people who don't know how to communicate - especially when it comes to gender and race issues.
What can you say about the coverage of the Ferguson, Mo. disturbances from the broadcast networks and cable news networks? They dropped the ball, of course, with the lack of live coverage of the events unfolding in the St. Louis suburb over the last few nights.
(Editor's note: This item - thoughts on the political climate we're in these days and how it relates to subjects I write about in this blog - was originally in Tuesday's T Dog's Media Notepad. But this essay is so important, I decided to give its own post. - T.H.)
Last week's episode told what a lot of us already know: Hollywood really doesn't respect people of color On Grey's Anatomy, they had the Ferry Boat accident. For The Simpsons, it was changing the backstory of the series to create a lame plot on how Homer Simpson "discovered" grunge music.
Television/Pop Culture/Entertainment
At first glance, when you look in your TV listings and see something called The Jam, your first thought would be some kind of dance-music show. But in all actuality, it is the name of WCIU's new 6-to-8 a.m. morning show, debuting in a few weeks.
Viewing patterns are racially segregated as the city is Two weeks ago, the Metropolitan Planning Council and the Urban Institute proclaimed in a study (another in a very long line) something we've known for decades: the Chicago metropolitan area is one of the most racially segregated areas in the country.
Revival of cult '90's series arrives in 2017 The Mystery Science Theater 3000 reboot branded about for the last year has now found a home: Netflix. Beginning in 2017, the streaming service will air new episodes of the former Comedy Central and SciFi (now SyFy) movie-mocking series.
WGN-TV to drop CW affiliation in September; moves to Fox-owned WPWR Tribune Broadcasting renews agreement to carry CW programming in twelve markets Tribune Broadcasting finally renewed its CW affiliations this weekend. But in a surprise move, it didn't renew its affiliation with WGN-TV in Chicago.
Movie studios skip the gathering, leaving TV wide open The world's largest pop culture convention is back for another go-around. San Diego Comic-Con (or Hollywood South as many dub it) launched Thursday at the San Diego Convention Center.
Remember when the major studios (especially in the 1980's and 1990's) had big booths at the NATPE convention to entice station buyers with costumed characters, major stars, and even wrestling matches? Well, those days are over as escalating costs have driven them off the convention floor and into hotel suites and the carnival sideshows have been cut.
Media Industry/Trade Coverage/Analysis
Also approves ATSC 3.0 television transmissions If there is any federal agency that gives the Illinois legislature a run for their money for being the most dysfunctional in the United States, the Federal Communications Commission would win hands down.
New DMA rankings show large markets losing population Chicago, San Diego, Indianapolis big losers; Nashville, Portland big gainers An analysis of the 2017-18 Nielsen designated market area (DMA) television household rankings shows a shift in population away from the top markets of New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago to other DMAs while other big markets such as Washington D.C., Houston, Seattle, and Atlanta are seeing huge gains.
In a stunning move, The Walt Disney Company announced Tuesday it was pulling its movies from Netflix and launching its own subscription streaming service instead in 2019. Starting with the 2019 theatrical slate, Disney and Pixar movies will stream exclusively on the yet-to-be-unnamed service, including Frozen 2, Toy Story 4, and the upcoming live-action version of The Lion King.
If you are an over-the-air customer in Chicago - or anywhere for that matter, get ready for some big changes as six local stations relocate. The FCC released a list Thursday of how many stations across the country sold their spectrum to wireless companies - and several big-market stations are on the list - including Chicago.
As viewers are cutting the cords, air comes out of cable's bloated balloon in the form of increasing defunct channels. A long-awaited change may be coming to the pay-TV atmosphere. Stories this week in Variety, Wall Street Journal, and Awful Announcing suggest the cable ecosystem is expected to shift soon due to low viewership, low reach, and high cost.
As the National Association Of Programming Executives gathering began Tuesday in Miami, stations are firming up their schedules for next fall as first-run and off-network series are being rolled out onto the marketplace. But what has been the norm in previous years, the shelves are quite bare with only a handful of shows being offered.
For those who don't like media consolidation and love net neutrality - you are not going to like what you are about to read In a Presidential contest people will be talking about for ages, Republican Donald J. Trump stunned everyone by winning the presidency in an upset over Democrat Hillary Clinton last week - sending shockwaves throughout the world.
Back in 2008, WGN-TV aired a retrospective of its 60th year in broadcasting. Hosted by Jim Belushi, the special looked back on the station's local programming such as Garfield Goose, Ray Rayner, and Bozo. Airing on a Sunday night, the special did better in the ratings than The CW fare it pre-empted and pulled in far more revenue.
The announcement of Michael Strahan's departure from Disney-ABC Domestic Television's Live With Kelly and Michael stunned the entertainment world Tuesday - perhaps none other than co-host Kelly Ripa herself, who reportedly wasn't happy about the news.
Reviews
As one who used to watch Family Guy way back when, yours truly was a Seth MacFarlane fan. I even attended a live reading for the show ten years ago. But oh my, how times have changed. Outside of the brilliant Cosmos remake from a few years ago, he hasn't done anything of note.
Outside of Inhumans, there wasn't much to talk about or gloat over on Friday night. Following Inhumans, 20/20 finished with a 0.6 adults 18-49 rating. CBS won the evening with its lineup of dramas: MacGyver (0.8), Hawaii Five-O (1.0) and Blue Bloods (1.1).
Bad writing sinks "innovative" show During the 1968-69 season, NBC premiered a new Sunday night show titled The New Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, becoming the first television series to use a hybrid of live-action and animation.
Stephen Colbert - yes, the real Stephen Colbert - finally made his long-awaited hosting debut last night on The Late Show, only the third time a comedian has hosted under this title. Colbert is no longer chained to his "Stephen Colbert" character he played on his Comedy Central show.
This useless reboot tells you all you need to know about the state of broadcast network prime-time television Didn't I tell you? Didn't I? Didn't I tell you the new Heroes: Reborn would be a disaster? I told you - right here in this space in February 2014 - about how bad an idea rebooting Heroes was.
I guess the best thing to acknowledge Sharknado's first two movies was the guilty pleasure aspect of it... the campness - you know, it was so bad it was good. It was the type of flick ready to be mocked by the Mystery Science Theater 3000 crew.
With horrible ratings, Chicagoland ranks among one of television's biggest flops Did Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration manipulate scenes? I guess Chicago would've been better off if we were attacked by a Sharknado. When the dust clears, CNN's Chicagoland will go down as one of the biggest bombs in the history of television - and one of the worst shows in the history of the medium.
Sports Media
The Chargers' move to Los Angeles from San Diego couldn't have been more disastrous. Game three into this experiment, and the Chargers are only drawing around 25,000 fans per game in the 30,000-seat StubHub Center, a soccer stadium in south suburban Carson, Calif., thirteen miles south of downtown Los Angeles.
Bears game up in the ratings from last MNF appearance The Bears MVP: Luke Skywalker? Monday was a great day for Chicago sports fans as the Cubs and Bears played in meaningful games.
Caution! You're about to enter "The No Fumble Zone". That's because we now know Jay Cutler won't be anywhere near a football anymore. But the former Chicago Bears quarterback did decide to trade in his cleats for a broadcasting career by joining Fox Sports' NFL crew.
As Haray Caray once said, "you can't beat fun at the ol' ballpark." And for once, there was a fight on daytime TV that didn't involve President Trump or the Jerry Springer show.
As anticipated, ESPN lays off staffers, writers, on-air personnel Several recognizable names cut, including two with Chicago ties As expected, ESPN announced Wednesday it was laying off around 100 people - many of them on-air personnel and a few of the layoffs were surprises.
Over the last few weeks, you have read about why the NFL's ratings are declining, with answers ranging from noncompetitive matchups to national anthem protests. Well, now it's my turn to weigh in. So what's wrong with the NFL? Well, let's start locally as the Chicago Bears continue to drive away viewers away from their television sets.
Fox, WFLD, MLB, advertisers also have reason to pop out the bubbly The Chicago Cubs' World Series win is historic in many ways - and not just for the team. Wednesday night's achievement - the first championship for the team since 1908, brought dividends for Fox, advertisers, the game of baseball, and over-the-air television in general.
The new name for the second coming of Comiskey is a guaranteed flop with fans Nine alternative names for the ballpark With news like this, you'd wish Jay Leno and David Letterman weren't retired. The Chicago White Sox announced Wednesday it has entered into a new naming rights agreement with a mortgage lending company, renaming their Guaranteed Rate Field, replacing teleco U.S.
Radio
Move comes as Entercom takes over CBS Radio In a surprise major shift rocking the Chicago radio landscape, WJMK-FM flipped to Classic Hip-Hop on Friday as 104.3 Jams, replacing the Classic Hits format known as "K-Hits". The format change happened as Entercom closed on its purchase of CBS Radio, who officially took over the company Friday.
Thanks to Eric Ferguson and Co., The Mix reaches number one in the last non-Christmas book of 2017 For the first time in recent memory, Hubbard Broadcasting's WTMX-FM - known as The Mix 101.9 FM - topped the ratings charts, dethroning Urban Adult Contemporary outlet WVAZ-FM (V103).
Tom Joyner announces retirement - in 2019 One of radio's most venerable personalities is calling it a career as Tom Joyner announced Tuesday he is stepping down from his radio gig in 2019, as reported by several publications, including Radio Insight and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
In a move that was somewhat expected, Hubbard Broadcasting's WTMX-FM fired Kathy Hart Thursday after she went AWOL from the Eric & Kathy Morning Show. As first reported by Robert Feder, the 53-year old half of the successful morning show on the Hot Adult Contemporary station was handed her walking papers after taking a leave of absence from the morning show earlier this spring.
Locally-owned bank gets ad to run on 40-plus stations at the same time : 51 p.m. Chicago radio listeners, another "roadblock" is taking place. But unlike the last one, this one is much shorter - and probably more enjoyable to listen to.
More talk, less music - as in none at all. Say goodbye to Q101, who Winnetka-based Fall Out Boy credits for helping launch its career. With Randy Michaels about to take over Emmis' WKQX-FM (Q101) in Chicago and WRXP-FM in New York City and the all-but certain likelihood of shifting both stations from Alternative Rock to either all-news or news-talk, what does this mean for the format?
Journalism
Online news publication ceases operations; unionizing employees in New York could be reason Billionaire patriarch Joe Ricketts announced Thursday he was closing DNA Info and the "ist" online publications, effective immediately. Gone are DNA Info Chicago and is sister news site, DNA Info New York.
Meet the man who saved the Sun-times - and perhaps journalism in Chicago. On Wednesday, former Chicago Alderman Edwin Eisendrath and a group of investors won out over Chicago Tribune owner tronc to buy the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Reader from Wrapports for a disclosed price.
A hate crime video shot live on Facebook has stations debating the use of such content In a city whose news stations are accustomed to airing gruesome video and reporting on daily shootings and murders, even this was too much to take.
When you come across something like The Puppet's Court, you're probably thinking this must be one of those first-run syndicated strips that was being pitched at the recent NATPE gathering in Miami back in January.
It looks like more and more stations are joining the extremely early morning dawn patrol. If you thought 5 a.m. was early, you haven't seen nothing yet. In two big markets, local stations have or are in the process of expanding their morning newscasts - to 4:30 a.m.
It's no longer a rush to get into the 4:30 a.m. news business - it's a stampede. Consider this - a recent search of TVNewsCheck of "4:30″ turned up a whopping 115 items., with most of the stories featuring stations starting 4:30 a.m. newscasts in the past year, or so.
Scriptwriting