From the Chicago Sun-Times | WBBM-Ch.2’s new morning talk show focusing on sports and business news in the 5 a.m. to 7 a.m. slot is off to a rough start, ranking last among all early morning shows in Chicago, according to the March Nielsen ratings book. The station’s ratings during that time are less than half of what they were a year ago when it ran a traditional morning news show.
Get the full story: suntimes.com
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‘Monsters & Money’ gets scary ratings
Gary Meier gets afternoon slot on WGN
By Phil Rosenthal | Garry Meier’s star is rising at Chicago Tribune parent Tribune Co.’s WGN-AM. As part of a schedule shake-up, Meier will switch slots with afternoon drive host Steve Cochran and picking up an extra hour each weekday from Cochran in the exchange, effective Friday.
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Oprah plans evening program on OWN
By Phil Rosenthal | Oprah Winfrey plans to do an evening program for OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network, the new cable venture set to launch next year as she is wrapping up the 25th and final season of her Chicago-based syndicated daytime talk show.
The Wall Street Journal reported today that the nighttime cable show, “Oprah’s Next Chapter,” likely will make its debut in late 2011 and run as many as two or three times a week.
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Conrad Black: Palm Beach mansion not sold
From Canada’s National Post | In his weekly newspaper column written from prison, Conrad Black said his 21,000-square-foot, $32 million Palm Beach mansion has not been foreclosed upon and sold, contrary to recent reports.
Black, convicted of
fraud and obstruction of justice during his tenure heading former
Chicago Sun-Times parent Hollinger International said in his April 3 column: “Ann Coulter is a social friend and a neighbour in Palm Beach (and was one of the many commiserators whom I was able to assure last week that there was no substance to a Toronto-area newspaper’s jubilant report that I had sold my house there, and at a large discount to appraised value).”
Get the full story: nationalpost.com
Oprah’s Nate Berkus to do show from New York
By Phil Rosenthal
| Chicago designer Nate Berkus’s daytime TV show for
Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Productions and Sony Pictures Television is going
to be produced in New York, it was announced Monday.
Get the full story: Tower Ticker.
Collectors shrug off new Playboy licensing
Dow Jones Newswires-WSJ | Over the past nine months, Playboy has turned its bunny loose, slapping its famous logo on a tanning spray, a disposable lighter, a mattress, a couch and a line of drinks designed to boost the libido.
The new Playboy paraphernalia should be welcome news for Ken Ritchie, who has a wing on his house precisely to hold stuff like this. But Mr. Ritchie turns up his nose at what Playboy is selling now. “These are a lot of silly things that have no connection with Playboy,”
Mr. Ritchie says. “How many guys do you think are going to go out and
buy navel rings because they’ve been licensed by Playboy? It’s not a
must-have item.”
Rod Blagojevich fired from ‘The Apprentice’
By Maureen Ryan | Former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich was ejected from NBC’s “Celebrity Apprentice” on Sunday, after yet another display of cluelessness, evasion and arrogance.
Blago’s worst enemies on the show weren’t his teammates.
He was done in by his inability to use technology, his addiction to political doublespeak and his inability to admit mistakes. If his appearance on this show was meant to buff up his image in the public eye, it’s hard to see how showing America his most slippery qualities did him any good.
Get the full story: The Watcher
Tribune senior creditors finger Centerbridge
By Michael Oneal |
A group of senior creditors in the Tribune Co. bankruptcy case charged Friday that the company’s largest junior bondholder was also part of a group led by California’s Chandler family that sought to buy the Chicago-based media conglomerate in 2007.
The charge is an attempt to blunt a legal strategy pressed by the junior bondholder, Centerbridge Partners, that aims to invalidate more than $8.6 billion in senior claims, leaving more for the junior creditors.
The heart of the junior creditor strategy is to show that a 2007
leveraged buyout orchestrated by Chicago real estate magnate Sam Zell
and financed by a bank group led by JPMorgan Chase was a case of
fraudulent conveyance, meaning the $8.2 billion transaction left the
company insolvent from the start.
Webb leaves WLUP, McMurry and Byrd shift
By Phil Rosental | Eddie Webb is leaving Emmis Communications’ WLUP-FM 97.9 at the end of this week for a New York-based opportunity in national radio syndication, leading to a series of changes at the Loop announced late Wednesday.
John “Byrd” Kempf, who moved from middays to WLUP’s 6-10 a.m. shift after the station parted company with Jonathon Brandmeier late last year, will assume Webb’s 3-7 p.m. shift. Pete McMurray, who’s been working 7 p.m. to midnight Monday through Friday, will become the new morning man April 19.
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Tribune Co. buys more time for reorganization plan
By Michael Oneal |
With the clock ticking on a March 31 deadline, Tribune Co. bought more
time to negotiate with its fractious creditors Wednesday when it filed a
motion in Delaware bankruptcy court to extend until April 30 its
exclusive right to propose a reorganization plan in its 15-month-old
Chapter 11 case.
Any extension of the “exclusivity period” would require a judge’s
approval. But the move takes advantage of a quirk in Delaware law, which
allows Tribune Co. to file the motion and essentially freeze
exclusivity until the next scheduled court hearing April 13.
Bondholders want Tribune’s $117M legal payments
By Michael Oneal | Junior
bondholders in Tribune Co.’s bankruptcy case argued Friday that the
company has wrongly set aside $117 million generated by its joint
venture with the TV/Food Network to pay for legal, consulting and
investment banking fees incurred by the lenders to its failed 2007
leveraged buyout.
Court papers outlining the dispute had earlier revealed that Tribune
Co. last year paid out around $25 million to cover the fees before U.S.
Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Carey halted them.
Roger Ebert creating new TV show
Associated Press | Roger Ebert says he and his wife are going ahead with plans to produce a new movie review television program with the working title “Roger Ebert presents At the Movies.”
The famous movie reviewer wrote Thursday on his Chicago Sun-Times blog that they even know who will host. The Pulitzer Prize-winning reviewer writes he would like to make “occasional appearances” on the air. Ebert lost his ability to speak after cancer surgery.
WBEZ joins ‘local news’ initiative, will add jobs
By Wailin Wong |
Chicago Public Radio (WBEZ-FM 91.5) is taking part in a $10.5 million
local journalism initiative by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
that will create approximately 50 new jobs, including five positions in
the Midwest.
The CPB is setting up seven Local Journalism Centers with participating
stations around the country. These centers will hire multimedia
journalists, whose reports will be broadcast on radio and television, as
well as “digital platforms” and “community engagement programs,” the
CPB said.
Mexican music station tops in Chicago market
From the Chicago Sun-Times | Chicago Mexican music station WOJO-FM 105.1 has moved to the number one position in the key 25- to 54-year-old demographic in the Chicago market, according to February Arbitron ratings. Urban adult contemporary station WVAZ-FM 102.7 and hot adult contemporary station WTMX-FM 101.9 tied for second.
Get the full story: suntimes.com
March 25, 2010 at 6:09 a.m.
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Filed under: Chicago executives, Crime, Criminal charges, Media Conrad Black loses Palm Beach mansion
From Canada’s Globe and Mail | The 21,000-square-foot, $32 million Palm Beach mansion owned by former newspaper magnate Conrad Black, who is serving a prison sentence for fraud and obstruction of justice during his tenure heading former Chicago Sun-Times parent Hollinger International, has been transferred to its mortgage company and put up for sale.
Black appealed his convictions to the U.S. Supreme Court, which is expected to rule on the case this spring. He is not expected to get out of prison before the fall of 2013.
Get the full story: globeandmail.ca
