Plus: Blackhawks vs. Dateline; Ralph Covert vs. Time
1. This Guitar Kills Time.
“Chicago musician Ralph Covert is into puppets,” Chloe Riley writes for DNAinfo Chicago. “Especially ones down with time travel.
“You find yourself talking to the puppets. I’m putting my arms around them and I’m like, ‘They are my friends,'” said the Grammy-nominated musician.
“Covert, the leader of the kids-music group Ralph’s World, recently shot a TV pilot with some animal puppets for what he hopes will become his first television series, Time Machine Guitar, in which he travels back in time, meets historical figures and rocks his socks off. He calls it a ‘rock ‘n’ roll Mister Roger’s Neighborhood.’
“And if PBS picks up the pilot – which aired last weekend on WTTW Channel 11 – the show could begin shooting as early as fall.”
Click through for the rest of the story and a couple of videos.
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2. How Gay Chicago TV Was Born.
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3. Blackhawks Rout Dateline.
“No other show on Chicago television came even remotely close to matching the 21.0 rating the Hawks [Game 7] notched on the NBC Sports Channel as the game went into overtime,” Lewis Lazare reports for the Chicago Business Journal. “One rating point equals 35,000 households in the Chicago market.
“The 21 rating at the end of the game was almost double the still-impressive 11.6 rating the hockey game had as it began soon after 7 pm. And the rating steadily grew throughout the game telecast.
“In the Chicago market the closest any other show on network television would come to the Blackhawks numbers Wednesday night was a 5.2 rating scored halfway through an edition of Dateline on sister NBC-owned WMAQ-Channel 5.”
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4. From TV.com:
SEASON 3 FINALE
8:30pm, CBS
Mike & Molly
Postponed from its original airdate due to its subject matter, “Windy City” features an approaching tornado which hampers Mike and Molly’s attempts to break crucial news to one another. Meanwhile, Mike and Carl are assigned to RenFaire duty after Mike’s mom spurns his boss, and there ain’t enough flagons of mead in all Ye Olde Illinoise to take the sting off that assignment.
Because now that Oklahomans have buried their dead, it’s okay to laugh about tornadoes again.
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Oops!
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5. Chicagowood.
“With five high-profile network TV shows set for filming here, alongside three mega-budget features, so far, 2013 should be the state’s highest grossing year ever – an estimated $225 million – in its nearly 40 years of hosting Hollywood entertainment projects,” Reel Chicago reports.
In fact, Hollywood likes doing business here so much it’s even installed its own mayor.
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6. House Passes Amended State Cable Bill.
“The Illinois House this week approved an extension of the Cable and Video Competition Act (the Illinois Cable Act) that represents a mixed outcome for the public,” Keep Us Connected reports.
“The good news is that the state rejected an attempt by the Cable Television and Communications Association of Illinois (CT&C) to obtain sweeping changes to the law that would have impaired municipal authority and wreaked havoc on the state’s public, educational and government (PEG) access channels.
“The state acted swiftly to put the brakes on the CT&C’s harmful proposal,” said CAN TV Executive Director Barbara Popovic. “That prevented the loss of local channels that today provide thousands of hours of programming statewide on education, arts, economic development, public safety and civic engagement.”
“The bad news is the failure of enforcement or legislation to rectify AT&T’s failure to meet the equivalency standard in the law for the public’s channels.
“We need the Attorney General to enforce the state’s PEG access provisions,” said Illinois NATOA President Howard Kleinstein. “Should enforcement fail to correct AT&T’s segregation and inferior treatment of PEG channels, a legislative solution in 2015 will be imperative.”
“Other amendments in the law delete certain build-out requirements and consumer protections. For many Illinois residents, that means cable competition will remain a hit or miss proposition.
“The Illinois Cable Act was first signed into law in 2007 and will now be extended to July of 2015. Senate approval is expected prior to the end of session on Friday, May 31.”
Disclosure: Barbara Popovic is a friend and landlord of Beachwood publisher and editor Steve Rhodes.
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Comments welcome.
Posted on May 31, 2013