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News Shops Push Crime, Study Says

Posted on: Friday, 21 October 2005, 21:00 CDT

By Ted Cox

Remotely interesting: A new study by the grassroots group Media Democracy Chicago shows that local TV newscasts continue to emphasize a mix of crime, celebrity reports, entertainment and sports over genuine community issues. The study, which examined evening weekday newscasts at the major local network affiliates and WTTW Channel 11 for one week in June, found that 58 percent of all stories fell under the headings of crime, entertainment, disasters and sports. Entertainment led with 17 percent, followed by sports with 16 percent - and that was long before the White Sox were even close to the World Series. (That count seems to be running about 90 percent this week.)

Woohoo! The latest edition of the encyclopedic overview of "The Simpsons," entitled "One Step Beyond Forever," is out for $15 on Harper Books. It covers the 13th and 14th seasons and follows the series up to spring 2003. ...TV Guide has gone to a new "full-size" magazine format, the better to compete with the upstart Inside TV. But the old, smaller format was one of the things that made it so distinctive in the grocery checkout lane. We'll see.

If you want to see what all the fuss is about on "Prison Break," you can catch up when FX runs a marathon of the first seven episodes from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday. ... WBBM Channel 2 has launched an official, Web-only newscast through its cbs2chicago.com site called "CBS 2 @@ Your Desk." Susan Carlson and Ed Curran are the co- anchors.

End of the dial: Personality-talk WGN 720-AM remained atop the local Arbitron ratings when the summer book was released this week. Urban-contemporary WGCI 107.5-FM remained in second, and all the disasters helped lift all-news WBBM 780-AM to third. Adult-urban WVAZ 102.7-FM was fourth. Spanish-language WOJO 105.1-FM leapt into a tie for fifth with all-talk WLS 890-AM.

Apollo VIII astronauts James Lovell, Frank Borman and William Anders visit Steve Cochran at 7 a.m. today as he fills in for Spike O'Dell on WGN-AM. Jennifer Weigel and Clay Champlin fill Cochran's midday-afternoon slot.

Waste Watcher

So bad it's good

It's a cheesy concept, but it remains one of Woody Allen's funniest movies. It's "What's Up, Tiger Lily?," a Japanese James Bond rip-off that Allen took and overdubbed with entirely new dialogue about the pursuit of a top-secret egg-salad recipe. Funniest line: "Come back, you've got my vibrator!" It's at 8:30 p.m. today on Turner Classic Movies.

Source: Daily Herald; Arlington Heights, Ill.

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