Roy Leonard
Chicago broadcast legend Roy Leonard says he’s “feeling fine” after falling and injuring himself as he was leaving a performance Sunday at the Civic Opera House.
Leonard, 83, said he was on his way back to his car with his son, Kolin, after attending the press opening of the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s “The Sound of Music” when he tripped over a small rise from the sidewalk to a brick-paved entrance to the parking garage. Continue reading
CNN should be ashamed. I know I am.
“Chicagoland,” the much-ballyhooed documentary series that completed its eight-week run on CNN Thursday, turned out to be as manipulative as its critics suspected.
A front-page story in Friday’s Chicago Tribune revealed the extent to which producers kowtowed to City Hall for what was billed as “a non-scripted, eight-part original series about a heartland American city.” Whatever it was, it wasn’t journalism. Continue reading
Katherine Green
Katherine Green, a veteran television news executive who stepped down last fall after six years at CNN Worldwide, was named senior vice president of news for Tribune Broadcasting Thursday.
Green will oversee news production and news operations for all 42 Tribune Broadcasting stations (including Chicago flagship WGN-Channel 9) and will report to Larry Wert, president of broadcast media. Her appointment, effective May 5, completes the executive management team Wert has been assembling since he began in February 2013. Continue reading
Saint Millie
Can a newspaper and website aimed at younger readers help transform an unknown rap artist into a bona fide star?
Ernest Wilkins’ cover story earlier this week about Saint Millie was only the beginning of RedEye Chicago’s extraordinary efforts to raise the profile of the 22-year-old Oak Park musician (born Milton McKinney) and chronicle his “Road to Glory” journey. Continue reading
Bill Kurtis and Diane Sawyer (1982)
Zoraida Sambolin isn’t the first Chicago news anchor to come home after bailing out of a network morning news show. Three decades earlier, Bill Kurtis did the same thing.
To the delight of Sambolin’s fans, WMAQ-Channel 5 announced Wednesday that the Chicago native was returning to co-anchor “NBC 5 News Today” after two years in New York as host of CNN’s “Early Start.” She stepped down last December after anchoring the two-hour weekday morning news show first with Ashleigh Banfield and later with John Berman. Continue reading
Zoraida Sambolin
Zoraida Sambolin, who left her job as CNN morning news anchor last December to move back home to Chicago, is rejoining NBC-owned WMAQ-Channel 5.
Starting May 22, Sambolin will co-anchor “NBC 5 News Today” with Stefan Holt from 4:30 to 7 a.m. Monday through Friday. She will replace Daniella Guzman, who is moving to KNBC-TV, the NBC-owned station in Los Angeles, as anchor of a revamped "Today in L.A." Continue reading
Giacomo Luca
Journalism major Giacomo Luca doesn’t graduate from Roosevelt University until May 2, but he’s already working as a weekend news anchor in the nation’s 187th largest market.
Luca, 21, commutes four hours each way between Chicago and Lima, Ohio (population 40,000), where he’s been anchoring and producing the 6 and 11 p.m. Saturday and Sunday newscasts on NBC affiliate WLIO-TV since March 9. Continue reading
Trish Biondo
Trish Biondo and her agent are disputing as “wildly inaccurate” an online report about her imminent return to Chicago radio.
Biondo, who left CBS Radio country WUSN FM 99.5 after 27 years last December, was the subject of a Chicagoland media blogger’s post late Friday speculating that she was “on her way back to the Chicago airwaves in the very near future.” The report was picked up by the trade website Radio Ink.
Attributed to unnamed “inside sources,” the blog report said Biondo’s agent, Chicago attorney Todd Musburger, “has been in negotiations with Clear Channel Media + Entertainment Chicago to bring Biondo to WLIT-FM/93.9 MYfm.” It added that “some think it could be as morning show co-host.”
Brian Tallerico
Chicago film critic Brian Tallerico, editor of Magill's Cinema Annual and a regular guest on news/talk WGN AM 720, has been named content editor of RogerEbert.com, the movie-review website and digital repository of the late film critic’s work.
Tallerico, who reports to New York-based editor-in-chief Matt Zoller Seitz, succeeds Hank Sartin, who stepped down as managing editor earlier this month to join the Department of Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Chicago. Continue reading
Here’s a look at Chicago’s most popular afternoon stars, according to radio ratings released last week for the period from Feb. 27 to March 26.
Following are the top-rated shows as measured by Nielsen Audio among all listeners age 6 and older from 3 to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday, followed by average share of audience. Continue reading