You might want to read this note to the Chicago Tribune newsroom from my boss, Michael Lev, the associate managing editor for business:

Folks:

I’m very pleased to announce a new assignment for one of our colleagues. Beginning next week, Phil Rosenthal will shift the focus of his column from media to the broader world of business. 

Phil is nationally recognized for his writing talent, wit and ability to analyze media trends. Those skills will serve him well as he takes on his new role, continuing a rich tradition at the Tribune of providing our readers with an array of columnist voices  on different subjects.

Along with the splendid reporting and writing that our business staff provides every day, I’m certain Phil’s contribution is going to help take us to the next level.

We’ll make an announcement in the coming days on media beat coverage.

Please join me in congratulating Phil on his new assignment.

Mike Lev        

Paige Wiser is out at the Chicago Sun-Times after 17 years, the last three as its television critic, because her "Glee Live!" concert review in Sunday's newspaper mentioned one song that wasn't performed and described another she did not see.

"I'm at fault," Wiser said. "I do understand what a big deal this was. I am ashamed, and it's just a matter of making bad decisions when you're exhausted."

Wiser, 40, said she brought her two young children to the show Friday at Rosemont's Allstate Arena with the approval of an editor who told her "cute kids' reaction would be more than welcome" in the story. Her son fell off a chair during the show. Her daughter vomited into a cotton-candy bag.

They left three songs later, only 13 numbers into the concert, but her report included commentary on the encore based on information from previous "Glee Live!" shows.

The Sun-Times on Thursday posted an editor's note about the lapse and Wiser's dismissal, and withdrew the review from its Web site.

The reinvention of the media business is taking many forms from a single strategy.

Traditional business models have taken a beating. So when there's a perceived advantage to be pressed, leverage it posthaste.

For CBS, that means installing Scott Pelley, a "60 Minutes" correspondent, as anchor this week on a "CBS Evening News" so decidedly staid and stolid that it recalled the days of Walter Cronkite. The thinking is there is value still in the halo of "60 Minutes" and CBS News' heritage.

For Katie Couric, whose attempt to modernize the "CBS Evening News" didn't succeed, that means announcing plans this week to join ABC News and next year launch a syndicated daytime news, information and talk program. The new show will play off Couric's success in morning television in the post-"Oprah" era.

For commentator Glenn Beck, whose $40 million in annual earnings comes from a variety of sources including a premium subscription website, it means replacing the daily Fox News Channel show he's ending this month with his own pay-video website, GBTV.com. "We're tired of a middleman," Beck said on his nationally syndicated radio program.

And for the Chicago Tribune, beginning next week, it means a redesign online and in print, where the paper will see the addition of 40 to 44 open pages for news per week to accommodate what Publisher Tony Hunter said in a note to employees will be "more content, greater depth, new columns and features."

Continue reading my June 8 column "Change ripples across the Chicago Tribune, media landscape"

Katie Couric's syndicated one-hour daytime show will air weekdays at 3 p.m. on Chicago's WLS-Ch. 7 and seven other Disney-ABC-owned stations when it makes its debut in September 2012, the media company announced Monday.

WLS now runs the syndicated "Inside Edition" at 3 p.m. and "Jepoardy!" at 3:30 p.m., as a lead-in to its 4 p.m. news. WLS confirmed Couric's show will air here in that hour, adding that it is too soon to know where the displaced programs will go but they will continue to air.

Couric, the erstwhile anchor of the "CBS Evening News," will be reunited with her one-time "Today" mentor, former NBC Universal President and Chief Executive Jeff Zucker, who will be executive producer of her still-to-be-named New York-based daytime series.

Throughout each hour of "Windy City Live," WLS-Ch. 7's 9 a.m. replacement for "A.M. Chicago," if not "The Oprah Winfrey Show" that replaced it 25 years ago, viewers are invited to comment about the show on Facebook and Twitter.

The benefit of this for "WCL" is to build its social network community, with more than 8,600 Facebook friends clicking "like" on its page after its first seven shows.

The benefit to viewers is that going on their computers keeps them from fully focusing on what is clearly a still-gestating program that has so much still to develop that it probably should be viewed on an ultrasound monitor rather than a TV.

There are problems. They're not insurmountable. But they will be if they aren't addressed quickly, and this is critical because there isn't a smart person in local media, whether they work at WLS or not, who isn't rooting for "WCL" to prove its viability.

At risk is not just an ambitious live local television show, but the prospects for anyone else in Chicago commercial TV to get the chance to attempt launching a new live local show that doesn't just rehash headlines and/or plug local businesses.

Continue reading my June 5 column "'Windy City Live' wobbly as it tries to find its legs in its infancy"

RELATED: My June 1 column on Larsen's appointment

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Nils Larsen, chairman of Tribune Co.'s broadcast division since October, today was named chief executive of Tribune Broadcasting, which is streamlining its upper management.

Effective immediately, Larsen, 40, will take on duties that previously belonged to Jerry Kersting, 61, who exits as broadcasting president, a position that is being eliminated.

Larsen (pictured right) remains chief investment officer of Tribune Co., parent of the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, WGN-Ch. 9, WGN America, WGN-AM 720 and other media outlets across the country.

"Nils is the right person to lead our broadcasting operations," Eddy Hartenstein, Tribune Co.’s CEO and publisher of the Los Angeles Times, said in the announcement. "He’s thoughtful, creative, and has the vision necessary to maximize the effectiveness of the group."

Here's a scene you never saw in those fun and funny "This is SportsCenter" ads that helped establish the ESPN brand over the last two decades or so:

Anchor Karie Ross — fed up with the culture of harassment she and other women encountered at the channel — stood up at a company meeting in what passed for the cafeteria at ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Conn.

"Look, this behavior has to stop," Ross said, trembling. "This is crazy. You guys can't be doing this. Guys, you must stop sexually harassing these women. Don't be trading edit time for a date. Quit making all the lewd comments. Just let us work in peace."

Although it would take ESPN years to make whatever progress it has in that area, Ross' heroic stand around 20 years ago is one of the more compelling recollections in "Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN." The new tome from James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales is the story of the global sports giant as told (and sometimes contradicted) by those who made it what all that it is.

Continue reading my May 29 column "Book about ESPN shows sports channel not all fun and games"

Oprah Winfrey's Wednesday 9 a.m. finale on WLS-Ch. 7 averaged a 13.4 household rating, which translates to a little less than 470,000 Chicago-area homes. 

That was second only in Chicago on Wednesday to the 14.9 household rating (nearly 522,000 homes) that tuned in for the season-ending edition of "American Idol" on WFLD-Ch. 32 that night.

Winfrey's swan song on Channel 7 claimed a 38.1 percent share of the audience in the 9 a.m. hour, while the two-hour "Idol" held 24.8 percent of the prime-time audience. Additionally, WLS' 11 p.m. repeat of the telecast averaged a 5.7 household rating and a 14.4 percent share of the homes watching television in its hour.

Complete national viewership and household ratings won't be available until early next month.

(UPDATED AT 4:30 P.M. WITH NATIONAL FIGURES)

The Chicago Bulls' overtime loss Tuesday to the Miami Heat in Game 4 of Eastern Conference final on TNT was seen in 22.6 percent of the homes in the Chicago market, according to Nielsen Media Research figures.

That translates to more than 791,000 area homes. The season finale of "Dancing With the Stars" averaged a 16.4 household rating here (or about XXXX), and the penultinate epuside this season of Fox's "American Idol" averaged an 11.3 household rating.

National figures, released later Wednesday, showed Game 4 averaged 9.77 million viewers and a 6.1 household rating, despite the intense competition of the second-to-last night of the May ratings period. 

Dick Ebersol has resigned as NBC Sports Group chairman.

OK. He actually resigned on Thursday. But Ebersol is the TV executive who helped bring "plausibly live" into common use as a euphemism for "taped," as in: NBC is airing this Olympics event plausibly live now because the network paid too much money to air it outside of prime time, when the event occurred.

We'll just pretend the Ebersol thing hasn't happened … until … right … now … so we can tell the story we want to tell the way we want to tell it before the largest possible audience and command as many ad dollars as we can. Hope no one spoiled it for you.

Continue reading my May 25 column "Former NBC Sports chief Dick Ebersol's career a tale of the tape"

(Dick Ebersol photo, above, from Getty, 2005.)

"Windy City Live," the new local program WLS-Ch. 7 plans to introduce Thursday in the 9 a.m. weekday slot that Oprah Winfrey vacates after Wednesday's finale, has announced the addition of four contributors.

Joining hosts Ryan Chiaverini and Val Warner will be Roe Conn of Citadel's WLS-AM 890 and WMAQ's Chicago Nonstop, former "Studs" host Mark DeCarlo, restaurateur Billy Dec and Nina Chantele of Clear Channel's WGCI-FM 107.5 and WKSC-FM 103.5.

WLS plans to continue airing reruns of "Oprah" after "Nightline" at 11 p.m. until Sept. 9, with ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live" delayed an hour each night until then.

Before Winfrey took her show national in 1986, she was host of Channel 7's "A.M. Chicago," a local show that aired in that 9 a.m. weekday slot.

Pat Tomasulo of Chicago Tribune parent Tribune Co.'s WGN-Ch. 9 is set to make yet another visit to Disney-ABC's syndicated "Live With Regis & Kelly."

Tomasulo (pictured right) is set to fill in for Regis Philbin as Kelly Ripa's guest co-host on Friday. Other scheduled guests are to include Lombard, Ill., band Plain White T's, Milwaukee-born actress Heather Graham and the winner of "Top Chef: All Stars."

It's the "WGN Morning News" sportscaster's third appearance on the program. Tomasulo won a contest to serve as Ripa's guest co-host in 2009 and last year was part of a taped segment during a week of "Coast to Coast Ambush Makeovers."

Randy Hano, a former publisher of Chicago Tribune Media Group's Chicago magazine, is joining Time Out Chicago as vice president and group publisher, effective June 13.

Hano will report to Frank Sennett, Time Out Chicago’s president and editor-in-chief.

"He fundamentally gets what Time Out Chicago does and is ready to elevate our sales function to a new level," Sennett said of Hano in the announcement.

The previous vice president and group publisher, Ivy Lester, exited earlier this month just seven months after replacing David Garland in the position, which oversees advertising for Time Out Chicago, Time Out Chicago Kids, Time Out Chicago Student Guide and the magazine's eating and drinking guides.

(UPDATED AT 2:30 P.M. WITH NATIONAL FIGURES)

Fewer Chicago-area homes were tuned in to the Bulls' 96-85 Game 3 Eastern Conference finals loss Sunday at Miami on TNT than the first two games of their best-of-seven series with the Heat, although the series remains a top TV draw.

The national household rating, like overnight household ratings from the nation's metered markets released earlier Monday, was the highest of the Chicago-Miami playoff so far. But total viewership for the telecast fell short of TNT's record-setting coverage of Bulls' Game 1 victory, which remains the most watched basketball game in cable TV history.

An average of 10.889 million total viewers watched Sunday's Game 3 telecast, making it the second most watched basketball game ever on cable.

Satellite TV trucks were parked around a cul-de-sac in Bakersfield, Calif., last week.

Whatever the former housekeeper of Maria Shriver and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger did or did not consent to in connection with parenting the child he admitted to fathering, it wasn't this.

As for the child, old enough to know what's going on, well, no one yet has had a say about their entry into the world, but this is a hell of a way to become the most-talked-about kid in school. The media haven't reported a name, but it doesn't take a lot of digging online to learn his mom's name, find a birth date and picture with the child's face obscured or sundry other details.

And then there have been the reporters, photographers and TV crews keeping watch outside their home.

The Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune corporate sister that broke the news of Schwarzenegger's admission, has not identified the woman or even the gender of the child she had with the actor-politician whose separation from Shriver, his wife of 25 years, was announced the week before.

Time Warner's TMZ.com identified Schwarzenegger's former employee a few hours after the L.A. Times story, however. Soon other media outlets, including this newspaper (which ran a report from CNN inside Thursday's edition that cited The New York Times) have made the woman and the age and gender of Schwarzenegger's child almost ubiquitous, despite certain concessions to the fact he's a minor.

If it makes you queasy to think about the kid, the idea of a newspaper sitting on information it had might also cause uneasiness.

So when the floodgates opened, it wasn't entirely clear what constituted high ground.

Continue reading my May 22 column "In Schwarzenegger case and many others, name game often leaves no winners"

Before there was social networking, there was Oprah Winfrey.

Phil Donahue revolutionized daytime TV talk by walking into the audience and showing people parts of the world they didn’t necessarily know about.

Winfrey revolutionized daytime TV talk by being the audience and showing people parts of the world they didn’t necessarily know they shared.

Before the Internet enabled anyone anywhere to find hundreds, thousands or sometimes millions of others with a common point of view, problem, solution, experience or interest, Winfrey and her Chicago-based program connected with those people.

More important, it connected them to each other.

Continue reading my May 22 story "What made Oprah Oprah"

(Chicago Tribune file photo, above, of Oprah Winfrey, 1984.)

It will be interesting to see if Chicago fans looking for their Oprah Winfrey fix next Thursday, the day after her final original show airs, bypass the debut of WLS-Ch. 7's ambitious live local 9 a.m. replacement for an unexpected special sendoff celebration for Winfrey on her new cable network.

Live from Winfrey's Harpo Studios in Chicago, Gayle King (pictured right) will host “The Gayle King Show: 'Oprah' Finale After Party,” which is set for 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. Thursday on cable's OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network. The program also can be heard on SiriusXM Radio's Oprah Radio channel.

Most "Oprah" stations run the show in the late afternoon. But Winfrey has held down Channel 7's 9 a.m. slot since January 1984, when she took over the local "A.M. Chicago," the precursor to the nationally syndicated program that's ending its 25-season run next week.

Without "Oprah," WLS plans to return to its roots with "Windy City Live," a local show it plans to introduce on Thursday. The new program's hosts will be Val Warner and Ryan Chiaverini.

Wheeling's Haley Reinhart has been one of the low-vote-getters four times this season on "American Idol." As one of the final three contestants, she stumbled on the stairs while performing Led Zeppelin's "What Is and What Should Never Be" on Wednesday's program.

But if Reinhart falls tonight and fails to advance to next week's two-part finale, some of her fans may be tempted to blame the Chicago Bulls and Miami Heat for helping knock her out. That's because Game 2 of the Bulls-Heat playoff on TNT blew away "Idol" on Fox-owned WFLD-Ch. 32 in the ratings, raising questions of how effectively Reinhart could get out the vote in the Chicago area.

They can take solace, however, in knowing that despite the Bulls averaging a 24.6 household rating in the Chicago  market (or roughly (which translates to more than 860,000 local homes), "Idol" averaged a 13.2 household rating (or more than 460,000 homes) here, actually slightly higher than its Wednesday night's average this season of 12.8 on Channel 32.

(UPDATED AT 4:30 P.M. WITH NATIONAL FIGURES)

Roughly one-in-four Chicago-area homes, on average, watched the Bulls' loss Wednesday to the Miami Heat, which evened their best-of-seven NBA Eastern Conference final playoff series at one game apiece.

TNT's Game 2 telecast averaged 24.6 percent of the TV households (more than 860,000 local homes) in the Chicago market, consistent with the 24.3 household rating here for Game 1 on Sunday night.

All across America, it's graduation season. People close out one chapter of their lives and look ahead to the next in a rite of passage attended by those whose support helped get them this far. It's a time for reflection and revelation, excitement and anxiety, pep talks and pride.

With pomp and ceremony, if not "Pomp and Circumstances," television has the same ritual.

Shows are wrapping up their seasons this month, some never to return. Jerry Lewis announced this week he is retiring as host of the annual Labor Day telethon he launched 45 years ago. Regis Philbin is leaving his long-running syndicated morning show later this year. Katie Couric will sign off as anchor of "CBS Evening News" on Thursday. Mary Hart is supposed to bid adieu to "Entertainment Tonight" after 29 years on Friday.

And Oprah Winfrey is closing out the 25th and final season of her seminal, Chicago-based and nationally syndicated daytime talk show, moving on to a more hands-on role in running OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network, the cable channel she and Discovery Communications launched earlier this year.

Tuesday night at the United Center before a crowd of approximately 13,000 devotees, Winfrey taped the two shows for next week that serve as the lead-in to next Wednesday's finale of the TV-talk juggernaut.

Continue reading my May 18 column "Oprah Winfrey spectacle stands out in a sea of farewells"

(Chicago Tribune photos inside United Center, above, by Michael Tercha, with photo of the sign outside UC by Brian Cassella.)