The TV season ended Wednesday night, with "American Idol" maintaining first and second place in the ratings despite a lackluster season, and CBS winning overall.
On the local dial, Channel 12 remained dominant throughout the day, based on the four-week May ratings period that ended with the TV season. But at 10 p.m., it was a tie between the ABC station and Channel 4, based on preliminary numbers from Nielsen Media Research.
In the measure of Monday through Friday late newscasts, both Channels 4 and 12 averaged 73,000 southeast Wisconsin households, each with a 14 percent share of TVs on at the time.
Channel 6 was in third with nearly 48,000 households, a 9 percent share of TVs on at the time. Channel 58 had about 42,5000 households, an 8 percent share.
Katrina moving off the night shift: If you missed Katrina Cravy's big announcement on last night's 10 p.m. newscast, she's staying at Channel 6.
She'll be hosting the Fox station's new 9 a.m. show. Cravy will continue doing Contact 6 consumer reporting.
"It's gonna be me and a few other people," she said. "It's gonna be a blast for people like me who love to talk and be in the know about everything. It's gonna be smart and a local show where we'll be interacting with you live and having fun."
The change came about because her son, Billy, is turning 5 years old. "When he starts school, there is no way I can work the night shift," she told viewers Wednesday night.
Her boss, general manager Chuck Steinmetz, came up with the plan to keep her at the station.
In a memo to Channel 6 staff members, news director Jim Lemon wrote that the new and, as yet, unnamed show won't launch until August.
"Until then Kat will remain on Fox 6 evening newscasts. And even with this change, she still continues to be the center of our Contact 6 franchise. Perhaps she’ll be the one to come up with the name for That New Show," he wrote, saying that the search for a new evening anchor begins "shortly."
Jason moving to the night shift: Channel 12 is moving quickly to fill the weekend evening news anchor chair opened by the retirement of Mike Miller, naming weekend morning anchor Jason Newton.
Miller anchors his last newscast at 10 p.m. Saturday.
Newton will co-anchor with Shelby Croft on Sunday evening. He'll continue reporting during the week.
On TV: Milwaukee Public TV airs a two-hour version of the LZ Lambeau Field event honoring Vietnam War veterans at 8 tonight on Channel 10. Some 30,000 vets and their families attended the weekend event.
- Michael Ausiello reports at EW.com that "Castle" reruns will move to ABC's 9 p.m. Wednesday slot this summer, once the last episodes of "Happy Town" are burned off. It goes back to Monday nights when new episodes start this fall.
- "Flashpoint" returns to CBS' schedule on June 4 at 8 p.m. The cop show will move into the 9 p.m. slot.
- Speaking of CBS, it's burning off the remaining episodes of "Three Rivers" in the 7 p.m. Saturday slot starting June 5.
- Cable's Soapnet will disappear in January 2012, to be replaced by Disney Junior.
Remembering Art Linkletter: It's been decades since Art Linkletter has been a TV presence, although he was a guest on Larry King's show into his 90s. Linkletter died Wednesday at 97.
He's most remembered for his skill in interviewing children on his old CBS afternoon show, "House Party."
Here's a sample, introduced by Bill Cosby:
Tim Cuprisin is the media columnist for OnMilwaukee.com. He's been a journalist for 30 years, starting in 1979 as a police reporter at the old City News Bureau of Chicago, a legendary wire service that's the reputed source of the journalistic maxim "if your mother says she loves you, check it out." He spent a couple years in the mean streets of his native Chicago, and then moved on to the Green Bay Press-Gazette and USA Today, before coming to the Milwaukee Journal in 1986.
A general assignment reporter, Cuprisin traveled Eastern Europe on several projects, starting with a look at Poland after five years of martial law, and a tour of six countries in the region after the Berlin Wall opened and Communism fell. He spent six weeks traversing the lands of the former Yugoslavia in 1994, linking Milwaukee Serbs, Croats and Bosnians with their war-torn homeland.
In the fall of 1994, a lifetime of serious television viewing earned him a daily column in the Milwaukee Journal (and, later the Journal Sentinel) focusing on TV and radio. For 15 years, he has chronicled the changes rocking broadcasting, both nationally and in Milwaukee, an effort he continues at OnMilwaukee.com.
When he's not watching TV, Cuprisin enjoys tending to his vegetable garden in the backyard of his home in Whitefish Bay, cooking and traveling.
