The Green Bay Packers' 27-14 win over the Ravens captured a healthy audience for Channel 12's simulcast of ESPN's "Monday Night Football."
Preliminary overnight numbers from Nielsen Media Research show that an averaged audience of nearly 269,000 southeast Wisconsin households -- nearly a third of area TV homes -- were watching.
Viewership peaked at nearly 294,000 households -- a 45% share of TVs on at the time -- between 8 and 8:15 p.m, according to Nielsen statistics.
By way of comparison, Brett Favre's return to Lambeau Field at the beginning of November had some 448,000 area households, nearly half the sets on at the time for the Sunday late afternoon loss to the Vikings.
The Oct. 5 Monday night Vikings-Packers game brought in nearly 325,000 southeast Wisconsin households more than half the households watching TV at the time, according to Nielsen numbers.
That Monday night game pulled in nearly 22 million viewers for ESPN, making it the highest rated cable sports event ever.
Even if there's no snow: Channel 4 has already announced that it's starting its Wednesday news at 4 a.m., no matter how much -- or how little -- of the expected snow hits.
No, I'm not getting up at 4 to monitor TV. But expect me to be Twittering and Facebooking on the Stormageddon coverage by 6 if you want to join in with your commentary.
A question of definition: Milwaukee Public TV looks at the problems faced by individuals of mixed race in defining themselves. "What are you? Mixed Races in Milwaukee" airs at 7 tonight on Channel 10.1.
On radio: Sports talker Steve Czaban says Fox Sports hasn't renewed the contract on his syndicated radio show, with the last episode airing Dec. 23. The show didn't air on Milwaukee radio, but was available on satellite. He'll continue other duties, including a Washington, D.C. radio show and his daily calls to the WHQG-FM (102.9) morning show.
- Top radio talker Rush Limbaugh will be one of the judges in the 2010 Miss America competition. Others are "American Idol" finalist Brooke White and comedian Paul Rodriguez. The finals air Jan. 30 on TLC.
- WUWM-FM (89.7) is airing a series this week on efforts to turn Milwaukee into a "global hub" for research into fresh water and its uses. Reports air during "Morning Edition" and "Lake Effect," and you can listen at the station's Website.
- The "Hotel Milwaukee" radio show, which aired on Wisconsin Public Radio from 1994 to 2002 plans a reunion show to be taped in front of a live audience Jan. 16 at the Turner Hall Ballroom. Tickets are $15 and can be ordered On-line.
- NPR says an application for the Android mobile telephone operating system will be available later this month.
No, you didn't miss it: Last week's scheduled airing of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" was pre-empted by the president's Afghanistan speech. You can see it tonight at 7 on Channel 12, and it repeats at 7 on Dec. 15 if you can't watch it tonight.
You could also pick up the DVD.
Or, you could just go to You Tube and watch whenever you want.
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.
