I'm not trying to scare you, but Christmas music could start coming out of your radio as early as this Halloween weekend.
Local radio stations aren't tipping their hands yet, but expect at least one station is going to take the plunge to an all-Christmas format.
The format has done well in the past, and I've heard from other radio markets that have already spent a holiday season on the new personal people meter ratings system, that Christmas music can do very well in the new method of measuring radio listening.
Last year, WMYX-FM (99.1) waited until Nov. 13 to take the plunge, followed by WRIT-FM (95.7). The previous year, WRIT went all-Christmas on Halloween afternoon, followed quickly by WMYX. That was the earliest flip on record.
If you're actually looking for Christmas music already -- and I frequently hear from people who are -- there are lots of online options. Just go to Google and type in Christmas music. If you have access to Music Choice on cable or a similar music service on satellite, there's usually a "sounds of the seasons" channel. It's playing Halloween-y tunes right now, but that'll change by Monday.
Sirius XM Satellite radio also regularly offers lots of Christmas music, but I haven't yet received word of a launch date for the multiple channels of holiday tunes available to subscribers.
An anniversary movie deal: Marcus Theatres continues it 75th anniversary celebration with a "Founder's Week" special movie price from today through next Thursday. Moviegoers get a 20-ounce fountain drink, a 64-ounce popcorn and a movie ticket for $7.50 (3D movies are $3 more).
For more details, check out the Web site.
Channel 58 in HD on Dish Network: Subscribers are reporting that they're getting the high-definition feed of Channel 58 on Dish Network this week, a long-awaited addition.
Channel 58 general manager Jim Hall tells me that a deal was reached this summer, and the feed has been available since July. Technical limitations prevented the satellite provider from adding it immediately, and Hall says he's confirmed that it's available on Channel 5201.
This was the last pay TV service to add Channel 58 in high-definition.
Speaking of Dish Network, there's nothing new on the Dish Network-Fox battle front as we head into the deadline weekend. If there's no agreement, Milwaukee's Channel 6 will disappear from Dish by Monday.
On TV: If you want to catch Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, Comedy Central is planning live coverage from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Believe it or not, C-SPAN plans to air it as well.
- CBS is premiering Paula Abdul's "Live to Dance" in January, and there's a chance the "reality" dance competition could go up against the Simon Cowell-less "American Idol."
- Conan O'Brien's "test show," officially known as "Show Zero" will air at his website, teamcoco.com -- along with YouTube and Facebook -- at 10 p.m. Monday, with unidentified celebs, his Basic Cable Band and sidekick Andy Richter. The real show debuts on TBS the following Monday.
- The upcoming fifth season of "Big Love" will be the last, according to Deadline.com.
- Meanwhile, HBO has ordered third seasons of "Eastbound & Down" and "Bored to Death" for next year.
An odd little anachronistic clip: It's been floating around Twitter for a couple days, and I thought I would share it with you, a clip of silent film supposedly from the premiere of Charlie Chaplin's 1928 film "Circus."
It shows what some folks say is a person using a cellphone. It's either something else altogether, or the clip has been faked. You decide:
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.
