No idea where MyNetworkTV goes. A subchannel, maybe.

With no further network commitments for WGN, maybe it would be smart to anticipate the bursting of the sports media bubble by moving the whole Cubs TV schedule to good old channel 9. Weasel out of this terrible WLS deal, put the Cubs back where they belong, and we can stop having to play Find The Cubs Game.

Won't happen. beep boop, revenue!

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Interesting.

What does WGN do for content to fill their prime time hours?

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I don't know, they've long since passed the saturation point on local news, and Frazier Thomas doesn't smell too good these days. The logical choice would be as full a schedule of sports as they can manage, but I don't think Tribune has enough money to wrest the coverage away from Comcast.

I think the ideal system would be Cubs and road Bulls on 9, Sox/Blackhawks/home Bulls on CSN, get channels 7 and 50 out of the business altogether. The home-cable/road-OTA split is what the Lakers used to do before selling their souls to Time Warner Cable.

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Seems like they'll have more sports on WGN instead of farmed out to other channels, which is good.

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Yeah, the channel 50 (previously channel 26 games) package consisted of games that WGN had the rights to but had to move in order to clear the network. Nothing like looking for the game only to find young-adult garbage about hot teen ghosts or some such shit. I don't think any local Cubs games were anywhere but channel 9 until the WB started, which started the steady trickle of games to CLTV, 26, and Fox Sports.

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WGN should have done what TBS did. They were both equals in the Super Channel business back in the day. WGN should have gotten national sports contracts like TBS/TNT.

Now WGN can't even broadcast Cubs, Sox and Bulls games nationally.

TBS has baseball playoffs now. That could have been WGN. Or before the BIG 10 got it's own network, WGN cold have done their games. They had no foresight. They had such a platform and blew it.

The idea of WGN having been a Big Ten outlet in the '90s is actually a little intriguing.

It's worth remembering, though, that Tribune has never had the broadcasting muscle that Turner had. I don't think it ever could have become what TBS became (TNT was always cable).

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I don't know if you remember, I was a kid, but TBS actually had the NFL for a few years. They split the Sunday night package with ESPN in the early 90s.

It was "The NFL on TNT." I thought those broadcasts were very good. They weren't as gimmicky as FOX. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NFL_on_TNT

My guy tells me that a new WGN Bozo Show is in serious consideration... no joke.

Put your ticket requests in now for your unborn grandchildren to see the show when they are 6 years old.

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"This is Chicago, my friend. Anything can happen."

Local WGN programming was a staple of my early life.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

I'd be up for that as long as they go with a more realistic, adult-themed type reality show.

Like where Bozo is having random sex with grandmothers all over town.

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You know me like that.

This just opens the door for another station to show endless loops of Friends/Seinfeld/Big Bang Theory/2 Broke Girls/King of Queens/Law & Order: SVU

Also known as "jimmypasta's wet dream"

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The ratings on those will murder whatever was on CW.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

I'm not even sure what was on CW.

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I think it's mostly shows about glamorous vampires, third-rate superheroes, and dramas in which songs by The Lumineers and Dawes serve as background music.

I've heard of The Lumineers, but what is a "Dawes"?

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Green Arrow and Flash are NOT 3rd rate superheroes!

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You don't know about that sweet Laurel Canyon sound?

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No.

Is this like some sort of shitty Yacht Rock kind of thing?

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Garfield Goose, Ray Rayner, Family Classics, Bozo, Cub's Games,Andy Griffith... staples in my household growing up as well.

Help me out here... anybody remember any others?

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"This is Chicago, my friend. Anything can happen."

You know that won't happen. They're already counting the money from their own network. We'll see how that shakes out in the end.

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Don't take it personally.

They are not. You're correct. I was thinking of that show with the guy from Prison Break about superheroes from the past who travel to the future with and a guy who can add a slight raspberry flavor to tap water or something like that.

It was much different back in the late 80s. I don't remember if it was WGN or not, but a kid could watch GI Joe or Thundercats in the morning before school and after school there were actually kid's programming in the afternoon I remember a lot of it being on Fox 32. There was Alvin and the Chipmunks, Duck Tales, Ghost Busters, TMNT, Double Dare and lots of other shows. I seem to remember WGN having a cartoon called "Bravestarr." Channel 50 had a lot of Tom and Jerry. Then there were other shows like Webster and Silver Spoons too.

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God is the uncaused cause of the universe. He had no beginning and has no end. He is not bound by the laws of the universe he created.

Legends of Tomorrow

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The Koz zone!

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

If anything, they're more like a cross between Neil Young and the Eagles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXuu4MRVfAg

"that sweet Laurel Canyon sound" is an in-joke from the AV Club, sorry about that.

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Yes, that was before he became Svengoolie on the U.

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God is the uncaused cause of the universe. He had no beginning and has no end. He is not bound by the laws of the universe he created.

Andy Starr at the Odean Theater showing 3 Stooges

Wasn't "Creature Feature" on WGN Saturday nights as well?

The old school Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolfman, Creature From the Black Lagoon, etc...

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"This is Chicago, my friend. Anything can happen."