Another year down the tubes! Here's a look back at big TV/media/radio/movie stories in 2023.
A is the A-List couple Taylor Swift and NFL tight end (and former University of Cincinnati player) Travis Kelce. This year we learned that it's Taylor Swift's world, and we just live in it. Her Eras tour sold out cities around the globe (including two shows in Cincinnati); her Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour film opened with a $96 million box office weekend Oct. 13-15 on its way to becoming the highest grossing concert film ever ($249.9 million worldwide); and ratings for TV's No. 1 show, NBC's Sunday Night Football, jumped to near Super Bowl levels when Swift attended the Kansas City Chiefs game Oct. 1 to cheer for her boyfriend.
B is for Bally Sports bankruptcy by parent company Diamond Sports Group, which operates the Reds' Bally Sports Ohio and 18 other regional sports networks (RSN) for 42 teams: 14 Major League Baseball teams including the Reds; 16 National Basketball Association teams including the Cleveland Cavaliers; and 12 National Hockey League teams, including the Columbus Blue Jackets. After an $8 billiion debt prompted Diamond to file for Chapter 11 protection in March, Bally bailed on producing games for the Padres and Diamondbacks last summer. Although the Reds were not included in the bankruptcy — because the Reds hold an equity state in the RSN — MLB was preparing to take over Reds TV production until Diamond paid the Reds' rights fees in early May. Diamond Sports Group could be rescued by Amazon, which was negotiating a multiyear streaming partnership for Amazon Prime Video with the troubled company the week before Christmas. But will MLB let Amazon stream games?
C is for the notable comebacks for Megan Mitchell (who returns to WLWT-TV in January after a year in Dallas); Kelsey Grammer's Frazier (the sitcom revival, set in Boston, premiered on Paramount+ in October), news anchor Megan O'Rourke (she returned to WXIX-TV in April after seven years on Dayton TV); and WLWT-TV news anchor Courtis Fuller (he returned to News 5 in April after a four-month leave to treat a rare, malignant chordoma tumor at the base of his skull). Fuller was honored in July as an inaugural member of WLWT-TV's Hall of Fame in July as part of the station's 75th anniversary celebration.
D is for more media downsizing when journalism is needed more than ever to combat pervasive disinformation on the web. About 2,700 news jobs were cut this year — at the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Gannett, ESPN, ABC, NPR, Fox News, Yahoo News, Google News, Bloomberg, New York Public Media, New England Public Media, National Geographic, Barstool Sports, and Entertainment Tonight, to name a few — the highest number of news job eliminations in the industry since 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas.
The New York Times did away with its sports department after acquiring The Athletic; Popular Science dropped its print edition; BusinessWeek and The Nation reduced production to become monthly magazines; and Cox First Media ceased Saturday print editions in May for the Dayton Daily News, Butler County's Journal-News and the Springfield News-Sun.
E is for the Enquirer being homeless for two months after its 30-year lease expired at 312 Elm Street. In March the Enquirer moved to new offices a block west at 312 Plum Street. New to the Enquirer is veteran baseball writer Gordon Wittenmyer, hired after Bobby Nightengale left the Reds beat in June to cover his hometown Minnesota Twins.
F is for the fact that Fox News paid an astounding $787.5 million in April to Dominion Voting Systems to avoid going through a trial that would have exposed how the conservative talk network promoted lies about the 2020 presidential election. "The truth matters. Lies have consequences," said Dominion lawyer Justin Nelson after the deal was announced. A week later Fox fired top-rated primetime host Tucker Carlson, one of the Fox primetime hosts who promoted the lies about a stolen election.
G is for Barbie director Greta Gerwig, who had this crazy idea to make a feature film about a doll. Her vision, brought to life by Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling (Ken), produced the summer's blockbuster grossing $636 million in the U.S. and a whopping $1.4 billion worldwide. Gerwig, who co-wrote Barbie with her partner, Noah Baumbach, has one of the film's nine Golden Globe nominations with a Best Director nod.
H is for the hometown favorites who died this year: Longtime radio hosts Eric "Bubba Bo" Boulanger and Ron Esposito, 1960s TV personality Len Mink and former WCKY-AM talk host Jan Mickelson, who spent most of his career in Des Moines.
I is for the icons who passed away in 2023: Harry Belafonte; singer/songwriters Jimmy Buffett and David Crosby; All In The Family and The Sanfords creator Norman Lear; game show host Bob Barker; NFL star/actor Jim Brown; CBN founder and 700 Club host Pat Robertson; actress Raquel Welch; and basketball coach Bobby Knight.
J is for Jim Scott, the retired WLW-AM morning host who announced he has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease) in September. Instead of walking in the Opening Day parade next year, as he's done for decades, Good Ol' Jim Scott will be riding as the grand marshal.
K is for Kristen Welker, the first Black woman to host NBC's Meet The Press, the longest-running show in TV history, when she succeeded Chuck Todd on Sept. 17. She was the first woman to moderate the show since original host Martha Roundtree (1947-53).
L is for Len Goodman, the detail-oriented Englishman who parlayed his professional ballroom dance experience into being a judge for the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing and 31 seasons on the U.S. adaptation, ABC's Dancing With The Stars.
M is for Matthew Perry, the former Friends star who died in his Los Angeles swimming pool in October at age 54. He was among a galaxy of TV and movie stars we lost in 2023: Jerry Springer, Robert Blake (Baretta), Charles Kimbrough (Murphy Brown), Cindy Williams (Lavern & Shirley), David McCallum (NCIS, The Man From U.N.C.L.E.), Suzanne Somers (Three's Company), Richard Roundtree (Shaft, Desperate Housewives), Treat Williams (Everwood), Andre Braugher (Brooklyn Nine Nine; Homicide: Life On The Street), Piper Laurie (Twin Peaks, Carrie), Ryan O'Neal (Love Story, Good Sports), Arleen Sorkin (Days Of Our Lives), Ron Cephas Jones (This Is Us), Adam Rich (Eight Is Enough), Richard Belzer (Law & Order), Richard Moll (Night Court), Tom Sizemore (Hawaii Five-0), Lance Reddick (The Wire), Ed Ames (Daniel Boone), George Maharis (Route 66), Mark Goddard (Lost In Space), Paul Reubens (Pee-wee's Playhouse), Barry Humphries (Dame Edna), Burt Young (Rocky movies), Michael Gambon (Harry Potter movies), Alan Arkin (The Russians Are Coming, Komisky Method, Little Miss Sunshine), Melinda Dillon, (A Christmas Story), Lisa Loring (The Addams Family), Gina Lollobrigida (Come September, Trapeze), director William Friedkin (The French Connection, The Exorcist) and producer Marty Krofft (Land Of The Lost, Donny and Marie, Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters).
N is for Now In The 'Nati, the new lifestyle show that former WCPO-TV anchor Julie O'Neill announced she'll be hosting early in 2024 after her one-year "non-compete" with Channel 9 expires. Also on the move: Veteran reporter Ann Thompson, who left WVXU-FM in October, hopes to post her first "solutions based" Brick By Brick podcast by spring with TV episodes to follow later in the year for public TV stations WCET-TV and Dayton's WPTD-TV.
O is for Oppenheimer, the excellent three-hour bio-pic about nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer was a summer superhero for Universal Pictures, grossing $954 million worldwide at the box office this year, more than Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destin, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania; and Transfomers: Rise of the Beasts.
P is for Pat Sajak, whose 41-year ride on the Wheel of Fortune ends in 2024. Sajak, 76, who was presented a Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011, will be replaced on the popular syndicated game show by American Idol host Ryan Seacrest. Vanna White, however, will continue with the show.
Q is for Queen Janeen, also known as Janeen Coyle, who along with her husband Chris O'Brien, retired Dec. 22 from hosting WGRR-FM's Married with Microphones morning show after 28 years.
R is for Rudolph Isley of the Cincinnati's famously funky Isley Brothers band who died in October at age 84.. He co-wrote their breakthrough hit, the rock 'n' roll classic "Shout," with his brothers in 1959, as well as Top 10 hits "It's Your Thing" and "That Lady." He and his brothers were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.
S is for strike! Hollywood movie and TV production came to halt when, for the first time, members of both the Writers Guild of America (in May) and SAG/AFTRA actors walked off their jobs the same summer. The writers settled in September after five months, and the actors settled in November after nearly four months. Both groups won significant concessions about residuals for streaming programs and the use of artificial intelligence, in additional to pay raises. Most TV series finally will return with new episodes in January and February.
T is for Tina Turner, who died in May at age 83, and the other music titans who died this year: Tony Bennett, Gordon Lightfoot, Sinead O'Connor, Eagles founding member Randy Meisner, Fred White of Earth Wind & Fire, Steve Harwell of Smash Mouth, Robbie Robertson from The Band, Robbie Bachman from Bachman Turner Overdrive, Lynryd Skynyrd founding member Gary Rossington, Jeff Beck, Wayne Shorter, Otis Redding III and Lisa Marie Presley.
U is for uh-oh, the stunning news last July that TV viewing for over-the-air and cable — for the first time — accounted for less than 50% of the television audience as streaming grabbed a bigger share of American viewing habits. Broadcast TV dropped to a 20% share, while pay TV customers fell to 29.6% in July, while streaming increased to 39%. Cable TV has dropped steadily in recent years, with Charter Communications (Spectrum cable) losing 200,000 subscribers in the second quarter and Comcast shedding 543,000 in that period. Which explains why the Diamond Sports Group/Bally Sports filed for bankruptcy.
V is for George Vogel, the WLWT-TV sports anchor who retired in March after 43 years at the station. He was the last on-air personality who worked with both Bob and Rob Braun in the Channel 5 newsroom and with legendary meteorologist Tony Sands, providing one of my favorite stories of the year.
WKRC-TV also lost its main sports anchor, Gary Miller, in August under different circumstances. Channel 12 didn't renew the former ESPN anchor's contract 10 days before the Bengals season opened, leaving weekend anchor Chris Renkel to cover the Bengals, the Reds playoff hopes and the start of college and high school football. Miller has not been replaced, so Channel 12 meteorologists and news anchors have been reading the sports reports some nights. How strange. Or how cheap?
W is for WVXU-FM, my station which broke ground in August for a new two-story headquarters and studio at 2117 Dana Ave. in Evanston. The new 30,000 square-foot Scripps Family Center for Public Media, built with eco-friendly Canadian mass timber instead of steel beams, will have 11 studios, offices and a performance space. The new professional recording studio will be about four times the size of Cincinnati Public Radio's current Corbett studio in WCET-TV's Crosley Telecommunications Center at Central Parkway and Ezzard Charles Drive.
X is for Xavier University alum Bill Cunningham, who laughed heartily when former UC coach Bob Huggins called Xavier fans a homophobic slur on Cunningham's WLW-AM talk show in May. Huggins apologized twice in two days for his comment — but Cunningham has never apologized for laughing at the remark, or for not bleeping the offensive word from the public airwaves. Willie and The Big One aren't big enough to apologize? No, they're laughing all the way to the bank.
Y is for Young Sheldon, which ends on CBS in May after seven seasons along with Bob Hearts Abishola, Blue Bloods, Curb Your Enthusiasm, SEAL Team, Star Trek: Discovery, Superman & Lois and LeBrea. In 2023 viewers said goodbye to the Late Late Show with James Corden, Yellowstone, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, The Crown, Rachael Ray, The People's Court, Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel and Mayim Bialik hosting Jeopardy!
Z is for zero, zilch, when it comes to find adequate words to express my gratitude to my loyal readers for nearly four decades. See you next year. –Kiese
