A serving of odds and ends from the media buffet

Phil Rosenthal | Media

February 18, 2009

Welcome to today's media buffet. Take all you want, but read all you take:

•Public TV's WTTW-Ch. 11 is going to start rerunning programs under the heading of WTTW Prime on its 11.2 digital subchannel. Comcast cable subscribers can get it on channel 243. The station is negotiating for shelf space with other cable companies.

•Sherman Kaplan, co-host of WBBM-AM 780's "Noon Business Hour" with Kris Kridel, on Tuesday marked his 40th anniversary at the CBS Radio outlet. Kaplan joined Newsradio 780 shortly after its switch to the all-news, traffic and sports format that, like Kaplan, remains in place to this day.

•Kip Lewis, son of veteran National Football League offensive coordinator Sherman Lewis, is joining Comcast SportsNet Chicago as a reporter and back-up "SportsNite" anchor, beginning March 2.

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Lewis most recently was weekend sports anchor and weekday sports reporter for Indianapolis ABC affiliate WRTV-TV for the past three years, but he served in a similar capacity before that at Tribune Co.'s WPIX-TV in New York and worked at NBC Sports, where he was a sideline reporter on XFL games. His 14-year career also includes stops in Boston, Cincinnati, Green Bay, and Lansing, Mich. Chicago Tribune parent Tribune Co. owns a piece of Comcast SportsNet Chicago.

•Is it just me who thinks the faceless icon for Facebook folk who won't post a photo is actually a silhouette of MSNBC's Rachel Maddow?

OK. Maybe it is just me.

•Glenn Selig, the former Tampa TV newsman and public relations whiz keeping Rod Blagojevich and Drew Peterson in the public eye, told Eric Deggans of the St. Petersburg Times: "It's a noble cause to defend someone's image in the court of public opinion." In theory, Selig's right, but I think I need some Dramamine.

•Speaking of spin work, the syndicated edition of "Wheel of Fortune" marks its 5,000th episode on Feb. 27. Since its 1983 debut, that comes out to more than 15,000 contestants, $200 million in cash and prizes and countless viewers shouting the correct answer at their TVs long before the contestants even come close. Host Pat Sajak earns his salary just by not losing it some days.

•There's a far more glaring continuity error in the latest opening credit sequence of Fox's "The Simpsons" than the reattached head of the statue in the center of Springfield noted Tuesday in the Chicago Tribune. We dart in on Bart writing on a chalkboard through the third window from the door. When Bart leaves by skateboard, the same window is right next to the door.

And don't get me started on what Maggie costs according to the supermarket scanner.

Yes, I am bad at managing my time and devote too much of it to pointless endeavors. I am working on it.

•A better title for the new "Friday the 13th" movie would be "He's Really Not That Into You."

•The most honest quote so far this week comes from Jane Velez-Mitchell of HLN (formerly known as CNN Headline News), who told Howard Kurtz on CNN on Sunday that the saturation coverage of Octo-mom Nadya Suleman was all about ratings. "This idea that we're all doing this for some altruistic purpose is nonsense," she said.

For the latest on the media landscape, check out Phil Rosenthal's blog at chicagotribune.com/towerticker