Superstation Super-switches in Store?

By Karl Klockars in News on Apr 23, 2008 6:39PM

When we were kids taking summer road trips down to Florida, it was always somewhat comforting to be able to turn on the TV and see good ol' Tommy Skilling on the WGN Superstation giving the weather reports for the Chicago area. Nowadays on the Superstation, the noon and 9pm newscasts continue to air nationwide, but the Superstation schedule is almost completely different from the local showings. (Sports broadcasts are included in Superstation scheduling as well.) But is the Tribune Company about to kill the call letters? Or maybe get rid of even more than that? Rob Feder seems to think so. [S-T]

The Tribune Company's Randy "Hell 94.7" Michaels announced in a conference call that the Tribune Powers That Be will be "relaunching" WGN in May. Right now, WGN-TV is the local affiliate for the CW Network, and both sides of the station have similarly syndicated lineups - check WGN-TV's here, and the Superstation site is here. If this is an attempt to compete with more narrow-casted cable channels, does this mean we end up with more syndicated programming and even less local fare? Or is "Chicago's Very Own" going all-Gossip Girl all the time? WGN-TV just celebrated 60 years of TV history earlier this week - soon, maybe we'll be considering it a good-bye celebration as well. Or, could a "relaunch" include a rebirth of Bozo the Clown and late-night Creature Features? Yeah, right.