By Tim Cuprisin Media Columnist Published Oct 12, 2009 at 11:00 AM

Tuesday's the day when Time Warner Cable shuffles its digital lineup in an attempt to make it easier to find what you're looking for.

Of course, until you get used to the new setup, it'll actually be harder to find what you're looking for.

But the grouping of like channels together is a bit of common sense that we'll probably appreciate once we figure out the changes.

Channels 99 and lower aren't affected by the shuffle. But from 100 to 399, digital channels will be grouped into 10 categories: kids and family, learning and discovery, home and leisure, shopping, entertainment, music, movies, sports, news and weather, faith and inspiration.

Other channels are grouped together in the higher numbers, with digital broadcast channels -- digital sub-channels if you watch over the air -- between 991 and 999, and high-definition channels in the 1,000s.

You can find the new lineup at Time Warner's Web site.

If you have a DVR and you have recordings scheduled after the change, it would be smart to double-check that they survived the transition.

Time Warner's channel shuffle hit northeast Wisconsin on Thursday, and the Fox Cities TV site reported that some subscribers had to reschedule shows they had planned to record on their DVRs.

But last week's shift "went off with only a few hitches," according to the site, which monitors TV in northeast Wisconsin.

WUWM ON REDUCED POWER: WUWM-FM (89.7) was operating under reduced power over the weekend, and that could continue today and Tuesday as the public broadcaster is affected by Channel 6's tower work.

Channel 6 viewers reported Sunday that they were having difficulties receiving the Fox station's signal as well.

WUWM broadcasts from Channel 6's tower.

ON TV: Former "Gilmore Girls" mom Lauren Graham will replace Maura Tierney on NBC's "Parenthood." Production had been delayed on the dramedy by Tierney's health problems, and the show is now supposed to start after NBC's airing of the Winter Olympics. Helen Hunt had been talked about for the mom role in the show based on the 1989 big-screen flick.

  • Speaking of NBC, its decision to drop "Southland" from the schedule opens the way for the early return of "Chuck." There's increasing buzz that "Chuck" could be back by the end of the month, which would make those really vocal "Chuck" fans really happy.
  • The New York Post's Michael Starr says Eric Braeden has quit CBS' "Young and The Restless" after nearly 30 years on the soap because he didn't want a salary cut. He's been on the show since 1980.
  • Kai Reed is out at Channel 12, but I don't have any more details on her departure from the ABC affiliate.

RUSH TALKS TO NBC: Top-rated radio talker, Rush Limbaugh, looks like he's trying to expand his audience, talking about buying a piece of the St. Louis Rams, becoming a judge in the next Miss America pageant and, now, sitting down with NBC's Jamie Gangel for an interview where he declared "I'm not the leader of the Republican Party."

Limbaugh's radio show airs from noon to 3 p.m. weekdays on WISN-AM (1130). The final portion of Gangel's sitdown with Limbaugh airs on Tuesday's "Today," at 7 a.m. on Channel 4.

A little bit of the "Today" interview follows below.

Tim Cuprisin Media Columnist

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.