I'm ready to make a prediction that the top-rated TV special of December will be Tiger Woods' sitdown with somebody along the lines of Oprah Winfrey or Barbara Walters.
Elin Nordegren will be sitting alongside her husband as they talk about the stresses and strains of maintaining their privacy in a celebrity-obsessed world.
No, nothing's been scheduled. I haven't even heard about any negotiations. But as the days go by and Woods continues to hide, his gazillion-dollar brand is getting hurt by a minor one-car accident and lots of rumors about the state of his marriage.
Oh, and expect tears, probably from Elin.
I expected tears this morning as White House gate crashers and wannabe "reality" TV stars Tareq and Michaele Salahi broke their silence and sat down with Matt Lauer on NBC's "Today" to say they never crashed any gates.
With word out today that they crashed the gates at a Congressional Black Caucus dinner earlier this year where the president was speaking, they were already denying that one as well.
"Our lives have been destroyed, everything we've worked for, Matt," Michaele said.
Unless, of course, you've been working overtime to be a big enough celebrity to be interviewed by Matt Lauer.
Jane Kaczmarek's out of a job: TNT has axed "Raising the Bar," after two seasons. Steven Bochco's legal show included Greendale's Jane Kaczmarek in the cast.
Also on the casualty list this week is CBS' "Three Rivers." It's been dropped from the schedule, and there's no word when or if remaining episodes will be aired.
In both cases, ratings are to blame.
On Radio: It looks like a format flip to '60s oldies for Hartford's WTKM-AM
(1540) with a new Web site and Facebook fan page .
It's been simulcasting the polka format of WTKM-FM (104.9).
- Fond du Lac's own Jonathon Brandmeier is out of his morning job at Chicago's WLUP-FM and there's talk out there that he could end up on Chicago's WGN-AM (720), which is easy to hear around here. Afternoon guy Steve Cochran's contract is up in March. Chicago media guru Rob Feder is skeptical.
- WSSP-AM (1250) is airing its morning and afternoon shows from outside Blain's Farm ad Fleet, 501 W. Rawson Ave., this week for its third toy drive for Children's Hospital of Wisconsin.
- The Mayfair Mall Barnes & Noble bookstore is hosting a fundraiser for WUWM-FM (89.7) from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. Friday. A portion of purchases will be donated to Milwaukee Public Radio.
"A Charlie Brown Christmas" delayed: Thanks to the president's speech announcing that more troops are being sent to Afghanistan, which the broadcast networks are carrying at 7 p.m., the annual airing of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" has been pushed to 7 p.m., Dec. 8 on Channel 12.
The 8 p.m. season premiere of the revamped "Scrubs" will air as scheduled on Channel 12.
With the Peanuts gang delayed and "Scrubs" crew coming back, here's an entertaining little video from a couple years ago deftly merging the two.
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.
