A week from today, the Bradley Center and the sidewalks around it will be clogged with young singers dreaming of spending the first half of next year on Fox's "American Idol."
It's the first phase of Milwaukee's first "Idol" auditions, as the first cut of hopefuls is made by casting producers for the top-rated singing competition. Some of the folks picked in this round will appear before the judges.
If you're interested, and you're between 15 and 28 -- with a birth date between July 16, 1981 and July 15, 1995 -- you can register Monday and Tuesday for Wednesday's auditions.
If you're under 18 on the day you register, you'll need a parent or adult guardian to accompany you.
And, no, you can't camp outside the Bradley Center, you can't bring a guitar or other instrument with you and if you make it to the semifinals, you can't be managed or have a recording contract.
There are a whole bunch of other rules, and suggestions that you can find here. There's a release form that you will have to sign. And there's a form for your parent or adult guardian if you're under 18.
It's best to regularly check the Idol Web site for last-minute changes in the audition schedule, including specific times.
Those two weather channels: After I reported last week that Milwaukee Public TV had contracted with AccuWeather to beef up weather information on its digital subchannel 36.7 (Channel 980 on Time Warner Cable), several readers questioned whether it would be the same programming as Channel 4's weather offerings on Channel 4.2 (Channel 999 on Time Warner Cable).
While both will offer AccuWeather forecasts, Channel 4's calls itself "Storm Team 4 TV," and also makes use of Channel 4's own weather team on screen.
MPTV general manager Ellis Bromberg tells me that among AccuWeather offerings MPTV's weather channel will broadcast travel forecasts for select cities across Wisconsin, boating forecasts and radar animations across the region and in key cities within the Milwaukee TV market. It will replace the rudimentary National Weather Service graphics and audio.
The AccuWeather deal is perhaps more important because it provides weather graphics for Channels 10 and 36 that can be put on screen when there are weather warnings and watches.
On TV: Fox has announced its fall premiere dates, with the season really kicking off Monday, Sept. 20. "Glee" is back on Sept. 21 in the 7 p.m. hour.
- An eagle-eyed viewer has noticed Lyra O'Brien is still on at Channel 12 despite the fact that July 4 was reported to be her last day. News director Lori Waldon tells me "she graciously offered to work on a temporary freelance basis (Sunday mornings only) to help us out until we find her replacement."
- Speaking of readers, one expressed his outrage last week that the first season of ABC's "Modern Family" wasn't out on DVD. The latest word is that it's coming out in the second half of September.
- TV Newser says Campbell Brown's CNN show will end July 21, to be replaced by a repeat of Rick Sanchez's show until the Eliot Spitzer-Kathleen Parker show launches this fall.
We report, you shut up: This long bit of video features Fox News Channel's Megyn Kelly trying to handle Kirsten Powers, who has a whole different view of one of those supposed political scandals that Fox News go wall-to-wall with.
"You don't seem to know what you're talking about," Kelly said after Powers didn't seem interested in following the day's script.
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.
