With the change of administration in Madison, which led to a political upheaval in the state capital that has now found its way to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, there's been a noticeable increase in public interest in state government news.
One place to feed that interest is Wisconsin Eye, the state public affairs TV outlet that's a Dairyland version of C-SPAN. A prime example came Monday, when Wisconsin Eye offered live coverage of the Wisconsin Supreme Court session looking into the legality of the governor's collective bargaining law.
If you're a Charter Cable subscriber, you could have watched it on Channel 995. But if you subscribe to southeast Wisconsin's cable giant, Time Warner Cable, you were out of luck.
I'm not going to rip Time Warner for its business decision. It would be nice and help with the company's image, but it's decided not to carry the channel. Wisconsin Eye has its own campaign to let Time Warner know that you want the channel. You can find the information here.
But these days, you don't have to whine as much about what you can't see on cable. You can watch the same thing on Wisconsin Eye's website.
OK, it's a scandal: Last week, I wrote that the Anthony Weiner business wasn't a scandal. I came to that conclusion based on the information that I knew to be true last week.
Obviously, with Weiner admitting that his defense that he was hacked was a lie, and that there's other sleazy stuff floating around out there, it's clearly a scandal.
It's still difficult for me to believe that somebody will sit on camera and lie repeatedly, knowing that the evidence that he's lying is out there.
Frankly, I don't care that he tweeted an underwear pic to somebody, that's his own sleazy business. But his chronic lying, his attacks on reporters questioning him and his pretending to be morally outraged by those questioning him is the scandal.
How he acted after his human failings were broadcast to the world is the true measure of the man.
At this rate, he's in line to co-host the 7 p.m. hour on CNN with equally disgraced Eliot Spitzer.
On TV: It's official, Katie Couric is moving to ABC, which will syndicate her daytime talk show starting in September 2012. In the meantime, she'll be contributing to other ABC news shows. Her show has already been scheduled on ABC owned-and-operated stations, in the time slot now held by "General Hospital," raising doubts about the long-term future of another soap.
- "Bloomberg Game Changers" on the Bloomberg Channel, looks at the controversial Koch brothers at 8 tonight. That's Channel 356 on Time Warner Cable.
- The new Critics' Choice TV Awards (as if we need another awards show) airs June 22 on ReelzChannel (previously best known for airing "The Kennedys), and the nominations have been released, with "Modern Family" leading the list (which you can find here).
- TLC has ordered a second 12-episode season of "Extreme Couponing." The first season averaged nearly 2 million viewers; pretty healthy for a cable show like that.
- The Atlanta Journal Constitution says Steve Harvey is moving the syndicated "Family Feud" to Atlanta. It had been taped in Orlando, Fla. Harvey does his syndicated radio show from Atlanta.
- Marv Albert is joining CBS for NFL games. Gus Johnson is leaving for Fox.
Another one of those sneak peaks: It's become the thing for TV shows to post extended looks at their season premieres on YouTube. The latest is HBO's "True Blood," which comes back for a fourth season on June 26.
Here's the first six minutes of the season premiere:
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.
