Is Chicago Cubbie TV really going to be Marquee outfit? Or more TV clutter

We’re going to hear a whole lot of people screeching and screaming about the fact that the days of old, with Chicago Cubs baseball being on television every afternoon (after all, Wrigley Field ain’t got lights) are withering away. 

Broadcast booth; different stations, same programming. Photos by Gregory Tejeda

The Cubs’ management are following the lead of ballclubs like the New York Yankees, whose ballgames are the focal point of the YES Network.

ALL CUBS. ALL the time! A whole separate channel for people who want to indulge themselves with the Cubbie baseball brand.

It has been hinted for some time now that such an action would happen. But the Cubs made the announcement this week that they’re going to partner with the Sinclair Broadcast Group in putting together the cable TV channel that will exist solely for those people who think the Cubs are the extent to which baseball exists.

If you get the sense that I wouldn’t be eagerly waiting for the new channel to begin operations for the 2020 season, you’d be correct. Of course, I currently have a package of television stations – most of which I have to admit I never watch.

So the idea that I can ignore whatever new channel is put out there will be incredibly easy.

IF ANYTHING, I would wonder how many other people will also object and choose to ignore it – because it’s inevitable that any sports-related channel is going to consider itself prime programming for which an extra cost will have to be assessed.

Because the whole point is for the ballclub to take in additional revenue. If it were just the old mindset that viewed the broadcasts as advertising for the team, then there’d be no need to shift Cubs broadcasts from WGN-TV.

After all, the team has been there since the years just after the Second World War. Too many people are used to the notion of Cubs games being the very reason for WGN’s existence.

Field will look the same, regardless of which channel is carrying games

But I’m also aware that modern-day broadcasts are about finding stations willing to pay the teams big bucks. Or in the case of the Cubs, going into the broadcast business so they can add the TV profits to the bottom line of the ball club.

THAT ACTUALLY WAS the difference of the days when Tribune Co. was the ball club’s owner. Which was in the business of publishing and broadcasting – and if anything bought the ballclub back in the early 1980s so as to reduce the cost of broadcasting and covering the ballgames.

Which I’m sure is regarded as a very quaint, naïve approach to baseball in the 21^st Century. Keeping down the cost of the fees paid to the teams WAS the point. Now, the teams are looking to get every penny possible.

So anybody who thinks there’s going to be a sympathetic audience for their rants about how the Cubs “belong!!!” on Channel 9, I’d have to say, “Get a clue!”

The teams think they have a right to expect you, the viewer, to pay up, big time! And if it’s really important to you to be able to see the Cubs play in this upcoming era where the team is likely to be on the decline and returning to their natural state of existence as a garbage ballclub that occasionally reaches levels of mediocrity, then pay the fee so you can keep watching the games.

PERSONALLY, I'D SAY there are other ball clubs worth watching – whose games might be easier to have access to.

Baseball DOES exist outside of Wrigley

And I’m not talking purely about the White Sox. Although I’m sure there is room within the environs of Guaranteed Rate Field for those people who have been deluded enough to spend their lives thus far wearing Cubbie-blue.

At least assuming they can lose some of their more ridiculous habits they’ve developed while sitting in the Wrigley Field combines.

Such as, the first Cubbie exile who throws a home run ball back onto the playing field is going to find themselves being flung onto the field by heckling fans.

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Is it just a matter of time before Supreme Ct overrules Chgo justices?

It’s no secret that President Donald Trump doesn’t think much of the political establishment of Chicago. Our public officials, after all, are clearly in opposition to the will of The Donald and are willing to publicly point out how wrong he is on so many issues.

LEINENWEBER: Standing up to Trump

So when a federal justice in Chicago ruled this week to reject the Attorney General’s attempts to have a lawsuit by Chicago against the federal government dismissed, a part of me now wonders if the presidential focus will shift to the Supreme Court.

THE ONE THAT could wind up with a solid margin of political partisanship intended to present his take on the law as the one that must be legitimate.

Just as it took several months before Trump got his way on travel restrictions meant to make it seem that people from Islamic-influenced countries were of being permitted in the United States, maybe he expects that a court rigged in his favor will gladly give him his take on “sanctuary cities.”

As in claiming that Chicago and other municipalities that refuse to have their law enforcement do the dirty work of federal immigration officials are somehow being un-American and ought to lose federal funding they now rely upon.

The scary part is that his line of “logic” isn’t totally absurd. A partisan court could wind up giving legitimacy to Trump’s ideologically-inclined ramblings.

ON THE ISSUE, U.S. District senior judge out of Chicago issued rulings saying the federal government is overstepping its bounds in its efforts to force Chicago to do away with the Sanctuary City concept.

Leinenweber a Chicago holdover from Reagan

Leinenweber isn’t a liberal-leaner by any means.

He’s a judge who got his appointment to the federal courts back in the days of President Ronald Reagan. He is the spouse of one-time Rep. Lynn Martin, who later served as Labor secretary under President George Bush (the elder),

He’s an establishment-oriented Republican. But in this Age of Trump, he’s the kind of person who finds a strong sense of shame in thinking his political party could produce someone of the ilk of the current president.

WHICH IS WHAT makes it possible for him to follow the letter of the law, which is along the general line of thinking that federal officials have jurisdiction over federal issues. Local people do their own work.

TRUMP: Waiting for Supreme Ct to overturn?

Crossing over that boundary in either direction causes serious problems that undermine the concepts upon which our society is based. Such as us not being a police state looking to harass the people who live here for political reasons.

If anything, the Leinenweber rulings may add a sense of legitimacy to Chicago’s hard-headed support for the Sanctuary City concept – one which the U.S Court of Appeals for the 7^th district (based in Chicago) is expected to consider later this year whether it should apply nationally.

Something that Trump most definitely won’t want to happen – largely because he still has his vision of the presidency being about him being the “Fearless Leader” (remember Boris and Natasha’s boss and their repeated failed cartoon attempts to “kill moose and squirrel”) who can bark out orders at will?

WHICH IS WHY he likely is counting on that partisan-leaning Supreme Court to undo every attempt to maintain a sense of logic and sensibility in the way our government operates in this Age of Trump.

Are these Trump's kind of characters?

Just as I’m sure the president is peeved with that Federal Communications Commission head who is publicly speaking out against the proposed merger of broadcast properties across the nation with Sinclair Broadcast Group – whose own clueless leanings are in line with the presidential vacuous ideology.

Maybe Trump fantasizes the high court will give him sufficient authority to make “The Apprentice,” that lame television program he once appeared on, a reality by being able to bark out “You’re Fired!” at anyone who offends his sensibilities.

We can only hope the electorate comes to the rescue and the vocal minority does not once again prevail as it did in 2016. Because we need to dump Trump, then work to undo the damage this man has caused through all his egomaniacal acts.

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Sinclair gives me gas, and not the useful kind like the old service stations

I’ll say it now, and I’ll say it loud – the concept of “liberal media” is a myth!

Many different faces all saying the same thing

If anything, we’re more likely to have a trivial media – over-anxious to feed us details about every stupid pseudo-celebrity and gory homicide, rather than report details about issues that the corporate execs who run many news organizations these days likely think are “boring!!!,” and also downright costly to cover.

Won't be Chicago's 'very own' much longer

SO WHEN I read this week of the reaction of Baltimore-based Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc., officials who said that all print news media are biased and that their collection of television stations are the only ones they trust to tell the “truth,” I couldn’t help but think that somebody is feeling a tad insecure about their status.

Or lack, thereof.

Although I suspect their lack of a corporate thick skin is going to result in many more diatribes by this entity – which is the one that is in the process of acquiring control of WGN-TV and the other television stations across the country that used to be known as Tribune Media.

Is broadcaster defaming oil company's name?

You’d think that Sinclair officials would be used to this. Although the company thus far has focused its properties on the South and in smaller media markets – the ABC affiliate in Springfield, Ill., is the only Sinclair-owned entity I’m aware of anywhere near Chicago.

WITHIN THE NEWS business, Sinclair has long had a reputation for the commentaries they put together – then expect ALL of their television stations to air unedited. I don’t doubt that for the Smith family that owns controlling interest in the company, their ability to get their ideologically conservative viewpoint out IS their primary reason for being in the broadcast news business.

And now that they want to buy up the old Tribune TV properties, they will have themselves in the New York, Chicago and Los Angeles markets – along with many other major cities across the country.

Its been a long while since Sinclair operated anywhere near Chicago

Their grasp over the nation will grow significantly (what’s the figure, 72 percent of the U.S. public will have the option to get their “news” from Sinclair-owned stations). Which has some people scared and hoping that the FCC is somehow capable of thwarting the deal.

But with the FCC a part of the federal government now under the control of President Donald Trump – who recently Tweeted us to say how much he approves of Sinclair’s spin of the news – I’d say it’s highly unlikely any federal regulators would do a darned thing to interfere.

PERSONALLY, I THINK the only people who complain about “liberal media” are the ones with such ideological hang-ups of their own that what they really want are “far right” programs to the exclusion of all others. It says more about their own leanings than anything that is wrong with what exists on television.

The idea that so much ideologue tripe is being spewed (and that there are those who think alternatives ought to be prohibited) is something that gives me gas.

And not of the type that is pumped into our automobiles at Sinclair Oil stations across the country – although not anywhere in the Chicago-area any longer (they only have three stations in Southern Illinois and four stations in Indiana – one of which is in Indianapolis.

Whenever I hear the Sinclair name, it has brought to my mind the green dinosaur that is part of the Sinclair logo.

BUT NOW, IT threatens to bring to my mind the nonsense being repeated everywhere – such as in that recent collection of commentaries aired on assorted television stations by many different broadcasters, but all containing the exact same wording regardless of where it was aired.

I’m sure it will be just a matter of time before someone on WGN (which for years has been “Chicago’s Very Own") will wind up having a Baltimore-prepared commentary for them to broadcast; informing us of how irresponsible and reckless Chicago is on whatever issue that Trump happens to have buzzing about in his pea-sized brain that particular day. As though we Chicagoans ought to feel shame at our opposition to this Age of Trump we’re now in. Rather than continuing our resistance.

Will broadcaster suffer a similar fate?

If we’re lucky, perhaps the Sinclair overbearing attitudes will have a similar effect as the end of the 1990’s-era children’s show “Dinosaurs.” In that show, Earl Sinclair (a dim-witted dinosaur nowhere near as lovable as Dino from “The Flintstones”) inadvertently caused the environmental calamity that brought on the Ice Age and made dinosaurs extinct.

Maybe enough dim-witted commentaries that go against the mood of the nation (Morning Consult’s latest poll has Trump with a 54 percent disapproval rating for March – and 60 percent in Illinois) is what will turn the viewing public against watching Sinclair-owned television properties or trusting anything they have to say,

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