Rob Feder, the dean of Chicago media reporters, has taken a buyout from Time Out Chicago, which was just sold, and will be moving on to greener journalism pastures. Feder, one of the best in the business — he spent nearly 30 years at the Chicago Sun-Times — announced the move on his Facebook page. “I am eager to continue my work and I expect to make an announcement soon,” he wrote. Stay tuned. I’m guessing he’ll be back on the beat sooner rather than later.
More Chicago: Publicist Don Halcombe, who I wrote about in yesterday’s column, ended up winning a cool $100,000 on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” yesterday. He reps “The Steve Harvey Show,” which tapes in the Windy City.
“Steve Harvey,” by the way, had another strong week. In numbers released yesterday — syndication ratings are always two weeks behind — “Harvey” averaged 2.1 million viewers, up 8 percent from the week before and better than freshman talk leader “Katie” — which, as a caveat, was in repeats three out of five days that week. Still, even with that asterisk attached to the week, it was the first time “Harvey” beat “Katie” in total viewers this season.
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Notable quotables:
Frankie Avalon to “Inside Edition” on the death of his former co-star, Annette Funicello: “For at least the past six, seven years, she was without communication. It was a terrible existence . . . It makes me smile to know that she’s up there dancing and singing and having a good time.” Funicello, who had MS, died Monday at the age of 70.
And “Bones” star Emily Deschanel to People magazine on the last time she swore a blue streak:
“Last night I dropped some f-bombs when I messed up my lines. Mackenzie Astin is on the show and taught us a new swear word that his dad, John, coined: ‘mother-grabber.’
“We love it.”
Deschanel’s quotes are in People’s April 22 issue, out on newsstands today in New York.
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Last, but not least:
* Mark Effron, late of MSNBC, has been named VP/news director at Ch. 11, beginning April 17 . . . Today’s gratuitous “Mad Men” slam: Spike TV’s “Bar Rescue,” hosted by Jon Taffer, beat Sunday night’s hyped-to-the-gills season premiere of the AMC series in two important demos: men 18-49 (by 30,000 viewers) and men 18-34 (by nearly 95,000 viewers). So there . . . Say that name 10 times quickly: Canadian talk show host George Stroumboulopoulos will host a Friday-night show on CNN this summer (10 hour-long episodes) . . . “Monsters” ink: “River Monsters” opened its new season with 1.8 million viewers — the most watched season premiere in Animal Planet history. OK, so maybe it’s cyberink, but you get the picture.