Football trumps Emmys Awards

Remotely interesting: With the opening "Family Guy" musical number driving viewers away, Fox's Emmy Awards coverage lost to NBC's "Sunday Night Football," even with the game a blowout between New England and San Diego. The game averaged 13.3 million viewers nationally, the Emmys 13.1 million viewers.

Rob Stafford is going local. The former "Dateline NBC" Chicago reporter joins WMAQ Channel 5 as a reporter and weekend anchor starting Sunday. He previously worked at WBBM Channel 2. … Bill Kurtis produces the new H.H. Holmes-Columbian Exposition documentary "Madness in the White City," debuting at 8 p.m. Monday on the National Geographic Channel. … The Chicago/Midwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences has set Oct. 2 for local Emmy nominations in a ceremony at Lawry's, 100 E. Ontario, downtown. The chapter recently moved its offices to 218 S. Wabash from its old digs on Congress.

The CW's "Online Nation," sort of a network YouTube, debuts at 6:30 p.m. Sunday on WGN Channel 9.

End of the dial: Powered by the Cubs, WGN 720-AM padded its lead atop the local radio ratings in monthly Arbitrends released this week. Urban-contemporary WGCI 107.5-FM, all-news WBBM 780-AM, Spanish-language WOJO 105.1-FM and smooth-jazz WNUA 95.5-FM filled out the top five.

Classical WFMT 98.7-FM has improved its streaming service at www.wfmt.com/streaming.

Waste Watcher's choice

Even acknowledged masters have trouble going out on top. AMC is in the midst of an Alfred Hitchcock festival, but look out for his last movie, "Family Plot," at 9:15 p.m. today. Bruce Dern and Karen Black star in a horror thriller gone horribly slack -- Hitch does camp. Hold out instead for the "Psycho"/"Shadow of a Doubt" double feature at 7 p.m. Saturday.