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From what I noticed, they didn't start shooting them until after Karen went on maternity leave, and about the same time Hosea left to have his cancer surgery. She's due back "in May", whether at the beginning or end is unknown, and Cheryl said the other day that he'll be back "soon". They may not wait until a new weekend co-anchor is hired, but they definitely don't have all of them shot with the current roster. Some of the video is in use, though, with the weather team session being used for the AccuWeather promos and the 10 o'clock team shots have been added to the in-game promo... (Cheryl Burton's weird crossed arms are going to bug me every game this season.)

I posted this in the classic video thread, but I'm dropping it here, as well, considering how rare stuff from this era is from ABC 7. It's a real treat for me, too, as these promos aired just before I really started paying attention to the product. It's also an awesome reminder of the stability of the station, considering that 3 anchors remain at the station, 1 in the field, 1 still does a parade, 2 retired only last year, 1 is with a competitor in-town, only 1 passed away...and whatever the hell Diann Burns is up to. Everybody talks about Linda Yu, but can we talk for a moment how Alan Krashesky hasn't aged in 20 years, either? Kinda scary.

Rich Lieberman definitely won't be starved for content on his blog.

In the silliest decision ever, they did a 4-minute newscast with Ben, Lourdes, and Demetrius after the Sox game from 4:53 PM to 4:57 PM, and now they're going to hand it over to Mark, Micah, and Tom for the 5pm news. I don't understand it. EDIT: Also, I imagine this problem is going to creep up a lot during the baseball season. My proposed solution would be to just automatically give the 5pm hour to Ben, Lourdes, and Demetrius whenever there's a 1:05 or 1:20 pm baseball game, because these games all but guarantee that their 4pm newscast will be eaten up. But I don't know if their contracts allow for Ben, Lourdes, and Demetrius to do the 5pm. I just think it would be a better solution than to have them do these silly 5-20 minute newscasts whenever there's afternoon baseball.

The Natasha fans OWN Lieberman.

Sad news out the Youngstown OH market. Bob Black has passed away at the age 68. Bob retired from the anchor desk at WFMJ in 2015 and worked at WKBN till 1997. Thoughts and prayers to his family and the WFMJ family. http://www.wfmj.com/story/35085258/wfmj-mourns-the-loss-of-veteran-journalist-bob-black

For a large market, it's amazing how rare it is to find WLS clips from the late 90's. Here's a bunch of promos from 1998...