Spring Rubber

Interesting, with Micah off tonight, Dina and Lourdes swapped shifts. Lourdes anchored the Midday. Dina is anchoring the Nine and Ten.

I just noticed this myself. That's certainly a rarity!

I noticed it when I wrote it but chose to keep it.

I would do: Patrick: Weekends and Mon-Wed 4pm Dick: Mon-Fri 5pm and Thurs-Fri 4pm Rob: Mon-Fri 6pm and 10pm Even before Rob comes back, I'd try to work Patrick into the 4pm news three days a week. I don't really see a power struggle, especially if you were to cement Dick into a permanent role at 5pm and two days a week at 4pm.

Dick actually came in for the late news (NBC had the NFL preseason opener last night, so the news started around 10:40-ish). I'm assuming they gave Dick off at 6pm as a courtesy so that he wouldn't have a prolonged period between newscasts if the NFL game ran super long.

Allison was back today. Dick did the 4pm with Marion. Marion joined Allison for the 5pm. It's Dick and Allison on the 6 and 10pm, obviously.

Looks like WGN is going with the same meteorologist schedule today since the Cubs are on WGN tonight.

Looks like WGN used the entire weather staff today. I assume Morgan did the 4-6am. I saw Paul did the 6-10am, Jim did the 11am-1pm. Tom did the 5pm-7pm, and Demetrius is doing the late news after the Sox game. I have no idea who did the 4-5pm. I'd guess Jim or Tom, but I have no idea.

Dick is back on the 4pm news today. Edit: Allison is off tonight. Once Allison gets back, we'll see if they go back to the previous arrangement or if they mix in Patrick on the 4 or 5pm. (perhaps 3 days a week like Dick previously did).

It's just Alicia and Kalee. Andy filled in for Alicia on Monday since Alicia had to work her days off last week, filling in for Kalee.

That's Alex's current shift. The male weekday morning anchor has also anchored the 11am newscast since they launched that newscast in 2014 (I think that's the correct year?).

This past week, Ben and Lourdes filled in for Mark and Micah for the entire week. Tom Negovan remained in the field all week.

One thing I've noticed is that whenever the Cubs are in Milwaukee, WGN uses the full opener at the start of the broadcast. All other road games and all home games use the abbreviated opener that they started using a season or two ago. I'm not sure if that's the decision of the director or the technical director or whoever, but I like it. It's kinda funny that they actually have a full opener made for the 2017 season, but it's only used by the production crew in Milwaukee.

Dick finally took another day off on Friday. Allison anchored the 10pm solo.

It is Tom Negovan and Julie tonight; however, with a severe weather outbreak in progress, Tom Skilling and Mike Hamernik were anchoring coverage with very sporadic segments featuring the anchors. The actual news/top stories kicked off at 9:13pm.

Maybe we'll have Julie Unruh? WGN isn't exactly known for doing solo weekday newscasts.

Tom Negovan and Lourdes Duarte are in for Mark and Micah tonight. Is Tom the primary fill-in for Mark now, or is it usually Ben? Or is it a mix of both?

I'm going to guess it was an experiment to try to get some different anchor pairings at the desk. (and not have Dick on all four evening newscasts)

Holy cow, Jerry did the weather on the 10pm news tonight. Is this his first time since last July when he left the 10pm news?

...and Dick Johnson finally took a day off. Allison is filling in, alongside Marion Brooks. Marion also worked the 11am show today, which usually means that she's not working the later evening shows, but we'll see. EDIT: Marion continues at 5pm. I'm thinking she'll also do the 6pm, and Allison will probably do the 10pm solo.

Oh my gosh, that was a surprise. May he have a safe and speedy recovery. 2017 has not been a kind health year to Chicago anchors.

Andy was on Tuesday morning.

Hmm, that reminds me that I didn't see a single am show this past week due to my work hours. I didn't even know Andy was on vacation.

It's a double shift for Alicia today. No Kalee, no Pete.

Alicia Roman is in for Kalee this morning. I wonder if Alicia is pulling a double shift today or if we'll see Pete in the evening.