Spring Rubber

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.

Welp, that might explain why Lauren abruptly left NBC5. Much like how Ben Bradley abruptly left ABC7.

Right, and it's not like it was one vacated position that they didn't fill. Almost every position that got vacated over the past 2+ years, they refused to fill. It was actually a wonder that they even made Siafa lead sports anchor. I was expecting them to continue with a rotating cast of characters forever and never name a lead sports anchor. WMAQ really seems to like the "budget" method of having their weekday crew comprised of people who also work the weekend. They kept Dick on the Monday-Wednesday 4pm show for eons, and now they're presumably going to do the same with the 11am show with Alicia and Kalee. Honestly, it makes sense from a budget perspective. Stations used to not do it because they wanted continuity Monday-Friday, but I don't think that matters in the industry anymore.

WGN execs are reading my posts. Ana is anchoring the 4am show today.

Mark Strehl did the past two weekends at 9pm. I wonder if Rick's done now or what...

Ana seems to be the clear #2 female for the morning news now that Erin is an evening reporter. Larry anchoring the 4am is surprising, though. I would have expected a solo show and/or literally any available general assignment reporter filling in before I would have expected Larry on the 4am show. P.S. Do we have a permanent 4-6am female anchor yet? Could the plan be to groom Ana for the slot? Not sure if she could still do Around Town PLUS anchoring. Maybe they'd give Around Town to someone else if Ana became an anchor.

Tahman anchored the morning news on Friday, and Steve is anchoring the weekend news today? What a bizarre weekend!

Has anybody watched Morgan on the early morning news?

No, that was never a thing. Good question. Has Dick taken any days off since Rob went on leave?

The evening anchors implied that Alicia will be filling in for Brant Miller the entire week now that Byron is gone. The previous arrangement had been Alicia Monday and Tuesday, Byron Thursday and Friday, and of course, either of the two on Wednesday. Now that Byron's gone, we'll probably see weeks where Alicia has to work Monday-Friday quite a bit. Kalee might have to pull Monday-Friday shifts on the 11 am show as well. Either way, we'll probably see a lot more Pete Sack on weekends again since I imagine Alicia and/or Kalee will be off on weekends after their Monday-Friday fill-in shifts I wonder if we'll see more Andy Avalos appearances on the 11am show whenever Alicia or Kalee are unavailable. I've seen Andy a couple of times on the 11am show when Byron was off and no one else was available to fill in.

Byron said goodbye at the end of the 11am news today. Apparently he decided to depart a few days ahead of the planned June 9th last day. I'm upset that I didn't record it.

Did Morgan Kolkmeyer debut yet? I know almost none of us watch the early morning show. Not sure if anybody knows.

Funny, WMAQ was having severe playback issues at the end of their 5pm show yesterday. The final two segments ended in black screen with flickering graphics. Not a good day for Chicago News tech.