Spring Rubber

Sean Lewis is doing the 5 pm news after doing the 6 am news this morning. It's the Phil Schwarz experience!

She did WHAT to the promo shots?!? :ph34r:

I guess Tom's illness flared up worse again. After laboring through the day on Monday, he's been gone again yesterday and today. Get well soon, Tom.

All programming on the SD channel is being letterboxed from now on.

It looks to be only a refresh to the lower thirds and the bug. Opens appear to be the same, and the music is the same. EDIT: They've scrapped the custom copyright graphic from the previous package and are just using a regular lower third to display that info now.

New graphics just debuted at 11. I'm watching on the TV at work, so I can't provide any screen grabs until 10 pm. Hopefully someone else can get some. Yes, they are letterboxing the SD feed now.

They just aired a pre-recorded Ben Bradley report where they forgot to edit out a flub and a 3...2...1... leading into what was supposed to be the final take of the report.

I wonder if Mike Caplan will seek to become chief somewhere else. Surely he's got to be the most snubbed by this decision to hire Cheryl Scott.

Tom Skilling just said that he went to an immediate care center over the weekend due to a flare-up of the illness that he's been dealing with for the past month and a half. Man, I hope he gets better soon.

IIRC, Ron Magers is always off on Christmas. He works the Thanksgiving holiday every year, but then he's always off for the entire two weeks of Christmas and New Years. I think it's usually Ravi Baichwal and sometimes Linda Yu on Christmas. Side note: Mike Caplan filled in for Phil yesterday, and Phil is back today filling in for Mike on the 4pm news.

Any videos or pics?

Ah, that's good to hear.

Tracy Butler is filling Phil Schwarz's vacated role tonight.

Wow, what happened? Where did you meet him?

Erin McElroy got to anchor the Morning News again for the full morning today as both Robin and Lourdes were off. Too bad she'll be permanently relegated to the kiddie desk (traffic) again after today's brief holiday opportunity to anchor again.

I'm watching the Annual Ron Magers/Jerry Taft Thanksgiving broadcast and thinking about how we don't have many more of these left. You never know which one might be the last one.

So it was just a sweeps stunt after all. *sigh*

Yeah, that's pretty ridiculous...unless she's gonna have the day off tomorrow maybe.

Alan is off today based on the 6 pm newscast. Does anybody know who anchored with Linda on the 4pm, or was she solo for some reason?

^came here to post this; didn't have a picture, though. You win.

Where? On his lower third? Talent rejoin?

They just did a segment bidding farewell to Theresa Gutierrez and said goodbye to her live in the studio. I forgot that her retirement was today.

Two things: 1) The local weather update on this hour of the Today Show was replaced by a Bruce Rauner ad. Not sure if this was intentional or not, but if it is, that's pretty annoying and even a bit unethical. When Al Roker says "here's what's happening in your neck of the woods," the last thing I'd expect is a political ad. I hope it was just a master control error and not intentional. 2) During yesterday's 11am show, they did a story about how Steve Harvey was on the Tonight Show the previous night. Did the staff who wrote that story do their research at all? If they did, they would have found out that the episode of the Tonight Show was a rerun from a month and a half ago. I don't think a rerun of a late night talk show should ever merit saying "So-and-so was on [show] last night" when it's a rerun from a month and a half ago.

Really, WLS? Can't leave well enough alone? They're the last station that I thought would screw over their next-in-line for the "young and beautiful" outsider, but that's the new route this management is gonna take, eh? Tear apart the team that got you to #1 and instead hope that putting more attractive people on camera will keep you #1? Maybe Alan Krashesky should watch out. When Ron retires, this management just might be daring enough to go to a young outsider or maybe even Ravi instead. If Cheryl Scott is indeed hired to replace Jerry, than will mean that both the weather and sports positions didn't go to their intended recipients (Mike and Rafer). I wouldn't be surprised if Idler tears apart Emily Barr's entire succession plan and ousts Alan, too. Who was supposed to take over for Linda Yu? Was it Slyvia? If so, that would actually make it 3 of 4 intended successors screwed over by Idler.

That sucks about Feder. I can't stand paywalls.