wabceyewitness

21 hours ago, wabceyewitness said:

Good Morning America used the 2015-2017 opening music today for the main intro. Headlines bed remained the current theme but the intro was the older theme. Wonder if that was intentional or just a mistake as the weekend show moved back to TV3 today for the first time in a few weeks. 
 

 

The weekday edition of GMA using the regular current theme today.. Guess the Sunday open was a glitch. 
 

Good Morning America used the 2015-2017 opening music today for the main intro. Headlines bed remained the current theme but the intro was the older theme. Wonder if that was intentional or just a mistake as the weekend show moved back to TV3 today for the first time in a few weeks. 
 

On 10/14/2022 at 1:15 PM, nynewsguy said:

Yes. From WPVI. How do you think Shirleen got her job?  

Camille Edwards worked at WPVI from 1997-2003. Shirleen worked there from 2010-2015. There was no overlap. The only thing about WPVI that helped Shirleen get her job was that she did a great job at an ABC O&O close to home and it was easy for management in New York to notice her. 
 

Interesting pick especially for a station that has a history of promoting from inside, or at least from within the O&O group. 

5 hours ago, kshow said:

I wonder what happened to her to leave WNYW and RETIRE (major), she hasn't been at the station too long and she's not old at all (59 years old). 

 

 

Her contract was up in two weeks; they just spent money on more ad campaigns featuring her… have to imagine renewal talks were ongoing and not going in a direction she thought was worth it to stay at FOX5 and, after 40 years, probably thought this was a good time to step back and just enjoy life instead of starting over again somewhere else. 
 

As you pointed out, she’s retiring from the business at a relatively young age — and good for her! She’ll be able to spend time with family and friends, doing fun things on her schedule, while she has the energy and ability to do so. 
 

A true legend in local New York City news, Lori will definitely be missed by many viewers. 

Looks like Ryan Field will be getting his own sports show.. we’ll see if it’s a streamer, podcast, broadcast or all of the above. 
 

They have 5pm & 11pm weekday talent opens but stopped running them many years ago as a way save time and retain viewers during the transition from the 4pm to 5pm news and from prime time to the 11pm news.  
 

They did bring back the 5pm talent open for one week in September 2019 as a nod to Diana Williams who was retiring that week. 
 

 Did you also criticize David Muir when he wasn’t there the last time ABC used the old “World News” name and theme?
 

Notice that the new weekend open has the talent against studio backdrops and not the plain white background of the other opens… also they skipped the “team shot” at the end of the open.  If I had to guess, they threw this together based off recently filmed promo material or recently filmed material for the upcoming graphics update.  If the latter is the case, no clue why they wanted to get this to air quickly unless they’re not expecting the full O&O graphics rollout to them for a few more months. 

Meteorologist Dani Beckstrom will make her on-air debut at WABC on Thursday’s noon newscast. 

If WABC follows its own pattern, hiring Dani Beckstorm is a bench building strategy because they anticipate an upcoming departure or additional airtime to fill. They are not suddenly in need of a 5th meteorologist to do what they’ve always been doing. 

2 hours ago, iron_lion said:

 

 

Across markes, 6:00 seems to be the place where they plant vets who aren't ready to hang it up yet. Chuck Scarborough, Bill Ritter, Ernie Anastos (retired now), Dana Tyler, Jim Gardner in Philly, Bill Beutel back in the day.

 

Bill Ritter does the 5, 6 and 11pm. He actually added the 5pm to his schedule just 3 years ago when Diana Williams retired. He’s done the 11pm since 1999 and the 6pm since 2001.
 

Bill Beutel was a phased retirement plan. Stepped down from 11pm in 1999, stepped down from 6pm in 2001 and then fully retired in 2003. 
 

With Chuck, yes, it seems like they’re just letting him hang on to the 6pm until he’s ready to call it quits on his own terms. 

51 minutes ago, iron_lion said:

 

Out of curiosity, why was just Sue axed and not Chuck aswell? I remember Sue kept saying in her last broadcast "I hope to find employment elsewhere", which made it clear she did not want to go. 

 

A lot of different stories and pieces of information out there in this. What we do know is she was initially offered a buyout in 2008 and refused. Sometime after that, she signed a new three year deal set to expire in 2012 and it was made clear then that it would be the last contract WNBC would offer her. She hoped WNBC would change their mind along the way but in the final year if the contract when no renewal talks were offered, she began telling close friends it was her last year at NBC. 
 

She was being paid upwards of $2 million a year (some estimates say $5 million) and, in her final year, was anchoring just one 30 minute broadcast. Some reports say she seemed to have lost interest in the job, started phoning it in and NBC execs were not thrilled. 
 

Other reports say it’s just a classic case of a woman not being able to age gracefully on television. As we can see, her coanchor of the same age is still with the station in a high profile role. 

9 hours ago, IceManNYR said:

Noticed for the noon newscast, Lauren is in studio and David looks like he's using the same alternate space that Bill Ritter used.

Odd they did not try to match the framing for both camera shots.

It’s basically the isolation cam… used when an anchor has a close exposure that requires masking at all times when around others, or when is returning to work symptom free after 5 days but before 10 days and still requires a mask. 

19 minutes ago, NYTV said:

Can't they just shorten the name to CBS (location) Now? It's much easier to say. 

they could, but a consultant likely told them it wouldn’t capitalize enough on the corporate synergy of the CBS News brand and the local CBS station brand….  

 CBS News and CBS Local Stations are all one department now, so they want to emphasize CBS News at every local level possible. 
 

that said, I don’t see why it couldn’t be CBS (Location) News at (time). 

5 hours ago, mountainave said:

Just noticed a posting for a weather anchor on WABC's jobs page.  Not sure if it's a stale listing or an active one.

It was posted back in February, which is interesting since that is well after Brittany Bell joined the station. I don’t think Lee Goldberg is going anywhere. Perhaps Jeff Smith is departing, or Sam Champion signed a 3 year deal back in 2019 and is heading toward retiring or lighter workloads. 

On 6/27/2022 at 12:45 AM, MorningNews said:

That’s surprising. Wonder if she plans to stay in TV.

Based on comments on her instagram from other journalists, sounds like she is staying in the business. Probably getting an anchor position in another market. 

2 hours ago, carolinanews4 said:

 

The fact that Amy and TJ anchored GMA is probably the reason an encore cooking show aired. GMA3 uses the same studio crew as GMA and its taped shortly after GMA goes off the air. My guess is that Amy and TJ were doing GMA for the West Coast. I'm not sure who anchored the supreme court coverage for ABC or how long it lasted but those two were probably either part of the Special Report or focused on producing an up-to-date West Coast show. 

David Muir anchored for ABC interrupting the 7:30-8:30 hour of Good Morning America on the west coast. 

3 hours ago, MorningNews said:

Days like today are when GMA3 is pretty weak. Significant implications from the SCOTUS decision on Roe v Wade and they’re airing an encore presentation of a recent episode dedicated to cooking. Any and TJ anchored GMA this morning too.
 

I’d love for ABC to find a way to make GMA 3 consecutive hours. The show has been performing pretty strongly lately coming in at #1 and beating the 4th hour of Today and other competition. 

Kelly & Ryan is cleared in the 9am hour on too many ABC affiliates belong to different owners with different contracts. That’s one hurdle. The next hurdle is then getting affiliates to give the 9am hour to the network. 
 

1 hour ago, GodfreyGR said:

Didn't that get rumored once and caused one of the infamous Kelly Ripa freak outs?

Ripa was upset that Disney/ABC and Michael Strahan came to a deal to move him full time to Good Morning America and didn’t inform her until hours before they issued a press release. “Live” makes too much money for Disney/ABC and their flagship station for them to tinker with moving it or canceling it in favor of Good Morning America. 
 

What actually was under consideration at one point was Regis and Kathie Lee replacing Good Morning America in part or in full. This was in the late 90s after GMA ratings nosedived when execs made the decision to replace Charlie Gibson and Joan Lunden with Kevin Newman and Lisa McRee, and before they decided to bring back Gibson and pair him with Diane Sawyer.  
 

On 6/22/2022 at 8:25 PM, tjt24 said:

Yeah that's what I was thinking. I know ESPN has WABC's reporters along the marathon route. But who will be producing coverage of the race though? Does WABC and ESPN jointly produce coverage of the NYC Marathon? 

ESPN leads production, with the help of a third party live production vendor, and uses some WABC reporters and resources. 

1 hour ago, nynewslover said:

I wonder if/when the stations will return to normal seating at the desk.. seems like WNBC has somewhat returned.. WCBS has gone back and forth.. but with almost all restrictions now lifted I wonder when the stations will go back? 

they’re not even back to having everyone in the actual newsroom fully in person. There are still people working remotely, some not even in the NYC area and some reporters who haven’t been inside the station more than two or three times since the March 2020 lockdown.  

17 minutes ago, IceManNYR said:

Bill mentioned two sports anchors were on vacation and the other was out sick, so Mike Marza, who is anchoring in the morning, was in to do the sports report.

Bill, Liz and Lee handled sports at 6pm, with a cameo from vacationing Ryan Field. 
 

https://www.facebook.com/BillRitterABC7/videos/when-ryan-field-is-on-vaca-and-sam-ryan-is-sick-the-rest-of-the-team-kicks-in-on/5146143688838296/

On 6/7/2022 at 11:36 PM, nycnewsjunkie said:

I’m surprised it supposedly isn’t COVID-related, given that the other anchors (at least from what I’ve seen) are distanced on the desk together, rather than being in separate studios.

Bill likely has a very close exposure and needs to be separated if he’s not able to wear a mask. That’s a WABC policy. 

It’s a “stand alone mini studio at WABC”, according to Bill, who responded to someone on twitter asking about it. 
 

Great to see WABC continuing to promote station veterans with backgrounds in news to leadership positions. I’m sure she’ll be great and is likely now on a fast track to other executive positions within Disney!