jerseyfla

More WFLA/WXFL news update clips from the early-mid 80s The Spirit of Tampa Bay era and still no clear news open outside of the short 1982 Noon Open and a short clip of a Spring 1985 open from a few years ago. About WTSP and the Stay In Touch with 10 campaign, there is an open on YT from January 1983, the week of Super Bowl XVII which was erroneously marked as 1985 that had SITW10, so it's possible they were in a transition with themes just like WXFL was in early Fall 1985 when they were transitioning to Power News and their Editorials still had TSoTB graphics and theme.

Either he got rid of it fast for some reason or he is going to upload it to his cmsload2002 channel which has a bunch of new South Florida news videos. Mostly from 1989 and 1990.

Maybe WWOR can pull a KTLA and bring back one of their heritage logos. All they need to do is acquire the rights to the Mets from WPIX and then we go full circle with the New York Baseball Teams on OTA TV for the first time since 1998.

Maybe he gave them total consciousness on their death bed for later in life. So they have that going for them, which is nice!

Isiah has always been uncensored!

Me too! Now that I've visited Pittsburgh for the first time 2 years ago, we got a Primanti Bros restaurant in Dayton and my wife and I are avid watchers of the new NBC show "This Is Us" which is mostly set in Pittsburgh. I've gotten more focused on Pittsburgh news footage. I noticed a lot of the old 80s-90s KDKA Fort Pitt Tunnel opens with The News Image got taken down. As far as the others I think I saw a bunch of WTAE from that era. There is a 1980 WIIC full newscast from the night before the Steelers won Super Bowl XIV (NBC should have used it on Episode 5 of This Is Us) and a few newscasts from after they changed the call letters.

It truly is! I'm sure the WTSP use of NewsCenter II outside of image campaigns is as invalid and unknown as WFLA using Part of Your Life in the same manner.

Mark Antinori who was a booth announcer for WFLA in the 80s and early 90s for WFLA posted a video almost 3 years ago (How did I miss this?!) of his early 80s TV work which includes an open from the 1981-82 The Look...Alive "Gapped 8" era at the 0:48 mark. We can pretty much debunk that they used Hello News during that time but I have no clue what the theme they used was so I'm going to report to SouthernMedia the theme as "WFLA 1981 Theme". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id=U69LpKcolME;t=57

Most likely Jeff Booth from sister station up I-75 WKEF in Dayton will sub in so that WKRC staffers can attend his funeral.

I don't know if anyone has brought this up here but WPIX has a heritage tribute Facebook page called WPIX Archives. It showcases vintage WPIX news footage, ads, promos, and also vintage ads for long time or defunct NYC businesses. I wish other stations would embrace their history the way WPIX has on this page. https://www.facebook.com/wpixarchives/

You have to realize that WGNO has ABC competition in Hancock and Pearl River County, Mississippi with Biloxi market giant WLOX who covers those counties in their newscasts even though they are part of the NOLA DMA. Even though WLOX acquired CBS and WXXV acquired NBC on subchannels for Biloxi back in 2012, WWL and WDSU are still factors in South Mississippi as the cable providers still carry them and people still watch those stations over the subchanneled affiliates. I don't know how "News in a fake bar" still exists. They need to put that product out of its misery and maybe start fresh ala WIAT.

Where else could he end up in the Tampa Bay area? WFLA has Cate, WTSP has Roundtree and Billi, and WTVT has Wilson and just acquired Chris Cato. I'm not familiar with BN9 now since my parents have Fios so what else could he do unless it's a lateral move to mornings or weekends or maybe just special reporting? I can only see him going to WFLA to be in a Wes Sarginson type of role and anchor only at 5.

I'm interested to see what WLOX in Biloxi has in store. They produced two award winning documentaries. One a couple of months after the storm (which I bought the DVD on Amazon when I lived in Biloxi in 2010) and one a year after it. As we all know WLOX is a Market #160 station that looks and acts better than some of their larger New Orleans and Mobile counterparts.

It's definitely 1986 or later because David Grant came to the station after Bob Baron left in 1986.

You gotta believe that this was his last chance in local TV, unless he ends up in Greenville, Mississippi like Steve Schill, haha!

This move of taking Wheel and Jeopardy! off their stations seems to be biting them in the ass big time as most of the stations have now relegated Let's Ask America to early daytime slots and replaced it with the show that I love to hate, Right This Minute. Yeah, 4 people sitting at a table dissecting YouTube videos is real entertaining and a ratings winner! WCPO just did this move a month ago.

A very short WFLA 1982 ID and Noon Report Intro at 5:05 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BI7iSdqaNnU

I did not know what to think of that video of the Indy 500 that Milt Spencer presented. Was it about racing or softcore porn?!! Haha! That same person also uploaded 90% of that newscast later on in cellcam-o-vision. Also again we hear the NBC News Tabloid production music which makes you wonder if they used Part of Your Life as only an Image Campaign and not a news theme like they did with Turn To during the Power News era in the late 80s-early 90s. He also uploaded a set of 1983 Joe Mannion editorials https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkUx0Gcfp_c That's 3 different graphic variations of the editorial intro on YouTube during "The Spirit of Tampa Bay" era. 1982- Red, Green, and Blue pre-call letter change "Figure" 8 logo 1983- Flipping gold version of the "Figure" 8 1985- Gold "Figure" 8 with Blue background. It looks like that editorial video montage overlapped the beginning of the Power News era in Fall 1985 in one of the editorials showing Steve Andrews.

The newscast probably followed Monday Night Football, Monday Night Baseball, or one of the MLB League Championship Series that ABC televised in 1982. I think it was most likely baseball since MNF began at 8PM CT.

It definitely seems like it, especially with the fact (I believe) that they were in 3rd in ratings behind WTSP at the time. They flipped flopped main anchor pairings 4 times from 1982-1985 (Ratliff/Bates, Hite/Bates, Ratliff/Hite, and then finally Hite/Sierens) and I think they also relegated Meteorologist Jim Smith to mornings for Bob Baron towards 1984 or 1985.

Thanks!

I tried saving The Spirit of Tampa Bay promo but my Windows Movie Maker is acting up. I hope the person who uploaded it doesn't get kicked off because posted the entire game broadcast of Super Bowl XIX is on his channel. The NFL is cracking down hard on their material being on Youtube since they launched the NFL Now video app.

There is also a clip from The Joker's Wild with an Editorial from News Director Joe Mannion at 7:27 and then a promo for anchor Suzanne Bates which has a theme which I don't know if it's from The Spirit of Tampa Bay package or a different one as WLWT used it as their news close during their brief stint using Gari's "So Good To Turn To" in 1983. I found it on a WLWT 1983 blooper reel that unfortunately the owner took off of YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOwQ6lguyxk

Could it be a possibility that Telesound created "The Spirit of Tampa Bay" for WFLA in 1982? Back when WFLA was commemorating their 50th Anniversary in 2005, their website had a mini page with station timelines and mini flash vids from their history. One of those videos was a promo for Bob Hite during the "Gapped 8" era in 1981-82 and in the background music for the promo was the "Channel 5 and You" image theme that WCVB in Boston used in the late 70s which I'm sure was created by Telesound. Which makes me wonder if WFLA used "And You" for newscasts instead of "Hello News" during that era but then again they used 615's "Power News" for newscasts but used Gari's "Turn To" for image promos from 1985-1992. The mystery of Tampa Bay TV newscast elements (sans WTVT) continues.... Someday I'll get the guts to contact Rocky Glisson or someone at Channel 8 and ask about it.

I'm thinking that WFLA used the WTLV theme for a couple of years before then because the clip of the news vehicles said "Channel Eight News" with the NBC snake logo but no number logo. WFLA introduced that 8 logo around 1975 and it matches the text NBC used in the early-mid 70s up until they introduced the red and blue N logo in 1976 (KPNX's logo did as well) I don't know when WFLA changed their branding to NewsWatch 8, I'm guessing 1975 as well.