Jase

Yeah..given this isn't his and Karen's first child, he may not take a lot of time off. Honestly, they need him back as soon as possible. Dick is going to need some time off and so will Alex. They could go the two-female anchor or sole anchor route (from time to time), but that's not a good long-term strategy.

Now that they are down to Dick and Alex, they really have no choice but to find someone fast. Either look for Christian to fill in for Dick on the weekends or a lot of solo anchoring going on. All the best to Rob during his recovery. Jeff will likely continue in his role as an in-studio anchor with Mike (like Peggy before him) doing more reporting than anchoring. I don't think Jeff has ever done anything outside the studio, so I wouldn't expect that to change. Peggy may even be called upon to help than they originally planned.

But he still a journalist which means he has to adhere to the same rules/standards/guidelines as a news anchor or reporter would. If this was his first offense, he probably would have gotten a verbal warning or whatnot, but that's not the case here. Honestly, it may be time to hang it up. He has had a good run. I would hate to see him get fired for another offense the next time around.

Don't give them any ideas, but I think it's safe bet that that will not happen. I wouldn't go that far. This is the best temp (newsroom) set they have had. As far as main sets, they have had some pretty bad ones. I think the first set (once they permanently moved out of the newsroom) was some blue wood monstrosity with cardboard cutouts of various 'Chicago' buildings as a backdrop. Nothing will ever beat that as the worst set.

Yeah..very odd. It will be interesting to see what they come up with.

We don't have a complete picture. Maybe he wasn't in the best of health or ready to tell his story until now. That said, the timing could just be coincidental and not anything more than that. There have been two previous main sweeps periods (May & Nov. 2016) that have come and gone in which they could have aired this and did not. Let's not think the worse here.

I wouldn't call it a studio (which they now call 'Studio 32' (as of 1/9/17). It's a small space upstairs that they previously used for a online sports show with Lou Canellis and Hub Arkush. My guess is that someone said why are we using space at Sweetwater when we have our own we should be using. I'm surprised they have never taken advantage (a complete build out) of this space before (particularly now that the view across the street is better, big windows, etc...).

Yeah I know WMAQ plays only a very smart part in this (with Arena Partners being the actual producers of the show/program). I just expected something better given they had a year to work with. It's not like they are putting on a live 3 hr. parade or something. Everything just seemed so half-hearted.

Siafa and Shinelle had no chemistry given they have never worked together and likely met a few hrs. before the broadcast. It seems like they picked these two out of thin air and said this can work. I'm surprised they didn't just pay someone from Chicago Fire, PD, Med or Justice to host and be done with it. Maybe next year. I agree the musical acts were very, very weak and without question, no thought was put into this. You have a freaking year to prepare and this is the best you can do? Shameful.

WGN wouldn't use their own mic flags because they don't produce/control the parade. The Chicago Festival Association runs it with WGN/WGN America serving as the TV partner/sponsor only.

They could incoporate (or likely thought about incorporating) 'Tribune' into the channel's name [i.e.... TMN (Tribune Media Network) ]; but it could easily get lost in the shuffle with other channels that start with a 'T' like TNT, TBS, TruTV, etc.. My guess is that WGN America is unique enough that they may feel it's not worth changing (at least for now).

Tomasulo is okay, but he tends go overboard. There's a balance between being both a professional and a sports fan and he still needs to figure that out. Plus, he lacks the overall sports knowledge/ personal experience that is often interesting to hear about during coverage like this (Who knew Jim Williams (WBBM) worked at Wrigley as a kid?, etc...). He's fine for what he does on the WGN morning zoo, but that's about it.

I didn't really care for any of WGN's coverage throughout the Cubs playoff/WS run. They tend to act like they own all things Cubs and instead of letting moments (for example) play out, they often find a way mess things up. From the little bit of coverage I did see today (I was at work), Micah may have been bad, but Allison Rosati was the absolute worse. While stuff like this is highly subjective, WFLD had the best overall coverage I think.

Good to hear he left on his own accord. My bet is that he lands at WGN. WMAQ has enough people (probably too many) on the investigative beat and I highly doubt that 4P spot will get filled by anyone anytime soon (if ever).

Yeah..seems like it's a safe bet to assume he's gone. I wonder what happened? Kevin Roy goes AWOL and is subsequently fired in 2010 and then his replacement/successor (Ben Bradley) suddenly disappears without a trace. An odd set of circumstances.

I would give her a C+. There's some stuff she needs to work on and it appears that she hasn't really settled in yet (there's a bit of awkwardness between her and the rest of the team). I'm sure things will get better over time.

The Saturday night game(s) on ABC bring in big #s, so I'm not surprised they had to go back to it. Honestly, they probably should have just aired it until its conclusion and aired the Cubs post game stuff on 7.2 and then made the switch. Luckily, WFLD/Fox had a better option available and moved their game to WPWR/CW50. Not sure if the Chicago Wolves game on CW50 was over however. Since SNL was new, WMAQ was likely under some pressure to wrap things up and air SNL before 11P.

The Voice is like two days a week, so that shouldn't be much of an issue. I believe he just does voiceovers for Last Call ( I'm not sure if he even appears on screen anymore).

Tamron isn't one to hold back her distain for/of someone. When she worked in Chicago (WFLD) with Mike Barz (reportedly, a bit of a misogynist too), the tension between those two was very high. Like I said before, hopefully Billy offers up a sincere/genuine apology tomorrow otherwise, I can't imagine him lastly very long on Today.

I wouldn't call his statement an apology. It was more or less a ' sorry (not sorry)...it was years ago' type of statement (much like Trump's) which isn't going to resolve this matter. He going to have to step it up or risk losing his job. We shall see what happens on Monday.

I would agree. I'm not sure how they/he can get around this. As it stands, they are pretty much pretending Billy wasn't there and not either agreeing or egging Trump on (not that he needs any help) during the whole ordeal. What's going to happen on Monday??? Do they keep pretending or does Billy apologize?

When did 'First Look' become 'Morning Joe First Look'? I was flipping through and noticed both the name change and the expansion from 30 mins. to an hour.

Firing people left and right every other month, constantly changing formats/news presentation and a hosts of other things is what hurt WFLD and not Bob and Walter per se. Bob's first stint at WFLD could be considered somewhat successful, but his ego got the best of him then (and always has). Walter had a pretty decent run too (12-14 yrs.?), but honesty, anchoring was never his strong point. They are in dire need of more experienced people and the hiring of Perez is hopefully just the beginning of building a more solid team of anchors/reporters. And if one day she somehow ends up taking over Dawn's spot, then so be it. I doubt anyone would be up in arms over that scenario.

I wouldn't sound the alarms just yet. There are a few things that have worked in WFLD's favor... 1. Stability. No on-air people have been fired or quit since the new ND started in April. He has simply found ways to better utilize the people he has which seems to be working. 2. Addition of the 5P newscast. I think this has rejuvenated morale and set them up to try harder to improve the product overall (whether it's at 5P, 9P, etc..). 3. Social media. They have really been pushing Facebook (probably harder than WMAQ pushes their app every 10 secs per newscast). Dawn live chats during the 9P, that Jake Hamilton kid is popular and the Fresco News app seems to be catching on. One would imagine trying to produce 11 1\2 hrs of news daily (M-F) that's informative, engaging and original is a taxing endeavor and my guess is that it's starting to catch up to WGN.

They could go the solo anchor route if they wanted to. WMAQ did and WFLD currently does (in the morning and at night). In both cases however it was/is due to budgetary constraints. As far as ratings on the weekends, WGN and WFLD have never really been too far apart from each other. If I'm not mistaken, things have always been very competitive between the two stations (particularly when it was Bob and Jackie on WGN vs. Byron and Nancy on WFLD).