TVNewsLover

Based on Shirleen’s and Monica’s departures and announcement of their replacements, the announcement could come anywhere between this coming week and the end of April. While Sarah is the obvious choice as she has filled in the most, she was also the obvious choice to fill Monica’s position and that didn’t pan out. The difference with that is that Jeannette had plenty of fill-in experience at the anchor desk. I think Maggie is too new to the anchor desk, and Erin’s frequent comings and goings don’t bring the stability needed for that position. Both would make a great weekend evening co-anchor. Surprised they haven’t taken the opportunity to allow Jaclyn to fill-in and test her out. I agree Sarah is the likely choice (and hopefully switches to M-F schedule). As to the weather, I think sliding David into Melissa’s spot on weekend evenings and letting Karen handle the weather in the mornings with Jessica doing traffic is the cost-cutting move, but I don’t think they want to make changes to the morning team. As to Chris staying on weekend mornings versus moving him to weekend evenings, it will depend on who the new hire is.

And it was Brian and Maggie at 4pm, 5pm, and 10pm.

Thursday’s lineup was the following: 12noon: Sarah solo 4pm: Brian and Sarah 5pm: Brian and Maggie 10pm: Brian and Maggie Curious to see what Friday brings as Sarah is traditionally off.

I’m wondering if they wanted an anchor on both newscasts instead of having two fill-in reporters doing the 5pm? Although not sure I understand why Brian and Sarah didn’t just anchor at 4pm and 5pm ... unless Jim is also off??? I feel like we should have a 4pm anchor announcement in the next month, so maybe they are testing pairs? Even weirder, both Walter and Gray were in studio doing reports so they could have also filled in.

Especially since Sarah is working why couldn’t she have anchored the 4 PM? Sarah did give the preview for the 5 PM, so I wonder if both Rick and Sharrie are off today. Alicia was the feature anchor at 4pm. In the close, they mentioned Sarah’s name. Update as I’m writing this, Sarah and Erin are co-anchoring at 5pm. I don’t think, as the 10 PM has had solo anchors in the past.

Today at 12noon Sarah is anchoring solo, but instead of saying Brian is off, she said Brian will be along a little bit later, which means that he’ll be anchoring the later shows. Makes me think that he will be filling in for Rick at both 5PM and 10PM, in addition to anchoring the 4PM. I wonder why they think it is essential to have a coanchor at 10PM when one of the anchors is off, but not at 12noon.

She co-anchored at 5 PM today as well. I believe it may be because she’s also filling in at 10 PM. A little surprised they just don’t go solo at 10 PM when the one anchor is off.

Yes I saw that and found it to be a bit weird. Both Brian and Sarah were on at noon and 4pm. They always tend to be Rick and Sharrie’s main backups, along with Erin, and vice a versa. Even if they were unavailable, it seems odd that they wouldn’t have Walter or Gray sub.

I wonder if they would consider adding Ryan to split the evening newscasts with Jim Rose. With ABC stations making cuts, it would make sense to utilize him a bit more.

He could’ve technically been referring to the other Cheryl. It does seem like a bit of an overreaction and not warranting a 5-week suspension.

Honestly, the breaking news should be handled by whoever is in studio at that moment. Anything up until 1:30ish should be George and everything after should be David. I also feel that they should be each other’s primary backups on their respective programs. There were rumors CBS was courting George when the last shakeup happened there. As for Chris, I feel his career has gone downhill since going to CNN and particularly when he moved to nights.

Is she also doing her regular WABC shift?

It seems like NBC SPORTS NW focuses more on Portland and Oregon teams, whereas ROOT SPORTS NW focuses more on Seattle and Washington teams, with the Portland Timbers being the only exception to this rule.

Oddly, Rick was on at 4pm with Sarah yesterday, and not Walter who anchored with her at noon. I wonder who anchored at noon today?

I’ve seen Walter fill in one or two other times at noon, but I don’t recall him ever filling in at 4pm. I assume it’s because of the winter weather, otherwise Sarah would’ve soloed at noon and Rick would’ve filled in at 4pm.

I believe GMA was at the top of their game at the time Diane was retiring, and they had just lost Sam and were in the process of losing Josh, so it was important to keep some stability on GMA to maintain the momentum. Ultimately I think it was the right decision and I believe George handles breaking news better. I kind of wish George would sub on WNT when David is off sometimes.

New 4pm anchor?

Doubt they’d move Karen (or David for that matter) to weekend mornings. If they were to shuffle their current lineup, Chris would likely stay put as Karen and David have been there longer. Although I enjoy both David and Karen, I feel like Karen’s personality is a better fit for mornings, so my move would be for David to replace Melissa. All that being said, I doubt they’d mess with the morning team as they have great chemistry.

So it’s basically been Sarah at 4pm most of the time since Jeannette left. Sharrie has been the other fill-in at 4pm on days Sarah has been off (with the exception of a few days when Alicia was off, and Sarah was feature anchor at 4pm & 5pm with Sharrie in the main anchor chair). The only other person who has filled in is Erin O’Hearn, and on those days both Sharrie and Sarah were off. If they’re going in-house, it’s hard to think it’ll be anybody but Sarah. There are really no reporters able to step into that spot like Jeannette did. If they do go with her, the question is does she stay on Sundays too, with Fridays continuing as Brian solo at noon and Sharrie fill-in at 4pm, or do they finally make a move and promote one of the reporters to Sunday (and possibly Saturday) evening co-anchor, in which case my bets are on Jaclyn Lee, Erin O’Hearn, or Nydia Han. Of course, all of this means nothing if they bring someone in from outside. Based on previous timelines with vacancies, we may not know the answer until late March or late April.

I found this a little odd today. Brian and Sarah were both on at noon (as was Alicia), yet Rick and Sharrie are both anchoring at 4pm with Alicia as feature anchor (same with 5pm).

Yes, I’ve heard it before. It’s their generic rejoin (there is also a generic open). They use it whenever there is a vacancy until they settle on a new team.

Interesting ad in this story today. 4pm team preview? Although it does seem like a cut and paste from the ad that included Jeannette as they are wearing same clothes.

Hmmm I thought she had been in studio in Philly. One of these stations really need to find her a permanent spot in their weather departments.

I’ve always found it weird and a bad fit that NBC and Fox use their business networks for overflow sports programming. Also, I think the Paramount Network is a much more likely landing spot than MTV for the CBSSN stuff.

Oddly enough they brought in Walter last night to co-anchor at 10pm with Sharrie, and Sharrie did the 11pm. Surprised they just didn’t have her fly solo at 10pm. Also surprised that Jim Gardner, being that he’s Jewish, never anchors on Christmas. I know a lot of other stations usually have the Jewish anchors in on Christmas.