MorningNews

Man, I’m going to miss Lauren. She was always such a pleasure to watch. She is Eyewitness News! They seem to hint towards the end that she’ll no longer have to cover snow storms. Florida seems like a good bet. Nina Pineda confirmed that Lauren is leaving tv news entirely.

What? Why didn’t she get a chance to say goodbye? I’m going to miss her.

Interesting. I could see them moving Jeff to Noon and 4pm to help lighten Lee’s evening slate, especially with his expanded network duties. Brittany gets to cover mornings rather than hanging around until 1pm. And I’d really love to see Joe and Sandra back together.

WABC, WCBS and WNBC went wall to wall for stunt devils climbing the Empire State Building. They only broke away when it was clear the press wasn’t getting a perp walk. A potential building collapse of the former Pfizer building in Midtown East during the middle of the workday is worthy of extensive coverage.

GMA did a special 3 hour Saturday edition for July 4th with Robin, George and Michael on from 7-9am and Whit Johnson, Will Reeve and Rhiannon Ally from 9-10am. The first hour had some great segments from the anchors and correspondent’s on their own American history.

I liked them having live programming on Saturday and Sunday nights but the show never really found its footing this year from what I’d seen. The hosts were all a bit boring.

Lindsay was in on traffic all last week and earlier this week so probably just off today.

Yeah they’re doing a somewhat significant construction project to the outer facade of their building though I haven’t walked by there in a few weeks.

The logo looks stretched but I’m not seeing the graphics issue. Those look like the standard weather graphics.

On Monday Lee and Ryan commended Liz and noted that they and the show were in good hands with her at the helm. I imagine they’ll clarify soon. David would be great with Liz at 6 but Liz is more than capable and talented to hold it down solo.

Not sure I get that complaint really. Stepping off the desk was overdue for Bill and that had become obvious to anyone watching. That said the abruptness of his finale was jarring, I mean it was tough watching him on GMA with those notes in his hands. It even seemed at one point the hosts had to guide him back on track. Tough to process that his decline wasn’t just ordinary aging but actually a debilitating cognitive decline. I think it’s perfectly acceptable for him to continue working in some capacity so long as it’s not a distraction to the viewer like his nightly anchoring had become. Especially given the scope of his reduced capacity which will be focused on Alzheimer’s. He’s earned that.

This is awful. It had become abundantly clear that Bill’s performance was fading. He’s a legend, I remember enjoying his stint on GMA decades before I moved to NYC. His history of work speaks for itself and it’s admirable that he’s continuing his work at WABC to help the next generation. A lasting legacy in this great city. Thank you for everything Bill.

It’s not necessarily about building a viewership base. They want the property to destroy the institutions.

Just generally his presentation has declined significantly in the last few years. He tries to improvise but just meanders until finally tossing to the reporter or their package. It’s clumsy and distracting.

It’s time for Bill Ritter to retire entirely from his anchoring duties. Or they need to strictly prohibit him from going off script when reading a story.

4pm is probably my favorite newscast on channel 7. Liz, David and Lee have that classic channel 7 chemistry. Weekend mornings when Toni Yates is there with Michelle and Dani are a close second.

Noticed a TINY promo running claiming to be #1 morning newscast in April. Didn’t catch the disclaimer at the bottom but good for them if accurate, keep WABC on their toes.

They’ve done that on TINY for a few years now it seems, going back to the pandemic. Actually WNBC rarely brings in a fill-in for their newscasts - 11am, 4, 5, 6 and 11pm as well as weekend TINY often go solo when one of the anchors is off. Not all the time but more often than not.

He was a heavy tweeter just a few years ago but has largely gone silent on socials which I assumed was because of his age. This is hard to see but to your point an inevitably. I also haven’t seen Brokaw publicly in a few years.

Thankfully ABC doesn’t seem to be as feckless as you believe they should be. If Jimmy can’t make the joke about their age gap, then why did Trump make a similar remark about the age gap just yesterday? This ridiculous capitulation and self-censoring is frankly a very idiotic suggestion.

One very interesting aspect of this to me is how deeply unpopular the administration has become relative to last September when ABC suspended Kimmel over the Kirk thing. They were also spooked by the public’s reaction then. I really hope Disney can be a trigger for corporations and institutions all over to stand up to this excessive bullsh*t. Also this was the Brian Stelter reporting I referenced earlier:

I watch a lot of ABC and definitely haven’t gotten the impression of state run media. Kind of absurd to claim that of the network employing Mary Bruce, Rachel Smith and George Stephanopoulos who are fearless in their pursuits of truth through all of this administration’s lies. On top of that, Disney has pretty immediately signaled they won’t be rolling over. Brian Stelter even reported this afternoon that Disney has signaled to station groups that contractual obligations to carry network programming will be enforced.

This is the hollowed out Times Square Studios as of today. I don’t believe there’s been an announcement on future plans quite yet and up until a week ago the remnants of GMA’s old studio were still in place. Sad sight to see.

So does Henry DiCarlo do the 7-11am hours now with Kirk Hawkins doing 4-7am?

What exactly is their long term strategy here? 1 anchor for the entire evening slate of newscasts?