mountainave

Lee Goldberg (WABC) will be on tomorrow (Wednesday).

Speaking of Amy Freeze, she will be on GMA filling in for Ginger on Monday and Tuesday.

Lauren Glassberg filling in for Joe Torres tonight.

 

Matt has signed a contract extension with Today. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/13/business/media/despite-upheavals-nbc-extends-lauers-contract.html?ref=media&_r=0

 

The decision was a reflection of the silent majority of Today viewers who still love Matt. As one article put it, most of the people who felt Matt was to blame for the botched Curry ouster have already left to GMA or CBS.

 

Even though Today is #2, it is still very profitable for NBC and axing Matt would surely cause chaos that would risk disrupting that profitability.

 

My guess is that WABC would be their first choice from which to pull weather talent, but the flagship has, ironically, the smallest on-air team among ABC's top four stations. Philly has any one of six mets to poach, and they have the shortest (and cheapest) trip to get to ABC headquarters.

 

Six?! Wow, didn't know that. Just assumed most had 3-4 like WABC.

It does seem Cecily has been a regular between GMA Weekend and now GMA. I wonder why they haven't been having Bill, Lee, or Jeff from WABC.

Byron Pitts in for David Muir anchoring World News tonight.

For a while Gerard McNiff was ABC's meteorologist. Maybe he's not there anymore.

 

Here's an article: http://www.juliewan.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/gerard-mcniff.pdf

Joe Torres filling in for Bill Ritter tonight on the 11.

Any proof?

 

No it actually seemed like he was by himself and she was on assignment out in the field. I believe the last time that happened was at the Motel fire down in point pleasant. That's just the way it seemed. Either way he wasn't annoyed I don't think. Just trying to get his answer

 

Right. I didn't say anything to suggest otherwise. He wanted to know if he could ask Tamsen a question/have some conversation with her or if he should go right to the next story after she tossed it back from Point Pleasant to him in the studio.

 

Has anybody watched this video? I know someone brought it up a while ago, but skip to about 47:00 and listen for a while, you can tell Scott gets pissed at the control room crew. There is absolutely horrible communication between the anchors and the control room. That explains for all of the technical glitches and the anchors getting confused all of the time.

 

He wasn't getting pissed. He was trying to ask the control room if there was going to be time for him to banter with Tamsen or if he should go right to the next story while the control room folks were in the middle of doing a hundred things to keep the show running. Sometimes anchors need to ask more than one time before someone in the control room (especially one like at PIX which probably isn't heavy on staff) hears them or is not in the middle of doing something. It happens often and isn't unique to PIX.

It would seem to make more sense for Meredith to do it as a way to promote herself for her upcoming talk show. That being said, maybe planning for the show will leave her too busy to step into Today. Who knows.

 

 

Don't forget she's a Yahoo employee now and they don't want anything that would be harmful to that position.

 

Yeah, it seems like Couric even substituting on Today might be complicated given the partnership between Yahoo and ABC News.

 

On a separate note, they have a long list of internal candidates who are more than able to sit in for Savannah. Seems like it might send the wrong message to them and to some loyal viewers to bypass all of them in favor of Katie or Meredith, although if it's all about ratings, that might not be a factor in the mind of execs.

Ben Sherwood's first order of business as Pres. of DATG?

 

Can't find any info on this on the internet. Do the promos advertise Lara as the host?

This morning, it's George and Amy, with Lara playing her usual role and Dan Harris filling in for Amy. So, it doesn't seem Lara is Robin's automatic backup.

 

So Michael started today. My only thought is that Lara, as anchor, should be in his new seat location as it is more in line with Robin and George.

 

I think he should be between George and Lara, or on the end next to Lara. Looked too crowded on the one side and too large of a gap between George and Lara this morning.

It sounds to me like it's just an additional title for her to have that she wanted as part of her contract renegotation. She'll probably continue doing what she's been doing, maybe with a few extra stories and interviews. I suspect it also means she'll be the main fill-in at the desk.

 

Anyway, confusing for all of us, I think. We can read into it all we want. Who knows...

I'm guessing that for the first few months we'll see all of them getting a chance to sub in until the folks in charge figure out who gels best with the rest of the anchors, and that person will become primary fill-in.

Gio is filling in for Lara through Wednesday while Lara fills in for Robin. He's done the news for GMA Weekend, but if I'm not mistaken (do correct me if I am), I think this is Gio's first time filling in for an anchor on GMA weekday.

 

I was so confused until Ken and Sandra appeared on the screen. That was pretty neat. Just wondering has Bill ever filled in as anchor? He wasn't bad at all.

 

Not that I'm aware of. I thought Heather wasn't too bad at all, either.

They should do this more often!

 

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/video?id=9487105

Sara Haines needs to tone down the touching and rubbing of Gio Benitez.

 

I have to say, Gio Benitez is moving up rather quickly in the rankings at ABC News recently. He is practically a co-anchor of GMA Live and is the main reporter for 20/20 tonight. I wouldn't be surprised to see him get a spot somewhere in a bigger position soon.

 

One thing ABC is very good at, is building up reporters.

 

Haven't been watching it regularly. Is it not Josh, Lara, and Ginger every day anymore?

They've still got Rob Schmidt anchoring just a half hour per day? Why even bother.

 

Yeah, I just watched some of the 6 o'clock news, and that tight 2-anchor shot is not doin' it for me.

 

They used it this morning, too. It's gotta go. Not sure what it looks like in HD, but it looks absolutely ridiculous on a CRT.