mountainave

I don't believe WABC has in-house weather producers, no. They basically outsource the function of a weather producer to AccuWeather. Sometimes (or more than sometimes?) Jeff or Amy work during the week behind the scenes while Sam or Lee are on the air.

The problem, unfortunately, is that what you were hoping for doesn't attract eyeballs. The latter does.

You’re right. I stand corrected.

Right. I don't think you will see most stations return to having anchors sit shoulder to shoulder until the CDC says it's okay for vaccinated people of different households to be indoors, unmasked, within 6 feet from each other. They only just last week said vaccinated people could be unmasked if outdoors and 6 ft apart, so I imagine it will be some time.

Stephanopoulos and Roberts will both serve as Jeopardy guest hosts, announced today.

Was surprised by this, too. She was one of the best (read: newsmaking) White House correspondents in the last year; certainly at CBS. CBS's loss; CNN's gain. https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/paula-reid-cnn-legal-affairs-cbs-news-1234938932/

Gone is the orange, replaced with red.

That's okay. I will point it out for you. You claimed that Elizabeth Vargas got her job because of her race ("...[Simpson was] unfairly latinolized by the terrible Elizabeth Vargas") And you then claimed Tom Llamas got his job because of his race ("...you know that 'hermano' connection...") Has the thought crossed your mind that perhaps they got their jobs because they are both qualified and talented? I will grant you the benefit of the doubt and assume it was unintentional, but it is otherwise suggestive of either casual or overt racism.

Do I need to actually spell this out, or does putting these two posts together speak for itself?

In terms of career progression, one would not go from anchoring a broadcast at WABC to anchoring World News Now. It pays less and the hours are worse. If anything, you sometimes see the opposite - Liz Cho and Rob Nelson, for example, both anchored WNN before coming to WABC. For most, anchoring a broadcast at WABC would be the apex of a career.

I don't think it's a demotion; it's probably a promotion. He retains a significant title as chief domestic correspondent, and is given a show to anchor. He was a WH correspondent for eight years and Chief for three. It's not a job people hold (or want) forever, especially as they get older. It involves long hours and lots of travel. Now, he gets to do a lot of his work while sitting behind a desk.

Chad Matthews has been promoted from VP/News Director to President & GM of WABC-TV. You'll recall he was promoted from Asst. ND to ND when Camille Edwards left the station. The GM spot was left open when Debra O'Connell received a major promotion of her own to head all of Disney's networks. O'Connell was brought in to run WABC-TV after Dave Davis left the station. https://abc7ny.com/chad-matthews-wabc-wabctv-eyewitness-news/10348180/

Well, that was fast. Good for them. If memory serves me correctly from last time around, Tom Llamas and Cecilia Vega were initially chosen to split the weekend until Vega was promoted to the White House beat and Llamas took over both days.

Whit is probably not a shoe-in for the role, ultimately. ABC is under pressure to not appoint another white man to anchor a broadcast, between the racial reckoning over the summer broadly and the Barbara Fedida catastrophe specifically. Expect to see Whit fill-in, yes, but also expect to see a rotating cast of sit-ins including Amy Robach, Linsey Davis, Cecilia Vega, and Rebecca Jarvis. Less likely but also possible includes TJ Holmes, Gio Benitez, Byron Pitts, and Dan Harris.

Where?

Jon Karl is launching a new interview show on ABC News Live, but I’ve not seen any reporting that he’s also joining This Week permanently.

That’s right. The plan was for George to leave This Week when he was appointed to anchor GMA. For some reason, ABC passed over Tapper and hired Christiane Amanpour to helm This Week. The ratings tanked, Amanpour was dismissed, and ABC passed over Tapper a second time asking George to take the show back. Re: 20/2, yeah, they seem to have taken the 48 hours and Dateline approach, and that’s what draws eyeballs.

It's surprising to me that ABC wouldn't bump Muir off 20/20 and open the role for another anchor, simply as a talent retention tool. But I assume the case is that Muir enjoys retaining the 20/20 anchor role in addition to his WNT duties, if for no other reason than money and/or visibility.

Because they run no commercials for the first 15+ minutes of the broadcast.

Brooke Baldwin is back on the air.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by Tweet pages, but his Twitter account has not been removed. It's still there. https://twitter.com/lipoftv Instead of broadly claiming he is biased, the more appropriately thing to do would be to cite specific instances in which you feel he stated something biased. If you have examples, please share them.

Phil does not express his own political views on his Twitter page, which I've followed for years, so that's not an accurate statement to make. If you're referring to the occasional comment he makes on Twitter calling into question a demonstrably false lie President Trump tells, or lamenting an unprofessional tone or ad hominem attack made by a politician, it's completely justified as a journalist and is consistent with comments made by network and cable news correspondents.

I think Rob Nelson was an amazing talent for a morning show. But, yes, Phil Lipof is great himself, too.

I know that the WABC street-side studio has multiple layers of thick glass, at least one of which is shatterproof (i.e., bulletproof) as you can see from the photos. But it does present risks. Certainly could have been a different situation were Sam or Lee out on that sidewalk doing a weather live shot. If I were the technical director I might have thrown to an extended commercial break and relocated the anchors to the upstairs newsroom to continue the broadcast from there. But I have no doubt WABC has their own contingency plans in place. The entire ABC building has on-site security, so they could have deployed multiple security officers to stand out on the sidewalk while the broadcast continued from the studio until the police arrived.

Could be a savvy ratings play by postponing the first commercial break.