sanewsguy

Cynthia Lee is the next person leaving a San Antonio station. For the second time. Cynthia was originally there until 2009, then left to pursue other opportunities. She returned in 2012 as a weekend anchor then was bumped up in 2013 when Karen Martinez passed away from breast cancer.

 

Here's the article

 

It's unfortunate she's leaving, definitely one of the best at KABB. She may have been getting tired of having to revoice all of those Waste Watch reports...

 

Any which case, they are now going to have to find someone else but it looks likely that Grace White will get bumped up.

 

Now, Blaise Labbe has two female lead anchors to look for. OR, this may have conveniently happened just as they are about to move in later this year. The Sinclair duopoly here is losing people and fast though. Something has to be done and they probably want to have their new people in place by the November book.

 

Could we be seeing some more people bolting KCTV for WOAI/KABB? Keep your eye there.

 

Meanwhile, KGWN has begun using the standard Gray graphics...somewhat; they're still using the QNI ripoffs for their opens. (click on "NewsChannel 5 at 5:30pm"; it's their weather segment)

 

And you know what that means, HD news and new graphics are probably on the way soon...

 

What made WJZ's previous (pre-2014) news opens illegal in regards to IDs is the fact that it used the layout "this is WJZ-TV, WJZ-HD and WJZ.com, Baltimore". The inclusion of the website domain and the mention of "WJZ-HD" constitutes a violation of the FCC's rules for station identifications. A more compliant ID would be "this is WJZ-TV, Baltimore" or "this is WJZ-TV/DT, Baltimore".

 

How would that be illegal? They mention the call letters and city of license. Not necessarily in the order they should have, but they did nonetheless.

 

Our government has much more important things to be worrying about than if some TV station is identifying themselves properly.....

John Gerard, chief meteorologist at WOAI, is leaving the station after the May book for a weather position over at WFOR.

 

Source: http://blog.mysanantonio.com/jakle06/2014/04/woai-tv-losing-its-weatherman

 

So now, this means WOAI will be without a chief meteorologist OR a lead female anchor. And knowing WOAI, they tend to take their time looking for replacements. It took them a little more than a year to replace Brian Collister.

 

And I understand Blaise Labbe says "it happened pretty quickly" so it will take them a while to find somebody. This is BS because they knew for a while Elsa Ramon was leaving, and nope, still nobody has been hired.

 

Anyways, I'll miss him. He was my favorite weatherman in the market. Hopefully he will NOT be replaced with Alex Garcia from KABB. He is by far the worst in the market. I watch the weather to find if it's going to rain tomorrow, not to get a lesson in meteorology, and Garcia certainly loves to teach more than he does putting things into simple terms that an average person can understand. That and he always likes to remind us when the NOAA will be having their next storm spotter classes. Katie Vossler at KSAT is also starting to get bad about this too...

 

Pop News is being expanded into it's own 30 minute program 5 nights a week on ABC Family according to promos running on ABC.

 

:bang:

 

It's also sort of funny, as that would mean KSHB technically has SIX meteorologists at the station. It'll be curious to see if he ever got back on air doing the weather again.

 

OK hold the phone there. I guess you're counting Jeff Penner who is usually not on the air unless he's filling in for one of their regular meteorologists. I've always seen it as four with an off-air producer who fills in sometimes. I generally don't count the off-air people.

 

And there's nothing wrong with having six meteorlogists at the station. KSAT will soon have six total once Adam Caskey starts. Five on-air and one off-air producer (who never fills in). If you want to get extreme they technically have seven if you count John Honoré who KSAT alleges is still employed by them...

Can Delmarva support three news operations? This is going to be interesting and what's more surprising than this is the fact that WMDT or WBOC never added NBC on a digital subchannel...

According to TVSpy, Stacey Cameron will be joining WOAI as an investigative reporter. His last stop was KCTV, which (probably not coincidental) is where current ND Blaise Labbe came from. So basically he hired his buddy. I'm not shocked but I'm a little surprised.

 

I'm intrigued they say he will be "one of the station's lead investigative reporters". More like he'll probably be the only full-time investigative reporter there. He replaces Brian Collister who left the station about a year ago.

 

Now they have another major vacancy to fill and that is main female anchor. That'll probably take another six months or so knowing WOAI...

 

Anyone from Kansas City DMA, is he a good, hard-hitting investigative reporter?

 

Mark Edwards is suing KTHV and Gannett for discrimination.

 

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvspy/little-rock-sports-anchor-sues-gannett-for-discrimination_b119490

 

http://arkansastvnewswatch.blogspot.com/2014/04/kthv-gannett-sued-for-discrimination.html

 

And at the same time they have hired a new sports anchor, Mary Dunleavy, from WVIR in Charlottesville, VA. Article

 

Much to my surprise, this wasn't a publicity stunt and they are actually using it. Since some of WSYX reporters' stories also air on WTVN-Radio, I've heard "reporting from Sky 6, this is _______" in the outcues.

 

This is just a wild guess, but are they able to do this now because of those LiveU packs and the fact that they don't have to outfit a chopper with special gear?? Can those packs even be used from a helicopter?

 

I don't think you can. They may have been forced to install the ENG equipment on the bird.

 

Also those radio reports you listen to on WTVN aren't live. They can record them and make them look/sound like it's live from the chopper and then send the recorded product back to the station for broadcast.

 

Here we go again. Just because the editorial page of a newspaper swings one way or another doesn't mean the newsgathering and reporting also swings that way. Have you ever watched a Sinclair newscast? It is just about like any other newscast. Actually, depending on the market, it might even be a cut above most other newscasts.

 

I can second this argument for the Sinclair stations. In fact, WOAI lead anchor Randy Beamer now has commentary during the 10PM newscast called "San Antonio's Voice" and his views are generally liberal. I don't think Sinclair shuns people who are liberal in fact I think they embrace them and are open-minded to other people's views.

 

For the newspaper here (Express-News, a Hearst property), not only is its editorial viewpoint very liberal, its newsgathering has started to become evidently one-sided in the past few years, especially after Mike Leary from the Philadelphia Inquirer took over as the executive editor. It's gotten to the point I cancelled my subscription entirely because the newsgathering quality has been embarrassing for a market the size of San Antonio. They give newspapers a bad name and you wonder why people are leaving them in droves and no, I don't think it's necessarily the format so much the quality.

 

Add to the fact TV does a better job and online has a variety of liberal and conservative news sources for your choosing. (I do get some of my national news from mainstream [which is predominantly liberal and supportive of the President] sources but I balance it out with news from conservative [which are critical of the President] sites too--not just Fox News but other conservative sites as well; this allows me to get a balanced view on the world and getting news some outlets don't and won't cover).

:rant:

 

"sanewsguy's prediction a few pages back was correct. Adam Caskey is now the evening meteorologist in waiting at KSAT, as Steve Browne scales back. When he joins the station, Caskey will become the meteorologist for the 5 and 6 P.M. newscasts, with Browne remaining on the 10 P.M. newscast."

I figured. Guessing Caskey will also do the 4 (TVSpy strangely omits it but KSAT does have a 4). Or they will continue to have Katie Vossler do three days a week at 4 and Caskey does the other two days.

 

 

Somewhat disappointed that Mike Osterhage wasn't promoted but then again that's a good thing because their morning team has such a great chemistry together I can't see that being broken up soon.

 

Looks like TVSpy lifted this from Jakle at the paper:

 

Among other things mentioned:

• Caskey takes over in June (of course, after the May book).
  
• KSAT has six experienced meteorologists (they only have four, soon to be five, on-air meteorologists; the sixth is probably referring to their off-camera weather producer who has never been seen on-air)
  
• John Honore has been off the air since January (I told you this before Jeanne Jakle posted it on her blog a couple days later) and according to David Cuiccio (KSAT CSD), he's still on the payroll (a nice way of saying they basically didn't renew his contract and they took him off before it expired and they're paying out the remainder of his contract). Whether he's off-camera there or he's told to just stay home and not come in, I don't know. I'm am 99% sure this was Bernice Kerney's (ND) decision to dump him in favor of Vossler (so KSAT could have a female meteorologist).
  

 

Also just putting this out there, but for whatever reason, KSAT does not use the term chief meteorologist, so nobody's really getting "promoted" here.

 

WFMJ took the lead soon after the sale of the WKBN-TV to Grapevine/Piedmont, and heavily capitalized on WKBN's sale to out-of-town interests by starting their push as "Our Valley's Only Locally Owned TV station", and quickly snatched up anchor Bob Black, who was canned by the new owners of WKBN soon after they took over. I'm not too sure about now, but WFMJ was dominant during this era.

 

WKBN was fortunate enough to have been sold to New Vision, since most of the other Piedmont properties were dumped to owners who either drove them further into the ground, or sold them to companies that struck in-market deals to run them, forming some of the first SSAs in the industry to challenge ownership rules. WKBN then became the senior partner in the merger with WYTV since it was one of the few Benedek stations that was not folded into Gray, then Chelsey Television sold out to Parkin, which was a sidecar company of New Vision.

 

Wasn't WYTV managed by Barrington during Chelsey's ownership? Also IIRC, Chelsey's other station WHOI went to Barrington proper...

 

It'll most likely be changed together.

 

I wouldn't put my money on it. It's fairly easy to change the site over. It's more effort for the new look to launch because Gannett is standardized on completely different equipment from Belo and all that has to be installed first.

 

The one constant: both companies used ENPS so that's one thing that won't be switched over.

 

The one thing I hope KENS gets out of this: all-digital tapeless shooting and editing. Yes they still shoot and edit on tape, so field footage naturally isn't HD but it's stretched to make it look HD.

 

WYMT is considered a semi-satellite of WKYT. WKYT simulcasts their 5 & 5:30pm news weekdays on WYMT.

 

Yes, and lately the trend over at 'KYT is if a reporter vacancy comes up, it's generally filled with someone from WYMT. In a way it's also like a training station for them. The studio building even looks like it's a deliberate carbon copy of WKYT's rural mansion-esque building (but built later on).

 

 

Savannah's WJCL is adding a 5:00 and a 5:30 pm newscast. Katie will move to 10am while Bethenny moves to sister station WTGS at noon.

 

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvspy/wjcl-adds-news-at-500-and-530-pm_b119236

 

http://wjcl.com/wjcl-abc-to-wtgs-fox-progamming-changes/

 

This station has come a long way from it's days when it was on "Making News Savannah Style" and they were owned by Piedmont which was truly a crappy company. If LIN sells this to be a part of Media General, I hope they end up with a company who's willing to make continued investments in them.

 

They seem to have an employee turnover problem. Their GM, ND, Dion Lim, Kellie Patterson, and now Meghan Danahey all gone within the past few months (there may be some I forgot, but you get the point).

 

I wonder if Gannett has anything to do with that ie let's get outta there as fast as we can as Gannett is not a great company...

 

It's not so much the website, although it needs some work, as the harbinger of the COLOR BOXES AND BLACK POLYGONS™ graphics with This Is (Bad) Home.

 

I don't mind This is Home, but yeah, I've made it clear more than once I'm not a big fan of the graphics, will be a definite downgrade to what they're using now.

 

But someone posted that KVUE is getting a new site soon and everyone posted something critical of it. If it's the graphics and music that are bad, I don't know why it's getting lumped together with the site.

Why does everyone hate this layout, just curious? I for one, am looking forward to KENS getting a new site. The current one is way too cluttered and the less photo galeries they post the better.

 

Adam Caskey of WJLA/News Channel 8 is leaving for a job at KSAT in San Antonio. Caskey's last day at WJLA/NC8 will be April 18th.

 

(credits to DCRTV.com)

 

Curious what he'll be doing. KSAT's weather team is maxed out. HOWEVER, Steve Browne's contract is up soon and he says he'd like to lighten his load. So maybe he'll be doing some of the evening newscasts. Jeanne Jakle might have some details on this soon, so I'll wait to see what she has to say.

Might as well post this here, but what's with GMA's infatuation with the Pharell song "Happy"? They play the song on virtually every promo for GMA. That song has always played to death (not just by GMA, but by the media in general) to the point it annoys the hell out of me every time it's played...

I can't believe this is happening, but Don Scott is retiring from WJZ in July. One-half of the market's best morning news duo is going away. I wonder who's going to succeed Don? Don and Marty had such a great rapport with each other. Would be nice if they could find a female who could "click" with Marty and keep the Eyewitness News Morning Edition on top.

 

Here's the article: http://www.mediabistro.com/tvspy/don-scott-set-to-retire-from-wjz_b119068

 

Also, from my home base:

KENS, the CBS affiliate owned by Gannett that I avoid like the plague, has decided to unveil their response to the "ice desk" (which you can't have in San Antonio in the first place because it generally doesn't get that cold here). They call it the "Fiesta Desk" which is basically a giant pinata shaped like a desk. I'm betting 99% Gannett corporate made them do something so stupid like this (because they didn't do an ice desk during the winter).

 

Now you see why I avoid them like the plague. And I didn't know about this until I read it online...

 

KSAT of course, is the official station of Fiesta and will air all the parades live.

 

If you don't know what Fiesta (San Antonio) is please google it. Better than me trying to explain.

 

Oh, and KEYT is coming under fire. I'll let Mr. FTVLive tell us this:

LEFT COAST STATION CROSSES THE LINE

April 11, 2014/ Scott Jones

 

 

KEYT in Santa Barbara decided to throw journalism ethics out the window and just become Deputy Sheriffs with video cameras.

 

The station showed footage of last weekend’s riot near the University of California, Santa Barbara campus, then told viewers that “we’ll be sharing all that video with the sheriff’s department and the district attorney’s office.”

 

KEYT cozying up to law enforcement didn’t end there, though. Its newsroom staffers posted “WANTED” tweets (“We captured his face on cam. See if you recognize him”) and asked viewers to help catch “Sheriff Brown’s #1 suspect.”

 

It's as if the station decided to give up TV news and play policeman.

 

Then again it might not be all that surprising considering this: Victoria Sanchez, the reporter covering the riot, is the daughter of Santa Barbara chief of police Camerino Sanchez, while KEYT news anchor Paula Lopez is married to Santa Barbara County Judge Frank Ochoa.

 

KEYT news director Jim Lemon tells Jim Romenesko he decided to give the video to the sheriff and D.A. because “I knew I was going to get subpoenaed.”

 

“I thought it’s better to be upfront about what you’re going to do” and tell viewers the station is giving up the footage.

 

“I’ve had a few folks ask if we’re an arm of law enforcement, but the answer is no.”

 

Ummmm....I think the answer is yes Jim.

 

Just saying....

 

H/T Jim Romenesko

 

In honor of the Final Four (more specifically the National Championship), WFSB and WKYT are taking part in a "like war" on Facebook.

 

This is hilariously stupid...

 

If two feeds is the basis of success for a show, I guess The Chew isn't successful. Luckily, it's not... look at the ratings. And I'm sorry you think, "Either The Chew needs to provide two feeds, not be day and date, cancelled and replaced with something scripted, or the time returned to affiliates" because none of that needs to happen. The Chew is doing fine as is and it's going to continue to work the way it is.

 

Not anything to worry about in most markets. Here my affiliate tape delays it and therefore I won't watch because I hate hearing "Monday on The Chew" references on Monday. Doubt they care though.... It is what it is.

Sorry for the double post but I also came across these, for our Memphis and Seattle peeps. I stole these both from FTVLive:

Memphis

BURLINGTON ANCHOR HEADED TO MEMPHIS

April 03, 2014/ Scott Jones

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WCAX (Burlington, VT) Morning Anchor Molly Smith has signed off from the station.

 

"Thank you guys, I'm going to miss you a lot!" Smith told you morning Co-Anchors as she anchored her last newscast at the station.

 

Smith is moving to Memphis. She heads to Tennessee TV after four plus years in the Green Mountains.

 

She started her reporting career with WCAX near Killington, her hometown. She covered the Rutland region for the station before being bumped up to the morning Anchor.

 

The station says that, whether it was on the set or in the field, Molly reported the good and the bad for us. She's a journalist who will take a bit of Vermont to the South with her. We wish her the best on her new journey and say thanks for a job well done.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyone think she's going to WATN or WREG? Can't think of any other openings in that market off the top.

 

Seattle

CROSSING THE STREET IN SEATTLE

April 03, 2014/ Scott Jones

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

KOMO Anchor Liz Dueweke is going across the street to KCPQ and will help shore up the station's morning newscast.

 

Here is the internal memo that News Director Erica Hill sent out to the staff:

 

I’m excited to announce that we are adding to our team at Q13 FOX and enhancing the roles of our very talented morning show team!

 

Over the last several months, we have been working diligently on ways to evolve our morning show by strengthening the roles of our very important team and casting everyone in the areas where they shine. So I am thrilled to announce that Liz Dueweke will be joining us as co-anchor of Q13 FOX News This Morning from 5am to 10am alongside Bill Wixey, MJ McDermott and Kaci Aitchison. Kaci will be taking on an important hosting role for segments and features, designed to bring life into the show through her incredible talents, her content, and her personality. This is an elevated role for Kaci which puts her in a position of showcasing some of the what we love most about Kaci. She is excited about this new role, as am I.

 

Liz joins us from across the street where she has been the AM anchor at KOMO for the last year. Before that she anchored 5a-10a at the FOX affiliate in Oklahoma City and has worked in Michigan and Arizona in a variety of on air roles.

 

Brien Blakely, Kelly O’Connell and Tim Joyce will continue to co-host our 4:30am newscast. Brien will then showcase important breaking news from the newsroom throughout the show and Kelly will be a presence all morning by hosting important, local content. I am excited to work with both of them on ways to further develop our content in the morning show. Tim Joyce will support our weather story throughout the show along with continuing as the face of our Eye Opener Portland cut ins.

 

I could not be more thrilled to work on our continued growth and ways for us to build upon the amazing talents of this team. It is my belief that we are at the precipice of significant development that will put us at a competitive advantage in the marketplace and have the right team in place to build our content around.

 

Please join me in welcoming Liz to the team when she arrives on April 21st. Her first official day on the air will be April 28th!

 

Erica Hill

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I agree The View is loosing its' touch but the ratings aren't. As much as people like to hate her, Elizabeth made the program interesting with her personality and when she disagreed, it made the show more interesting. ABC needs to go back to a 5 person panel and they need to choose 2 very good people. That said, the ratings at The View are doing well has always and the show isn't going anywhere.

 

What The View needs is a conservative talking head who is attractive (yes, this is TV after all) like Hasselbeck to help reign in the ratings and make the show interesting. The View now is just awful especially with Jenny McCarthy (and no I don't watch The View by choice).

 

 

The Chew is doing VERY, well and is going up every time the ratings are out. The Chew is going nowhere. Frankly, everything on ABC Daytime is doing well enough that none of the shows will be canceled. ABC will take an hour from local stations before they cancel any of the 3 shows. My guess is a memo will go to the local stations to not extend syndicated shows for the 9am hour after a certain season and they will start a 3rd hour of GMA following that season.

 

If The Chew is so important to ABC's Daytime lineup, then how come ABC can't provide an early feed for the Central time affiliates who want to run noon newscasts? Which forces them to delay it by a day and the viewers having to watch an outdated show. Either The Chew needs to provide two feeds, not be day and date, cancelled and replaced with something scripted, or the time returned to affiliates. I think by not providing an early feed, that's how much value ABC puts into The Chew.

Here's an idea: Either dump "The Chew", or provide another same-day feed of it so KSAT doesn't have to tape delay it by one day (the reccomeneded slot is Noon CT but KSAT airs the high-rated News at Noon at that time; this wasn't a problem when All My Children was still around since ABC provided multiple same day feeds of it).

 

I could see the Chew getting the shaft and 9AM being given to the network. Better idea than dumping "The View" since people (not me) still watch that.

 

And if they add a third hour, here's hoping it won't be anything like "GMA Live". That webcast is a disaster and painful to watch. Fox's "After the Show Show" is much better to sit through because the hosts are laid back and themselves and not running off five or six cups of coffee like the people on GMA Live.