memnews

Both Jarvis Greer and Cassie Carlson are leaving WMC in Memphis. Cassie's last day will be this weekend; Jarvis will retire after 43 years on New Year's Eve. I wonder what will become of the sports department after this.

https://www.actionnews5.com/2022/03/28/sports-director-jarvis-greer-retiring-action-news-5-after-43-years/

Kontji Anthony will be leaving WMC in April. 

https://www.actionnews5.com/2022/03/09/kontji-anthony-leaving-action-news-5-after-nearly-17-years/

Jeni DiPrizio has left WATN after working for 21 of its news operation's 26 years.

Janice Broach retired last night after 30+ years with WMC in Memphis. Given how sudden the announcement was and the fact that she wasn't at all involved in the story (they kept saying she had already "signed off for the final time"), I do hope this was her decision. Either way, the station put together a nice retrospective: https://www.actionnews5.com/2021/09/02/janice-broach-signs-off-action-news-5-after-more-than-3-decades-telling-your-stories/

I feel like the name would be a lot better if they actually did it for every day of the week. You have CBS Sunday Morning and CBS Saturday Morning... have a daily CBS Monday Morning, Tuesday, etc. Something that the other networks don't do, and ties in much better to the existing brand than just CBS Mornings.

On 1/31/2021 at 6:38 PM, tyrannical bastard said:

That would wipe out the entire market in Greenville/Greenwood, MS since Cox legally owns all 3 stations (WABG with ABC and FOX, WXVT-LD with CBS and WNBD-LD with NBC)

This was already the case with Suddenlink cable for the past three weeks. The stations were pulled January 8 and only returned four days ago.

Reporter Kendall Downing has left WMC after four years. He is staying in Memphis but, from the sound of it, exiting TV news.

Amy Speropoulos has left WATN/WLMT and is now working as an investigative reporter at WHBQ. This means she has now worked at every station in the Memphis market.

Some more Memphis news. Meteorologist Nick Gunter left WMC at the end of last month, while Meteorologist Wendy Nations' temporary weekend role has become permanent at WREG.

Mike Matthews will be retiring from WATN at the end of the year: https://twitter.com/local24mike/status/1313138420982702080

As an update to my above post, I think I may have finally identified the voiceover artist WMC replaced John Young with in 2018. Sounds like Dan Nachtrab to me, but compare for yourselves:

https://www.dannachtrab.com/

http://www.southernmedia-nmsa.com/#1,1,WMC

I created a separate thread for this back then, but didn't know if bumping it was a good idea.

WMC replaced John Young a few years ago, if I remember correctly. I think the new announcer still has yet to be identified.

1 hour ago, T.L. Hughes said:

It’s interesting that the school district approached WMC to do this

I thought the same thing... my opinion is that SCS's deputy chief of communications, former WMC reporter Jerica Phillips, may have played a role. Just a thought.

Camille Connor has joined WMC as a reporter.

Over at WREG, longtime weekend meteorologist Austen Onek departed the station earlier this year. 

WMC is losing some talent. Erin Morgan, who was only briefly at the station as weekend morning anchor, returned to WMBB (her immediately prior station) as weekday morning anchor. Jessica Holley has left to be a full-time mom to her newborn. And Allie Herrera is leaving to be a fitness instructor. (It's possible I'm leaving people out too, but I think that's everyone)

Meanwhile, Cassie Carlson has joined the station as weekend sports anchor, replacing Sudu Upadhyay, who left at the end of the year. He'll reappear soon in Atlanta as a producer/MMJ covering the Falcons on Fox 5, the official station of the team.

12 minutes ago, TheRob said:

Just for fun, here's a bagful of mic flags from Nexstar at the Super Bowl. They will have done more than 1,600 live shots by the end of Sunday. 

 

Interesting how both WATN and WREG are in there.

A few days ago WMC weekend sports anchor Sudu Upadhyay announced on social media he'll be leaving the station after year's end. He'll be headed to Atlanta.

Not sure if this deserves its own thread, but this graphics package has (for better or for worse) been immortalized on network TV thanks to NBC's Bluff City Law, which has so far used WMC's set, live van, mic flags, and, of course, graphics as part of the show. The only thing not included... actual station talent.

To echo one of the tweets below, it's impressive how much effort was put in to make the scenes feel like they really came from WMC. Although I can't say I care at all for the show's use of Calibri over the supplied blank lower third. (Can't believe I'd ever think the Helvetica looks better!)

I'm sure better screengrabs can be taken from the show if streamed live on nbc.com, I just haven't had the time to watch it. (Frankly, this interests me more than the show itself, haha)

https://twitter.com/JaredJayBBoyd/status/1179027816043692033

https://twitter.com/kendall_downing/status/1178859750307565570

https://twitter.com/MemphoNewsLady/status/1184973449904754689

It's been a while since Andy Wise left, but WMC is now relaunching its investigative unit with Jessica Jaglois. 

Facebook post

This was a new one for me. Right after introducing the headlines for tonight's show, WMC went to a 30-second ad running on a split screen with views of the anchors taking their seats. Reminds me of something you'd see on a network morning show more than a late local newscast. Are there any other stations out there that do this? Perhaps this is a new thing for Gray? Or just WMC specifically?

If you'll pardon the poor quality, here are some pictures and video from the 10PM. In addition to Helvetica on the regular graphics, I think that's Arial on the weather graphics. Also not a fan of how unnecessarily blocky and screen-clogging the weather scroll is. As you can see though, the rest of the weather graphics rely heavily on the old Raycom look.

I'm afraid I won't be of any help with recording an open. But some videos from the 5PM have been uploaded to the app/website.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the font is Helvetica. And the lower thirds really need some help differentiating between the headline and the secondary text.

(Accidentally posted this before with "hide post" selected and for the life of me can't seem to undo it. My bad.)

Just caught the final seconds of WMC's 5PM and saw the same thing. Here are a couple photos.

I hope the custom backgrounds on the weather graphics aren't done with (even though they appear to be, if the 7-day is any indication). I always thought using local photos was a neat idea.

WATN weekend meteorologist Brandon "Chase" Arnold has left the station to move to Milwaukee with his fiancée, Mary Jo Ola, also from WATN weekends. It appears his replacement is Ed Echols, formerly of WHBQ. I'm not 100% familiar with the situation here, so maybe someone else can fill me in... when/why exactly did Ed leave Fox 13?

WMC weekend morning anchor Jerica Phillips has announced she's leaving the station to become Deputy Chief of Communications with Shelby County Schools. Her last day on-air will be March 7th.

Jerica has been with WMC since 2008, except for a two-year break somewhere in there where she went to work as a Social Marketing Coordinator for Shelby County government. According to her bio, though, she still freelanced for WMC during that time, before returning full time. Former weekday evening anchor Ursula Madden is also a communications officer these days, working with the current Memphis mayoral administration.