The Channel 6 Action News Thread

[Roadrunner 216]

17 minutes ago, Action Newsroom said:

Wow. She was a really good anchor and reporter where she was, but morning anchor fits her much better. I'll miss her at WPVI, but I wish her a long, happy, successful tenure at WTTG.

This is like a homecoming because she originally left WJLA for WPVI, right? And her husband's also at WJLA right now so they'll be even closer together work-wise, and they'll kind of be like a DC "power couple" (cheesy lol). I'm still side-eyeing WTTG for all of their mess recently but Jeannette is a great hire if this is really happening.

 

Edit: I also recall FTVLive saying earlier they were going to hire someone to replace Angie Goff's temporary shift in the mornings (as she becomes the new main evening anchorwoman), so Jeannette is likely doing the latter half/7-10AM part of Good Day DC.

 

Possible replacements for Jeannette's 4PM shift - Sharrie/Alicia/Sarah?

Edited October 31, 2020 by Roadrunner

[Action Newsroom 1283]

3 hours ago, Roadrunner said:

This is like a homecoming because she originally left WJLA for WPVI, right?

I dunno, is that so? Sounds wonderful.

 

3 hours ago, Roadrunner said:

Possible replacements for Jeannette's 4PM shift - Sharrie/Alicia/Sarah?

Sarah. No contest.

Sharrie has settled in as 5 & 10 at this point, and Alicia is better still as features reporter (although she's great as a fill-in). I could be wrong; don't quote me on this though.

[TVNewsLover 782]

If they don’t give the 4 PM to Sarah at this point I’d be very disappointed. Alicia could add feature reporter responsibilities again at 4 PM in addition to her 5 PM duties. Jaclyn was hired as an anchor/reporter so it’d be natural for her to get Sarah’s Sunday night spot and possibly add Saturday night to her responsibilities. I surely hope if Sarah gets it they don’t continue her Sunday-Thursday schedule.

[CircleSeven 1955]

7 hours ago, Roadrunner said:

This is like a homecoming because she originally left WJLA for WPVI, right? 

 

6 hours ago, Action Newsroom said:

I dunno, is that so? Sounds wonderful.

 

Jeannette was the morning reporter & fill-in anchor for the two years she was there. 

[CircleSeven 1955]

On 10/31/2020 at 6:12 PM, Roadrunner said:

Edit: I also recall FTVLive saying earlier they were going to hire someone to replace Angie Goff's temporary shift in the mornings (as she becomes the new main evening anchorwoman), so Jeannette is likely doing the latter half/7-10AM part of Good Day DC.

 

Follow-up. Fox 5 made their official announcement this AM. It is the latter. 6-11am. 

[TVNewsLover 782]

Looks like her last day at WPVI is Nov. 25 (first link).
 

Looks like her first day at WTTG is Dec. 7 (second/third link).

 

https://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/news/2020/11/02/action-news-anchor-departs-station-for-d-c.amp.html

 

https://tvnewscheck.com/article/more-news/255364/jeannette-reyes-new-wttg-weekday-morning-anchor/

 

https://www.adweek.com/tvspy/fox-5-d-c-taps-philly-anchor-to-join-morning-team/225453/

Edited November 3, 2020 by TVNewsLover

[PhillyWatch 239]

Caught a commercial promoting a new digital-only hour of Action News mornings from 7-8.  The spot was mainly pushing their new smart TV device apps as a means of watching it but I’m guessing it’ll be available through their website as well. 

[Roadrunner 216]

5 hours ago, PhillyWatch said:

Caught a commercial promoting a new digital-only hour of Action News mornings from 7-8.  The spot was mainly pushing their new smart TV device apps as a means of watching it but I’m guessing it’ll be available through their website as well. 

They launched it last month (or at least that's when I started seeing it). Matt & Tam were promoting it during the morning newscasts and emphasized the first half was hard news and the second half was soft/human interest news (IIRC). The changing lifestyle habits/re-ramped up pandemic focus/election likely led to this. I personally think the other ABC O&Os should do this too -- there's definitely a sizable audience who care more for the local stations over the national shows.

[TSSZNews 1051]

15 hours ago, PhillyWatch said:

Caught a commercial promoting a new digital-only hour of Action News mornings from 7-8.  The spot was mainly pushing their new smart TV device apps as a means of watching it but I’m guessing it’ll be available through their website as well. 

 

Wonder if they shopped it to PHL 17 given the 10PM news success and they (unwisely) wanted to do their own thing instead.

[TVNewsLover 782]

I thought today was supposed to be Jeannette’s last day, but I guess it was yesterday. Missed the open, but there was definitely no mention of her in the close. Sarah was anchoring at 4pm with Brian, and Erin was the feature anchor today.

[phillynewslover 134]

15 hours ago, TVNewsLover said:

I thought today was supposed to be Jeannette’s last day, but I guess it was yesterday. Missed the open, but there was definitely no mention of her in the close. Sarah was anchoring at 4pm with Brian, and Erin was the feature anchor today.

The shortened “Action News, Delaware Valley’s leading news program” open was used. I found it odd how they didn’t mention Jeannette leaving (although Sharrie did post about it on Instagram).

[Roadrunner 216]

5 hours ago, chance said:

The shortened “Action News, Delaware Valley’s leading news program” open was used. I found it odd how they didn’t mention Jeannette leaving (although Sharrie did post about it on Instagram).

Someone correct me but I really think they did not make her departure a big "to-do" or provided any substantial lead-up to her departure. If I remember correctly, Sarah had already been anchoring the 4 on...Monday? I just feel like if you were a casual viewer, you probably wouldn't have even known Jeannette was going to be leaving (unless it was openly acknowledged, which it seems we weren't aware of....which we should have if they really made it like a thing). Jeannette also didn't post anything about her final goodbyes and as you mentioned, Sharrie tweeted and IGed her goodbyes but it seems like no one else did (like Brian, Sarah, or Alicia), so maybe the chemistry on set was a little cooler than we were expecting. But ALL OF THIS to say that, regardless of whatever I've said, whatever she and they chose to say or not say about her leaving is ultimately none of my business lol.

[phillynewslover 134]

1 hour ago, Roadrunner said:

Someone correct me but I really think they did not make her departure a big "to-do" or provided any substantial lead-up to her departure. If I remember correctly, Sarah had already been anchoring the 4 on...Monday? I just feel like if you were a casual viewer, you probably wouldn't have even known Jeannette was going to be leaving (unless it was openly acknowledged, which it seems we weren't aware of....which we should have if they really made it like a thing). Jeannette also didn't post anything about her final goodbyes and as you mentioned, Sharrie tweeted and IGed her goodbyes but it seems like no one else did (like Brian, Sarah, or Alicia), so maybe the chemistry on set was a little cooler than we were expecting. But ALL OF THIS to say that, regardless of whatever I've said, whatever she and they chose to say or not say about her leaving is ultimately none of my business lol.

Yeah, I agree. I only knew that she was leaving because she responded to someone on a livestream saying they were excited to see her in DC. I think that Sarah would probably replace her, but everyone thought she would replace Monica, so you never know. 

[SF1964 63]

Jeannette posted a farewell to Philly message on her Instagram.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CIJOTn-HNuN/?igshid=f2fikalsnkq

 

[phillynewslover 134]

Action News was on at 6 this morning (instead of airing some Christmas special) to cover the storm. David was off, so Karen did the weather, which happens often enough. Instead of having Matt Pellman or Gina Gannon do the traffic segments, Jessica Boyington filled in during the newscast and the GMA cut-ins. Of course, it's Christmas, so lots of people will be off, but I haven't seen her do traffic since she left 10.

[CircleSeven 1955]

In the last few Christmases I remember, they wouldn't even do a Christmas morning broadcast. So I'm surprised they did one today.

[phillynewslover 134]

On 12/25/2020 at 11:05 AM, CircleSeven said:

In the last few Christmases I remember, they wouldn't even do a Christmas morning broadcast. So I'm surprised they did one today.

Yeah. They were only on at 6am to cover the severe weather. Matt O'Donnell posted this on Twitter:

Quote

We're going on the air at 6am to bring you details of a nasty weather system that left thousands of people without power on Christmas morning. It's a special edition of Action News, you don't even need to unwrap it!

 

Edited December 21, 2021 by phillynewslover

[TVNewsLover 782]

They had been advertising the day prior that they would be on because of the severe weather. Was Matt solo?

 

Surprised Karen didn’t pull double duty. I wonder if they would consider messing with the morning team and having Jessica do traffic while keeping one of David/Karen for weather and having the other fill the position on weekend evenings vacated by Melissa. 

[phillynewslover 134]

18 hours ago, TVNewsLover said:

They had been advertising the day prior that they would be on because of the severe weather. Was Matt solo?

 

Surprised Karen didn’t pull double duty. I wonder if they would consider messing with the morning team and having Jessica do traffic while keeping one of David/Karen for weather and having the other fill the position on weekend evenings vacated by Melissa. 

Yeah, Matt was solo. 

[TVNewsLover 782]

Oddly enough they brought in Walter last night to co-anchor at 10pm with Sharrie, and Sharrie did the 11pm. Surprised they just didn’t have her fly solo at 10pm.

 

Also surprised that Jim Gardner, being that he’s Jewish, never anchors on Christmas. I know a lot of other stations usually have the Jewish anchors in on Christmas.

Edited December 26, 2020 by TVNewsLover

[Jakob 21]

On 12/25/2020 at 11:05 AM, CircleSeven said:

In the last few Christmases I remember, they wouldn't even do a Christmas morning broadcast. So I'm surprised they did one today.

I am surprised about that too. They usually don't show news on Christmas Morning. For example, in 2017, they aired The Spirit of Christmas at 5AM and Small Town Big Deal Christmas Across America at 6AM. I am not sure what they aired at 4:30 AM and 11:00 PM because I didn't see them on Internet Archive.

[bostonmediaguy 123]

6 minutes ago, Jakob said:

I am surprised about that too. They usually don't show news on Christmas Morning. For example, in 2017, they aired The Spirit of Christmas at 5AM and Small Town Big Deal Christmas Across America at 6AM. I am not sure what they aired at 4:30 AM and 11:00 PM because I didn't see them on Internet Archive.

Where are you able to search for these on Internet Archive? I can't find the collection.

[Jakob 21]

1 hour ago, bostonmediaguy said:

Where are you able to search for these on Internet Archive? I can't find the collection.

https://archive.org/search.php?query=title%3A(WPVI) AND date%3A[2017-12-25 TO 2017-12-25]

 

Here's the link.

 

EDIT: I forgot to mention this but you have to go to the Advance Search, type in WPVI and choose a Month, Date and Year.

Edited December 26, 2020 by Jakob

[dombrown2222 5]

I'm really starting to wonder who will replace Charlie Van Dyke as Voiceover for the Action News intros... 6 is starting to use his voice less and less. 

 

The thing is...there is no way that some of these guys that do ad reads and other not news-related promos for them can be his successor. When Van Dyke replaced Jeff Kaye, he clearly was the right choice, and had already been doing promos for the station for a while. 

 

I know I'm just ranting here, but with the new guys (who's names I don't even know) doing all of these promos for WPVI, the opens are going to lack a little bit. 

 

KABC probably won't have this much of an issue because their opens are pretty short, but WABC right up the turnpike definitely will. 

 

I would hope for a guy like Bill Ratner, but it also seems that the booming voices of yesterday are becoming a thing of the past, and it's sad to see. 

[Roadrunner 216]

16 hours ago, dombrown2222 said:

I would hope for a guy like Bill Ratner, but it also seems that the booming voices of yesterday are becoming a thing of the past, and it's sad to see. 

I don't have much to add other than that I agree with you and Ratner would be great but since he's not getting any younger either, I don't see him as a viable long-term partner if ABC does go ahead with their much-rumored graphics overhaul, which would impact their branding in more ways than one. One of the people I've found that I like has been Jeff Collins (most notably at KTTV so wouldn't work for KABC). As for going a different direction, after CBS employed a woman for its new "Weekend News" opens, could we finally see more female VOs gain prominence in local broadcasting? (e.g. high-profile artists as Randy Thomas and Cedering Fox)

 

Also slightly unrelated, so do excuse this if it's not allowed, but I'm definitely speculating ABC will redesign the station websites (and possibly the apps as well) once they do rollout whatever changes they're rumored to make. Regardless of what happens, ABC has had the current web design since 2015 and tech has changed a lot since then. Hopefully they can continue to embrace consumer-focused innovation (even having off-hour looping newscasts akin to Fox would help).