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Jim Gardner Reducing Schedule, to Retire at End of 2022


Morphtato

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Charlie Van Dyke's new billing on Action News, like I said, will be something we'll have to get used to from here forward:

 

"Action News...Delaware Valley's leading news program...with Ducis Rodgers, meteorologist Cecily Tynan, and Brian Taff."

 

Also, this retirement of Jim Gardner will mean that all omnibus collections of WPVI opens on YouTube will have to be updated to reflect this new reality (as I understand it).

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And that’s a wrap!

The montage was wonderful. 

Jim was remarkably somber in his final newscast but gave a pretty robust and powerful farewell speech.
 
 

I almost chocked up when Jim and Cecily made their final exchange after Cecily gave the forecast right before the last commercial break.

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And one other thing-- not once in all of Jim Gardner's time there (or Rob Jennings, or any other anchor [morning, noon, night or weekend]) did we ever hear Jefferson Kaye or Charlie Van Dyke bill the newscast as anything but Action News (no time of day qualifiers or anything else); it may have been visually billed on a title slide as Action News at 4 pm at one time, but other than that, the auditory billing was unchanged for the longest time (outside of billing the anchors at any one particular time per the time of day).

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5 hours ago, bmasters1 said:

And one other thing-- not once in all of Jim Gardner's time there (or Rob Jennings, or any other anchor [morning, noon, night or weekend]) did we ever hear Jefferson Kaye or Charlie Van Dyke bill the newscast as anything but Action News (no time of day qualifiers or anything else); it may have been visually billed on a title slide as Action News at 4 pm at one time, but other than that, the auditory billing was unchanged for the longest time (outside of billing the anchors at any one particular time per the time of day).

 

Not to my knowledge. WABC was the same way for a long time.

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12 hours ago, bmasters1 said:

And one other thing-- not once in all of Jim Gardner's time there (or Rob Jennings, or any other anchor [morning, noon, night or weekend]) did we ever hear Jefferson Kaye or Charlie Van Dyke bill the newscast as anything but Action News (no time of day qualifiers or anything else); it may have been visually billed on a title slide as Action News at 4 pm at one time, but other than that, the auditory billing was unchanged for the longest time (outside of billing the anchors at any one particular time per the time of day).

 

Not true! When the 4p and 10p launched they announced the times in that show only.

 

Anyway, according to the Philadelphia Business Journal, Jim's last show got a 79 share in Philly and 540,000 OTA viewers.   The Eagles Super Bowl when they won got an 81.

 

https://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/news/2022/12/22/jim-gardners-historic-action-news-swan-song.html

 

 

Edited by TSSZNews
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1 hour ago, WCAUTVNBC10 said:

They had the opens already to go for tonight: 

 

I have to say Charlie is sounding rough these days. I wonder if they have plans to move on from him in the future. Maybe to someone like Paul Turner.

 

Apparently, I got the billing right (albeit, like you said, Van Dyke sounds a bit out of it [as I recall, he is in his 70s; a younger man might do better here]).

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49 minutes ago, bmasters1 said:

 

Apparently, I got the billing right (albeit, like you said, Van Dyke sounds a bit out of it [as I recall, he is in his 70s; a younger man might do better here]).

Adding my congratulations to Jim Gardner on his retirement (and was floored to see the post on that last newscast having a rating share almost as big as the Eagles' Super Bowl win almost 5 years ago)

 

I will agree that WPVI might need to look for someone younger for the intros (the intro reminded me a bit of how Van Dyke sounded on the last couple of intros he did for WAVY-TV 10 before they dropped him in early 2017); though at least his voice hasn't declined to the extent Jeff Kaye's did about 12 years or so ago.

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I don’t know if any other market has someone like a Jim Gardner. I know other cities have people who’ve anchored for a long time, but I’m not sure they’ve had the same cultural impact/relevance that Jim has in Philly. I mean, the dude had people tailgating in the parking lot for this.😂 Nobody deserves it more, though. Happy retirement, Jim.

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On 12/22/2022 at 6:30 PM, WCAUTVNBC10 said:

They had the opens already to go for tonight: 

 

I have to say Charlie is sounding rough these days. I wonder if they have plans to move on from him in the future. Maybe to someone like Paul Turner.

I mean, WPVI kept Jefferson Kaye for far longer than necessary out of traditional alone. The last VOs he recorded for them were borderline tragic to hear.

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19 hours ago, Myron Falwell said:

I mean, WPVI kept Jefferson Kaye for far longer than necessary out of traditional alone. The last VOs he recorded for them were borderline tragic to hear.

Didn’t they run them and then a week or two later ditch them (because they sounded so rough) for generic nameless opens until they went with Charlie Van Dyke?

Edited by jerseyfla
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21 minutes ago, jerseyfla said:

Didn’t they run them and then a week or two later ditch them (because they sounded so rough) for generic nameless opens until they went with Charlie Van Dyke?


They sure did. People had complained about them similar to the infamous 1996 updated opening, so the WPVI quickly dropped them. 

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