Monthly Archive for June, 2005

New face on NBC6, soon


He goes by the name of Joel Connable and currently works as a general assignment reporter at KCAL 9. The same station where Jackie Johnson went to work at.

He will be WTVJ’s investigative reporter and an anchor and begins August 1st.

Link to his Bio at kcal.com

Who’s hungry for some rumor?

Anyone?

Anyone?

Yes?

Okay, here it is. The rumor is …. Don Noe will be retiring from WPLG at the end of his contract. Remember, it’s a rumor so don’t run too wild with it you might hurt something.

Making fun of shark coverage

The Miami Herald’s Jim Defed didn’t wait long to make fun of yet another media frenzy over shark attacks.

I glance over to my television where the local news is on. All four Miami stations lead with the shark attacks. WPLG-ABC 10’s Dwight Lauderdale wraps up his report by inviting viewers to go to the station’s website if they want to learn how to avoid being bitten by a shark.

What was that again someone saying something about this or that station local station having dopey news coverage and (insert station name here) is great because they have the bestest news?

Miami Herald
Shark attacks attract usual media circus

Viacom announces station sites redesign

As previously mendtioned Viacom are relaunching the websites of their CBS affiliates around the country. Today a press release officially announced the re-launch of CBS5 San Francisco, CBS2 Chicago, WJZ in Baltimore and WCBS in New York City followed by the rest of the affiliated stations for a tottal of 17 CBS stations by the end of 2005. UPN stations will see new web sites in 2006.

All sites will have live and taped video streaming (CBS4 news live on line? About time I say), wireless alerts and breaking news.

They also say that the launches of WCCO and KUTV and CBS4 in Denver saw significant increases in traffic after the relaunch.

PR via LostRemote

Palm Beaches with full-time WB affiliate soon

Tom Jicha of the Sun Sentinel is reporting that recently purchased by Viacom/WFOR WTCN-15 is slated to become a full-time WB affiliate station beginning with the TV season in September. Currently WTVX a.k.a. TVX-34 is the UPN/WB affiliate.

WTCN will be switched from the WFOR facilites which currently also control WFOR, WBFS-UPN33 and WTVX-TVX34. That’s 4 channels from one control room. I hope their people are getting enough sleep.

Something that cought my eye though is WB’s chariman Garth Ancier who’s quoted as saying “…our loyal viewers will now be able to watch our programs in the time slots they are intended to be in, which should make it much more convenient for them. This is truly a win-win for everyone.” Well yes, for those who do not have a TiVO or some other Digital video recorder :)

TCN won’t have local newscast, but TVX34 has short weather segments from WFOR.

Sun Sentinel
WTCN-TV closer to full-time WB affiliation in September

WTCN Online
WTVX online

CNN’s On the Story goes Talk Back Live

At least by having a live audience in the studio. On The Story will take the slot of the canceled Capital Gang which aired 7pm on Saturdays. It currently airs Saturday mornings and features an all female panel. Senior International Correspondent Christiane Amanpour will be hosting the revamped show with studio audience, more male correspondents and more international reporters

Broadcasting and Cable
CNN’s Story gets Retold

USA Network to rebrand

Come July 8th the USA Network will rebrand for the first time in it’s 27 years existence. The network will drop it’s flag logo and adopt a more character-driven brand identidy. The new tagline will be “Characters Welcome” and the branding will be “clean, styled look” with an “iconic logo”

Yaho PRNewswire
Characters Welcome At USA!
USA Network Launches First Comprehensive Cross-Platform Branding Initiative

C21 Media
New logo for USA Network

John Guaraldi leaves the WTVJ ship

Word on the street has it that John Guaraldi is making a jump from WTVJ to …. WPLG. That leaves NBC6 with 3 meteorologists, and leaves the door open for John Gerrard to take the chief meteorologist position. He in fact can be seen in all Weather Plus promos.

With Guaraldi going to Local10 now they have Don Noe, Trent Aric, Megan Glaros, Jacey Birsch and John Guaraldi.

Michelle Kosinski

An insider tells me WTVJ’s reporter Michelle Kosinski has been reporting a lot for the Today Show mostly out of Chicago while NBC is looking to replace several correspondents. She’s also being considered for a permanent hire once she gains some experience reporting

Interesting observation by a visitor

Someone just emailed me to say he hasn’t seen 7News use their weather set in a while and now that I think of it. It’s true. Phile Ferro, Jonathan Novak and Tom Johnston have all appeared at the chroma wall every time they tease the weather forecast as opposed to be at the weather set. This means that either they have tech difficulties, or the set is being rebuilt right now. I’ll see if I can find something out

Thanks to David for the email

Update: Think construction. The whole redo of the plex has finally begun so soon hopefully there will be a new weather set among other things

WB39 in HD

Comcast have finally plugged the HD feed of WBZL-WB39. It’s on channel 214 in most of South Florida I believe so anyone local can tune it in if you want to. I’ll have some big screen caps later on tonight

Texas Governor wishes KVUE reporter “adios mo-fo”

What a gentle way to tell someone Adios mo(ther)-fo(cker). What a priceless moment, some politicians still think that just because the camera is off nobody would hear what he says.

KVUE.com - Watch video

Off-color quip leaves Perry with red face

Local10 Promos

Loca10 Promo for Kristy Crueger and Matt Lorch

Format: WMV (Windows Media Player)
Size: 7.6MB
Resolution: 640×480

Click image to download the video


 
 
 
 

Local 10 Promo for Matt Lorch

Format: WMV (Windows Media PLayer)
Size: 11MB
Resolution: 640×480

Click image to download the video

CNN.com, now FREE!

And then there was free video. Finally CNN.com set their video to roam the net for free, as opposed to the paid version previously that was part of RealOne Superpass. Videos now use Windows Media Player and are preceded by a 30 second ad.

(via LostRemote)
CNN.com Video

Confirmed: Nichelle King moves

An insider emailed me on June 8th with news that 7News anchor and reporter Nichelle King was spotted at WHDH. Now the guys over at btvn.net have confirmed that she is indeed moving to WSVN sister station WHDH, NBC affiliate in Boston also owned by SunbeamTV, to replace recently departed weekend anchorAmy Johnson.

Another CBS station gets new website

WCCO the CBS affiliate in St. Paul MInnesota also had their website re-designed much like KUTV.
Apparently this will be the new look for most all CBS station websites, which of course means WFOR’s .com will get remade in the near future. And hopefully that stupid promo video they have in the middle of the page that plays automatically, whoever thought of that needs to take Web Design 101 or something.

Lost Remote has interview with Andrew Lindenauer, executive director of Viacom Television Stations Digital Media Group (phew talk about long name) about the new website look, check it out at the link below.

Local stations better take notice very fast, the new CBS site is not only great it will have lots of video which according to Lindenauer IS made a priority by all of CBS’s sites. Soon just copy/pasting the transcript of your story without video won’t do. Unless of course you don’t want any visitors to your site.

Lost Remote
WCCO-TV launches redesigned site

(via Lost Remote)
The new WCCO.com (KUTV.com)