If you’ve ever wanted to be on Deco Drive this is your chance.
They are running a contest for a new reporter and anyone can apply. Just send them a video tape of your make-believe entertainment reporting.
Great opportunity to see your mug on Deco Drive and all the (local) prestige that comes with it.
Shaun McDonald is the new Vice President and General Manager for WFOR, WBFS, WTVX, WWHB and WTCN
Miami Herald
WFOR-CBS4 hires new general manager
Sad but true - 7’s Natalie Solis is leaving WSVN. I have no other details at this time as to which station she’s moving to.
Update: a tipster says Vanessa Medina from WKMG in Orlando is one of two new reporters that will be joining WSVN soon, possibly as a replacement of Natalie.
As for Natalie’s move, word is she’s going back to her hometown of Dallas, TX to be closer to her family.
With the redesign of WSVN.com the station also moved it’s video streaming to content delivery powerhouse Mirror-Image, the same guys who have been handling WHDH.com’s video delivery for several years now.
Some interesting bits from the article - 7’s online audience is “two million viewers” (doesn’t specify if this is yearly or monthly, uniques or not. Huge if it’s monthly!)
The article hints at a possible American Idol promotion with supplemental video content.
The Whir
Miami TV Station Expands Online
For those that follow - TV couple Phil Lipof and Juli Auclair who left WFOR-CBS4 in 2001 for WSVN sister station in Boston, WHDH, are moving to New York.
WHDH did not renew Juli’s contract and Phil was offered an anchoring position at WABC who’s morning anchor was moved to weekends to replace Charles Perez who came back to South Florida at WPLG.
They’ve started having reporters there but it looks very unfinished, at least to me.
It has very little to do with the concepts that I saw which in my opinion were many times better. The only original ideas they kept is the small monitors and large screen the red stripe and blue/red columns are obviously taken from the Weather stand up area, minus the blue walls, instead they have grey brushed metal with the monitors hanging on what looks like pipes coming from the wall.
If it’s finished, I hope not, it’s just so ugly. It looks like the doors of those big freezers stores have to store meat in but with flat-panel monitors hanging on them.
//Update 10.27 - added screencaps with a couple different angles
Screenshots after the jump
Newsblues says Doug Dunbar may be returning to WPLG , WFOR soon. He left in 2004 for a morning anchor position at CBS11 in Dallas.
// Update: My bad, Dunbar may be coming with Tom Doerr to WFOR, not WPLG
According to one insider, the Newsdesk is finally getting some love. It’s new look is debuting probably Monday or sometime next week.
If they keep to the original plan it should be very blue , with the dotted mesh background, some red vertical stripes, a big flat panel on the wall surrounded by smaller LCD tvs, reflective top, and 3 rows of blue neon lights on the side like they have behind the anchor desk.
The Miami Herald reports Nielsen plans to unroll their electronic ratings measurement system called Local People Meters (LPM) next year in October just in time for the 2007 November sweeps.
Actually having LPMs would probably mean no sweeps for Miami/Ft. Lauderdale at least not as much hype as there currently is during that month
From the article though it’s apparent that WPLG’s GM Dave Boylan isn’t so happy about the Nielsen plan even though LPMs track viewer’s watching habits much better than the current, and very flawed in my opinion, diary system.
Miami Herald
Nielsen to track local TV ratings electronically
Posted on Thu, Oct. 19, 2006
South Florida’s TV viewership will be measured electronically starting next October, in a move that should give local broadcasters a more accurate picture of who’s watching what.
Nielsen Media Research said Wednesday that Miami-Fort Lauderdale, the sixteenth-largest TV market in the nation, is among four metropolitan areas that will receive the Local People Meters in 2007.
The TV ratings agency has been rolling out the meters, which are devices attached to the TV set, in markets from biggest to smallest for the last several years. The meters will replace the paper diary method, whereby viewers write down the programs they watch during four periods known as sweeps months during the year.
Ratings are crucial in the TV industry, which depends on them to sell advertising and to make programming decisions.
The diaries have come under increasing fire as the TV industry charges that viewers are too overwhelmed to accurately record who’s watching what in an age of 100-plus channel-surfing, digital video recorders and Internet TV.
Still, local broadcasters said the people meters are far from ideal, either.
”Our biggest concern is the sample size,” said Dave Boylan, general manager of WPLG-TV ABC 10.
Although the LPMs will measure a larger sample — 600 to 700 homes, up from the 540 in the paper diary system — it’s still an infinitesimal number when compared to the 1.5 million TV homes in the market, he said.
”Those who accept a people meter in their home may not be your average viewer, and it still doesn’t account for out-of-home viewing,” such as sports bars, Boylan said. “It’s ludicrous.”
According to the Miami Herald the chiefs at 7 have found a replacement for Shireen Sandoval. Ellie Rodriguez a local girl who is now hosting some show called ‘18 and Over’ is taking the reigns from Shireen
Someome emailed me Monday I think and said she was on Deco so some of you have probably already seen her
// Update: Here’s a clip from ‘18 and Over’ from reader Matt. The new gal is hot. As expected.
Miami Herald
‘Deco Drive’ change
Just when you thought you would never get over Shireen Sandoval marrying and leaving town for New York to do who knows what boring thing, along comes a nice new entertainment reporter to replace her on WSVN-Fox 7’s Deco Drive and pretty soon we’ll be like “Shireen who?”
Plus, unlike Shireen, who came from the wild and somewhat unsavory plains of western New Mexico, the new girl — or, as they call her around the studio, Ellie Rodriguez – comes from right here in Miami. She even graduated from the University of Miami with a double major in broadcast journalism and theater, and there is no record of her ever hitting somebody with a helmet during a football game.
Lately you may have seen her hosting 18 and Over, a news and entertainment show on the bilingual cable channel mun2. Deco Drive, where Rodriguez will report and be the relief anchor, airs Monday through Saturday at 7:30 p.m.
FTVLive (and NY Daily News) says WTVJ’s hunky morning weather man Lonnie Quinn is headed for the Big Apple and CBS flagship affiliate WCBS.
NY Daily News
Wonder weather he’s coming
WFOR’s GM Brian Kennedy is out at WFOR following the fiasco of that station’s wrong report that Miami police director’s son is arrested on weapons charges.
And insiders say he may not be the only person to go
An email from a reader yesterday says that Tom Doerr, currently news director at KTVT in Dallas, TX will be the new GM at WFOR
Today NBC announced they are firing 700 people and according to TVNewser and RadarOnline 220 will be from 11 local NBC owned and operated stations, of which WTVJ-NBC6 is part
RadarOnline’s John Cook says it’s unclear how NBC will distribute the cuts in staff, but even if they split it evenly across all 11 stations that’s 20 people per station.
Cook says the cuts will be made to news staff, no specifics if it includes behind the scenes people or also on-air. Not something NBC6 needs to hear right now when they’re hurting in the news department
NBC says the layoffs are part of “TV 2.0″ and the freed resources will be moving to their digital (read internet) ventures!
Tipster Derek wrote in to say CBS4 has “HOTTT” new bio photos for their talent bios.
Check them out - so much better over the previous headshots that were showing their age!
AJ from BTVN alerted me to this - John Molori from PatsFans.com says WSVN’s Larry Ridley will be moved to WHDH to replace Wendy Nix who left for ESPN.
He has already been offered the position and will start as soon as contract details are finalized
Ridley joined WSVN in October 2005 from WAPT Jackson, Mississippi
PatsFans.com Media Blitz
John Molori’s Media Blitz - Ridley To Replace Nix At 7NBC
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Stretchovision on 7 off
In the middle of Rosh Low reporting on the NY building crash, 7 suddenly stopped what some like to call “stretchovision”, stretching the image to fit 16:9 format.
The HDTV purists either won the battle or we’ll get a nice surprise soon with the special “stretchovision” that WPLG uses only for the corners of the pictures, which went haywire not long ago during a Deco Drive broadcast.
But then the could be getting ready to unleash true 16:9 format to go with the new eyecandy graphics!