Monthly Archive for June, 2007

NBC6′ Joel Connable On Early Today

WTVJ’s Joel Connable will be anchoring Early Today on NBC for most or all of this week. The program airs in the wee hours of the morning, 4am I think.

Who knows maybe the NBC suits are checking his skills out and we’ll have another steal for the networks

Update 7/1: Rumor has it Joel Connable may be back in NY again sometime in early July to anchor some more Early Today.

Shannon Hori on WFOR

Today is Shannon Hori’s first day at WFOR, taking over Maggie Rodriguez co-anchoring position on the 5p to 6p and 11pm weekday newscasts.

Shannon Hori WFOR First Day

WPEC with new ND

wpec.jpg WPEC has a new news director. Coming from ABC/FOX in Springfield, Illinois David Christopher replaces Steve Hunsicker who left WPEC to join the Peace Corps. Christopher will assume bossing duties in July

TCPalm - WPEC names news chief

Vintage WTVJ

Vintage WTVJ from New Years eve 1988 when they still were Channel 4. And Gerri Helfman … w-o-w … ‘dancing queen’ and Ru Paul just shot through my mind when I saw that hairdo!

6 Years Together For Pam Giganti and Bob Mayer

Today Pam Giganti and Bob Mayer celebrated 6 years together on Today In South Florida. Dj Irie stopped by and let Pam and Bob spin on the turn table and the two anchors even danced a couple seconds to 50 Cent’s It’s Your Birthday :)
Follow this link for the video

Thanks Brandon

It’s Official: Shannon Hori Coming WFOR

Shannon Hori of KTVT the CBS affiliate in Dallas, TX is coming to WFOR, presumably assuming the role of main co-anchor. Before joining CBS11 in 2004 Hori worked at WESH Orlando for a number of years as the 5:30pm anchor.

Hori’s colleagues gave her a nice send off on Friday with colleague Doug Dunbar, formerly of WPLG, making a surprise showing on set with a big cake.

CBS11tv.com - Shannon Hori Bids Farewell To Dallas-Fort Worth

Vintage 7News from 1994

6:30pm open from 1994. Probably a little bit before the newsplex/globe open make over
Rob Hanrahan is now at WFOR, Jessica Aguirre just joined NBC11 in San Francisco from KGO, and Robin Meade is at CNN Headline News hosting Robin & Co

Journalist Org Wants Mike Kirsch Arrest Investigated

The South Florida Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists has asked the Miami-Dade Police Department to open an inquiry into the February arrest of television journalist Michael Kirsch who had been investigating allegations against the department and its director, said Chapter President Darcie Lunsford.

A chapter committee was established to investigate the arrest and according to them there “are sufficient questions meriting an official inquiry”

South Florida arrest inquiry

Vintage 7News

Lynn Martinez and Craig Stevens anchoring 7News weekends on October 15th 1994.

WFOR’s Joy Purdy Leaving


Joy Purdy is going back to Jacksonville. Before coming to WFOR in 2000 Purdy worked at WJXT as weekend anchor and reporter.

New Anchor and Reporter Head Shots on WSVN.com

Finally after all this time there are new and much better head shots for most of WSVN’s news team, the on-air one anyway. A lot of the previous shots were so bad but now everyone looks their best :)

wsvn.com - News team

The New Sky 10 Debuts

13482687_240×180.jpg

10’s new bird is finally flying the South Florida skies. The new copter is faster than the older one, has better crash rating, and hovers for longer period of time. Lots of pics on WPLG’s site but no video unfortunately.

Local10.com - I-NEWS ONLY: New Sky 10 Debuts

Boo Hoo: WSVN Doesn’t Air Nextel Race; Forgets to tell FOX

Apparently there was a Nextel NASCAR race that was supposed to air in the middle of the week last week, I think. At noon, on FOX! Not hard to guess what happened with that idea if Channel 7 is involved.

7 refused to air the race but they kind of forgot to tell FOX. Well they did tell them but after the race was over. They were the only station in the country to make the skip!

The FOX people are miffed and pouting because, according to FOX spokesman Lou D’Ermilio, WSVN was contractually obligated to carry FOX programming and if they had told them FOX would have moved the race to another outlet.

This isn’t the first time WSVN kiboshed FOX’s programming. I think it was in 2003 when 7 booted baseball in favor of 7News. Later it turned out the baseball games were getting a 1-2 ratings points.

Miami Herald - South Florida misses Nextel race

WFOR News Director is out?

According to two tipsters WFOR’s news director has left the station, no word whether it was voluntary or not.

Coming to 7

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Reed Cowan currently a reporter at KTVX ABC4 in Salt Lake City is coming to WSVN and assuming anchor duties. I guess he’ll be anchoring Saturday Edition of Today in Florida? Adam Williams anchored that newscast until he moved to WHDH in Boston.

7News Desktop Delivery

7desktop_delivery.jpgJust saw this a while ago on WSVN.com. It’s a very small desktop app that looks to be an RSS reader pulling RSS feeds off the main site along with weather screenshots. It also integrates a larger-sized ‘7 News On the Net’ player though not neccessarily with a clearer stream quality. The app also has breaking news and weather alerts from 7News

Unfortunately, if you want animated forecast (weather maps with loops?) you’ll have to get ‘premium’ weather - $5.95 a month or $37.95/yr. Ouch! Or you can just visit weatherunderground.com and get animated maps for free.

WHDH has had a similar but not so sleek program for a while now, very ugly actually, that’s essentially a glorified RSS reader with community twist allowing users to create a profile and post messages.

Update: I played with the program some and I guess it’s alright. Maybe it’s just me expecting too much :) but it’s not something I haven’t seen before. A huge plus is that it takes very little RAM, about 1.5MB when minimized to show only the small temperature and logo and 10-12MB opened full size. The software itself comes from a 3rd party company called MyWeather LLC which is also the provider of the premium weather add-on. Many other stations use it as well, WPLG and WTVJ in this market.

WPLG’s version of the software didn’t load any of the data on my computer and put this huge ugly temp thing in my task bar!!!

wplgweatherapp.jpg

And that’s on a 1600×1200 screen size! Ugly!

Screen shots of WSVN’s desktop app after the jump Continue reading ‘7News Desktop Delivery’