Emily Barr Photo: Timeoutchicago.com
WPLG general manager Dave Boylan sent out a message to all staffers last evening announcing a visit to the station by new Post-Newsweek Stations president and CEO Emily Barr. She will stop by on March 18th to hold two 45 minute meetings so that every employee would be able to attend it. Some station staffers are finding the announcement to be a bit ominous, but it probably isn’t.
Barr just took over as Post-Newsweek Stations Inc CEO and president so this is most likely one of those “Hey I’m the new boss” meetings, it makes sense the new CEO would stop by to meet as many staffers as possible and introduce herself. And while it is true that WPLG isn’t exactly setting ratings on fire now, revenue-wise the station remains in second place behind market-leader WSVN with revenues of about $70 million a year, and about $10 million ahead of WTVJ according to BIA/Kelsey.
Emily Barr became CEO and president of Post-Newsweek Stations last year, taking over for Alan Frank who retired after leading the company for 12 years. Before that she was the president and general manager at number one-rated WLS in Chicago since 1997.
Got tips?
Contact SFLTV:
email: tips@sfltv.com
text: 954-667-3588
Kik messenger: SFLTV
Twitter: @SFLTV
Facebook.com/SFLTV
Subject: Station Meetings on March 18th
We are going to have two Station Meetings on Monday, March 18th. The first one will be at 945am and the second will be at 3pm. Both are expected to last about 45 minutes and will be in the large conference room on the second floor. The focus of the meeting will be to hear from Emily Barr, our new President & CEO.
Your supervisor will work with you on a plan so you can attend one of the meetings.
Dave
David Boylan
VP and General Manager
WPLG and MeTV Miami
between 1030 and 3, Dave Boylan will be on the hotseat
The all girl format in the mornings is a terrible idea. They talk over each other, giggle, chat
and laugh as if it is a girls club istead of doing news worthy information. They are trying to be more entertaining than informative. Sorry, but I have switched over to channel 4 after watching you for the past 20 years. Now I know why your ratings have dropped so much.
It’s just President’s Day weekend and she wanted to get out of the cold in Chicago and come to Florida for a few days.
Emily Barr, you need to be fired!! Bring back Trent or lose viewers. I have watched Channel 10 since I was a child. I am now in my late 40′s and am watching anyone but WPLG. It has gone from pure class and reliablilty to pure sex, aweful weather!! It is probably the time of 10:00pm that supports WSVN’s ratings, it is not their news, that is for sure!! The only people that watch them, are those that have to get up early, or those who were waiting for the real news to come on at 11:00pm, when nothing good was on TV that night! If you lived here, you would know that! Even my husband has commented on the new green screen you put in to “show off” the female weather girls legs. He has stated many times that he wouldn’t let his daughters wear what Julie Durda wore on Channel 7, and now you put her on Channel 10? We call them weather girls, because they have not proven themselves to be meteorologists, or certainly not chief meteorologist! By the way, we can tell that one of the nameless new hires cannot do the weather without reading a prompter. Do you consider an online degree to be as good as a degree in which the person actually attended the school?, we don’t! The other new hire is awkward and a pain to watch! She actually accused a ghost of causing her screen problems the other night!! Don Noe was wonderful and trained Trent to replace him. Trent is a fantastic meteorologist and a pure class professional. I guess you are not in your right mind, because only someone that was out of their mind could possibly think moving him to weekends was a good idea. Betty was fine for daytime, and at least she dresses classy. At night, your viewers want reliable weather forecasts from a properly educated and trained meteorologist, in other words we want Trent Aric! We have heard that Betty has experience at The Weather Channel, and that is fine, but she is not in the same league as Trent Aric. Hurricane season is coming up, so we are switching stations, as we can no longer trust your weather, and obviously your news if you are willing to make decisions like you just made. We will miss Laurie Jennings, Calvin Hughes, Kristi Krueger, Jacey Birch, Jen Herrera, Todd Tongen, Will Manso, Victor Oquendo, Ross Palombo, Max Mayfield and of course Trent (not that we can ever watch Trent anymore.) We feel, and I am not only speaking of my husband and myself, but also a lot of our friends, that Channel 10 WPLG, is just not the same since you took over and made changes that were not needed, We will be seeking our news elsewhere, unless things go back to the way they were. Channel 10 was a class act, with reliable news and weather, but you have ruined our favorite station. We know that Trent Aric will be snatched up by another smart station really soon, and the possibility of him going back on weeknights will be lost. We also know you will probably ignore this comment and do nothing, but at least we can say we tried, and we tried to warn you.
First off, WSVN has a team that work very well together. They are professional when warranted and know how to interact with their audience. WPLG had it and has lost it.
The truth behind the changes? Seems the powers that be did a demographics study. After ONE study, it was supposedly found their audience was Jamaican and Hatian – which explains the some of the changes – i.e. Betty Davis in and the others being almost non-existant. I would bet this is only beginning. The other “long-timers” at WPLG best be ready to be pushed aside like an ugly step-child. It isn’t pretty.