Ozzie Martinez, the evening executive producer at CBS4, is resigning. He has been with WFOR for 5 years, and previously worked as an executive producer at WSVN. His last day is today, August 8th. No word if executive producer Stephanie Linton, will move up from the AM slot to the PM producing slot.
/Thank you, to all the people who left tips!/
update 3:25pm: A tipster says this story has two legs. They claim CBS4 was trying to hunt down the person who emailed Herald columnist Joan Fleischman about Ted Scouten’s phony homeless guy story in which a guy pretended to be homeless and got help from CBS4 Neighbors4Neighbors and a radio station before bing found out (see:CBS4 Dupe By Fake Homeless Man) And that management suspected Ozzie Martinez was the one who leaked it so they let him go telling employees he left to “travel”.
Update: This story doesn’t really add up since according to the official story the radio station were the ones who originally found out the guy was faking being homeless after a police officer and family called them. Then HOT105 called WFOR. It appears it wasn’t a super duper secret that no body was aware of so anyone at the radio station, CBS4 or elsewhere could have sent the info to the Herald.
If you know this to be false, i ask you kindly to e-mail me. Thank you!
update: the last part of this story about Ozzie being fired appears to be false. I’d like to apologize to Ozzie for the mishap it wasn’t intentional. No harm meant.
It appears my update yesterday is what actually happened and makes the most sense and I realised it better once I paid better attention to the facts.
New NBC6 Anchor Lineup
With Demarco Morgan off to NYC, that leaves an open anchor spot at NBC6. The new line is:
(Weekdays)
6P.M.: Tony Segreto and Julia Yarbough (for now). Tony still needs to decide about retiring.
7P.M.: Joel Connable and Jackie Nespral. If Tony retires, Joel will fill his spot.
11P.M.: Jackie Nespral and Julia Yarbough. It’s a tad unusual to see two women at 11, eh?
(Weekends)
Well despite Ms. Tisha Lewis going around, boasting about how “she was taking over for Joel when he moves to weekdays”… She didn’t get the anchor seat. The new weekend lineup is:
Weekend Mornings: Sharon Lawson.
Weekend Evenings: Amara Sohn.
Tisha was visibly upset, and was even allegedly overheard complaining to fellow on-air talent about how “she deserved it over Amara and Sharon.” As for Amara Sohn, I like her. I like her look, her style. The only thing I would say is she needs to be more personable on-air. I’ve seen her fill in for Joel Connable a few times, and she’s fairly good. I think she’ll do a fine job. Who knows how all of this will work out in the ratings department. Will two women at 11 be a good thing, or turn some viewers off? Only time will tell.
NBC6 also has some new part-timers. Evan Bacon, a freelance reporter is working part time. Joining Evan is Claudia Decompo, a part-time freelance producer and reporter. It’ll be interesting to see if NBC6 hires one of them full time. After all, they’re going to need a new consumer reporter.