WFOR
WFOR began broadcasting from a temporary set today, in order to make way for their new HD ready set. SFLTV.com told you first two weeks ago that WFOR would start to broadcast in HD come early 2010 (in preparation for the Superbowl); this would put them right on track to do so. WFOR is the only English-speaking station in the Miami/Ft. Lauderdale market yet to convert to High Definition broadcasting. Expect a new graphics set as well as music to go along with their transition.
Former CBS4 lead anchor Maggie Rodriguez is expecting a baby! Here is her announcement on the CBS Early Show a few days ago:
Congrats to her from her former South Florida family.
WFOR
The question has been asked for months as of when WFOR will finally make the switch over to High Definition broadcasting. WFOR is currently the only English speaking station still broadcasting in SD in the Miami/Ft. Lauderdale market. So, when exactly will WFOR go HD? The moment may finally be coming. According to SFLTV.com insiders in CBS management, WFOR is expected to go HD come February right before the Super Bowl. According to our sources, a new graphics package is also expected to follow with the HD Transition. SFLTV will pass more information on as we actively receive it.
What are your thoughts on WFOR going HD? Do you think this can create a ratings boost for the station?
Some of you had a problem with my post about WFOR teaming up with ‘60 Minutes’ for the Medicare investigation saying that it wasn’t a big deal because all WFOR did was CBS’ dirty work.
Yesterday Al Tompkins from PoynterOnline posted an email interview with WFOR reporter Stephen Stock about what they found during the investigation and also asked him how the WFOR team came to be involved with it.
At the Investigative Reporters and Editors convention in Baltimore last June, investigative producer Ira Rosen, who works at “60 Minutes,” asked if I would be interested. A few months earlier, Jay Weaver at The Miami Herald had just done a great series on Medicare fraud and I was eager to advance the story or shed further light on it.
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When “60 Minutes” came to town, we met with them and shared various ideas and resources. They shot their own interviews and B-roll, but asked us to commit resources to undercover visits to clinics, DMEs and providores.
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Working with “60 Minutes” was a challenge. They have their own culture and expectations and they don’t share easily. Their long, successful history doesn’t contain many cooperative projects with local TV news operations. However, they did enable us to meet FBI sources we wouldn’t have found without them. We met and were able to work with the FBI informant, which wouldn’t have happened without them. They opened doors and gave insight and ideas that enabled us to be successful. And we contributed by successfully getting undercover video of an office worker offering money both for a list and to a “patient” to use her Medicare number. “60 Minutes” chose not to use the video and framed the story otherwise, but we contributed nonetheless.
Check out the whole interview here
Saw @standupkid (a.k.a. Mark Joyella) tweet this B&C story on CBS renaming it’s local stations in Los Angeles.
KCBS and independent KCAL will be re-branded to CBS2 NewsCentral and KCAL 9 NewsCentral by this fall. CBS says it’s doing the re-brand to emphasize its duopoly’s news gathering power and ‘improved and more consistent focus on local news coverage’. The fact that rival stations KTTV-FOX, KNBC and Tribune-owned KTLA have entered into a news gathering pool to share resources and cut costs has something to do with the re-brand.
Whether the ‘NewsCentral’ moniker will spill out to other markets remains to be seen, CBS says additional details will be announced this summer.
So does that mean then that if WFOR, WTVJ and say WPLG enter a news sharing agreement then CBS is not committed to ‘improved and more consistent focus on local news coverage’ in Miami?
CBS president Les Moonves told MarketWatch he thinks in 10 years the local affiliate model, or at least CBS’, will be dead and networks will beam their signal to cable and satellite directly.
Adds MarketWatch:
For now, however, the network has contracts with local stations that are binding for several years.
Seeing how they keep laying off people at WFOR, I have the feeling it could go the way of WTVJ.
In May ‘The Early Show’ surprised Maggie Rodriguez for their ‘Positively Prom Week’ segment with a performance by Gloria Estefan who appeared live from Maggie’s school ‘Our Lady of Lourdes’ in Miami.
Gloria sang a little bit of her song ‘Here We Are’ for Maggie and husband Mike.
Are they so cute or what!
Before I forget thanks to Brandon to sending the video
And here’s the whole segment from CBS News
Maggie talks about her prom
A story that will run in tomorrow’s New York Times claims CBS has been in talks with Time Warner to outsource at least some of it’s news gathering to CNN. Either to pair up CBS reporters with CNN crews or altogether use CNN feeds.
Why? Cost cutting. Of course. So far though no deal has been made. Speculations about CNN teaming up with either ABC or CBS has gone on for years and often when talks were held they’d fall apart soon after.
Someone made a prediction that by 2010 we’ll see the disappearance of a major TV network. Right now NBC and CBS look to be the front runners
On This Day in SFLTV History: WTVX wins against Disney
On this day in 1989 WTVX, then in Fort Pierce, claimed victory in a suit filed against Walt Disney’s Buena Vista Television.
More after the jump.
Continue reading ‘On This Day in SFLTV History: WTVX wins against Disney’