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Changes at Meredith KTVK/KPHO Phoenix


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Changes in the lineups starting next week.

  • Nicole Crites leaves KPHO Morning show to join Good Evening Arizona (GEAZ) 4pm-6:30pm.
  • Paul Horton moves from Host of KPHO Morning show to evenings to assist with weather. (?)
  • "Wake Up Arizona" is the new name for the KPHO Morning show which will include Adam Longo, Yetta Gibson and Katie Baker (A Facebook photo shows these three along with Heidi Goitia (formerly reporter/fill in anchor KTVK).
     

The Paul Horton move to weather seemed strange but this afternoon, Chris Dunn changed his Facebook page from "Chris Dunn CBS 5 AZ" to "Chris Dunn Weather". While his bio is still on the CBS5AZ webpage (as of 7/31 2pm) could this be a sign of an impending departure for Chris?

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Changes in the lineups starting next week.

  • Nicole Crites leaves KPHO Morning show to join Good Evening Arizona (GEAZ) 4pm-6:30pm.
  • Paul Horton moves from Host of KPHO Morning show to evenings to assist with weather. (?)
  • "Wake Up Arizona" is the new name for the KPHO Morning show which will include Adam Longo, Yetta Gibson and Katie Baker (A Facebook photo shows these three along with Heidi Goitia (formerly reporter/fill in anchor KTVK).
     

The Paul Horton move to weather seemed strange but this afternoon, Chris Dunn changed his Facebook page from "Chris Dunn CBS 5 AZ" to "Chris Dunn Weather". While his bio is still on the CBS5AZ webpage (as of 7/31 2pm) could this be a sign of an impending departure for Chris?

 

Damn. Feel sorry for Chris. He lost his job to Dave Fraiser post KDVR|KWGN merger.

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Changes in the lineups starting next week.

  • Nicole Crites leaves KPHO Morning show to join Good Evening Arizona (GEAZ) 4pm-6:30pm.
  • Paul Horton moves from Host of KPHO Morning show to evenings to assist with weather. (?)
  • "Wake Up Arizona" is the new name for the KPHO Morning show which will include Adam Longo, Yetta Gibson and Katie Baker (A Facebook photo shows these three along with Heidi Goitia (formerly reporter/fill in anchor KTVK).
     

The Paul Horton move to weather seemed strange but this afternoon, Chris Dunn changed his Facebook page from "Chris Dunn CBS 5 AZ" to "Chris Dunn Weather". While his bio is still on the CBS5AZ webpage (as of 7/31 2pm) could this be a sign of an impending departure for Chris?

 

I find that surprising for a station that happened to be so proud of their weather team, that they saved their little watched digital weather subchannel at the last minute, placing the "CBS 5 Weather Now" brand on channel 3.3 when COZI went to 5.2.

 

Meredith is not a free-spending company by any means. They were a holdout on upgrading to HD in the early 2000s because they didn't think it was a wise investment, and was more interested in a compression device that would add more commercials to a spot break. I wouldn't be surprised if they merged 3 and 5's weather departments in the near future.

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Changes in the lineups starting next week.

  • Nicole Crites leaves KPHO Morning show to join Good Evening Arizona (GEAZ) 4pm-6:30pm.
  • Paul Horton moves from Host of KPHO Morning show to evenings to assist with weather. (?)
  • "Wake Up Arizona" is the new name for the KPHO Morning show which will include Adam Longo, Yetta Gibson and Katie Baker (A Facebook photo shows these three along with Heidi Goitia (formerly reporter/fill in anchor KTVK).
     

The Paul Horton move to weather seemed strange but this afternoon, Chris Dunn changed his Facebook page from "Chris Dunn CBS 5 AZ" to "Chris Dunn Weather". While his bio is still on the CBS5AZ webpage (as of 7/31 2pm) could this be a sign of an impending departure for Chris?

 

Chris Dunn announced it was his last broadcast at KPHO during the 10pm news (7/31). As of this morning his bio is still on the KPHO.com website (then again it has not been updated to add Ashlee DeMartino or the other new reporter/anchor, only Kris Pickel.)
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so will KTVK & KPHO compete in the evening for news? It would make sense for KTVK to have news at 4, 6,8,9pm and KPHO have news at 5-6pm, 6:30, 10pm.

 

It appears the model that they have there does have them competing in a lot of timeslots.

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so will KTVK & KPHO compete in the evening for news? It would make sense for KTVK to have news at 4, 6,8,9pm and KPHO have news at 5-6pm, 6:30, 10pm.

 

While that was the conventional wisdom last year, it certainly has not come to pass. With the move of Nicole Crites to GEAZ, it seems even less likely. Honestly, I'm surprised that KPHO didn't just start simulcasting GMAZ in the mornings (4:30-7am) -- although one could argue that "Wake Up Arizona" sounds very much like "GMAZ-lite". We shall see tomorrow morning.
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While that was the conventional wisdom last year, it certainly has not come to pass. With the move of Nicole Crites to GEAZ, it seems even less likely. Honestly, I'm surprised that KPHO didn't just start simulcasting GMAZ in the mornings (4:30-7am) -- although one could argue that "Wake Up Arizona" sounds very much like "GMAZ-lite". We shall see tomorrow morning.

Actually, this is no different than the situation with WXIN/WTTV or even some Big Three virtual duops like KSAN/KLST, which each have competing newscasts in at least three common time periods. It's better than the alternative of gutting one station's news schedule and filling those newly emptied time periods with syndicated programming. If anything, such a model it would seem, would be more cost efficient, given the relative expense of acquiring a lot of programming from distributors to fill a station's schedule.
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Actually, this is no different than the situation with WXIN/WTTV or even some Big Three virtual duops like KSAN/KLST, which each have competing newscasts in at least three common time periods. It's better than the alternative of gutting one station's news schedule and filling those newly emptied time periods with syndicated programming. If anything, such a model it would seem, would be more cost efficient, given the relative expense of acquiring a lot of programming from distributors to fill a station's schedule.

 

That is true, I suppose.

 

Each station does have one or two "exclusive" time periods. KTVK is alone 7am-10am, at 6pm and 9pm, when KPHO is tied up in network fare (KPHO has aired the CBS Evening News at 6pm for the last decade). KPHO, on the other hand, airs the only midday newscast and the only 6:30 newscast between the two.

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"Wake Up Arizona" debuted today with Yetta Gibson and Adam Longo. It was okay, but definitely light on serious news (at least in the 40 minutes that I watched). They are clearly trying to feature Yetta. It just seemed somewhat ironic that CBS 5 has gone fluffier as a lead in to CBS This Morning ("The News IS Back in the Morning"), which features hard news.

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...
  • 11 months later...

Well, it's been a little over a year since Wake Up Arizona started. They are on their third male co-anchor. Adam Longo went to Washington DC shortly after being named co-anchor last year. Then, Carlos Diaz came down from Vegas to co-anchor. About a month ago, KPHO decided to make the newscast much more serious (e.g. "No Dancing Anchors, Less Chit-Chat, etc.") and named weekend anchor Preston Phillips as the new morning co-anchor. Some people in Phoenix have speculated that Yetta might be the problem, not the male co-anchors.

 

On KTVK, they have expanded the weekend late evening block from 30 minutes to 90 minutes (9-10:30pm) and named Jared Dillingham as weekend evening anchor. Lina De Florias and Jaime Cerreta anchor weekend GMAZ.

 

Overall, KTVK seems to be continuing to do well and seems relatively stable, although I really really miss Tyler Baldwin's sports anchoring. As I've said before, the KPHO sports staff seems rather generic at times. KPHO seems to be floundering with a format, now going back to all serious news in the mornings and evenings (get all your news in the first 10 minutes at 10pm and then you can get to bed early).

 

Any thoughts?

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Preston Phillips?

You cannot get anymore "lightweight" then that.

Nonsense. Not with his anchorman persona and spiffy black hair! I remember when he first came to SD, KGTV still was using paper scripts, and he would always write something on the paper at the end of the newscast. Very exagerative...trying way too hard. In short, he comes across as fake.

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Well, it's been a little over a year since Wake Up Arizona started. They are on their third male co-anchor. Adam Longo went to Washington DC shortly after being named co-anchor last year. Then, Carlos Diaz came down from Vegas to co-anchor. About a month ago, KPHO decided to make the newscast much more serious (e.g. "No Dancing Anchors, Less Chit-Chat, etc.") and named weekend anchor Preston Phillips as the new morning co-anchor. Some people in Phoenix have speculated that Yetta might be the problem, not the male co-anchors.

 

On KTVK, they have expanded the weekend late evening block from 30 minutes to 90 minutes (9-10:30pm) and named Jared Dillingham as weekend evening anchor. Lina De Florias and Jaime Cerreta anchor weekend GMAZ.

 

Overall, KTVK seems to be continuing to do well and seems relatively stable, although I really really miss Tyler Baldwin's sports anchoring. As I've said before, the KPHO sports staff seems rather generic at times. KPHO seems to be floundering with a format, now going back to all serious news in the mornings and evenings (get all your news in the first 10 minutes at 10pm and then you can get to bed early).

 

Any thoughts?

 

They also cut the KTVK high school sports show from 30 minutes to 15 and stuffed it in their 10pm show. I follow HS sports in Arizona and didn't even know it was still around — I assumed it had been given the ax.

 

I wonder how much producing "one" news product instead of two separate presentations would improve the quality of said product.

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I wonder how much producing "one" news product instead of two separate presentations would improve the quality of said product.

 

I honestly don't know if it would help at all. They have largely the same reports on both channels these days during competing newscasts -- sometimes even "live" reports at the same time. The only difference is some investigative pieces, weather and, I think, sports.

 

Perhaps they should just give up on Wake Up Arizona and simulcast GMAZ on both stations.

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Nonsense. Not with his anchorman persona and spiffy black hair! I remember when he first came to SD, KGTV still was using paper scripts, and he would always write something on the paper at the end of the newscast. Very exagerative...trying way too hard. In short, he comes across as fake.

 

Yes, he did that in Phoenix when he was weekend anchor (pretending to wrote something on his paper scripts). As for the anchorman persona, I agree but here in Phoenix nobody can beat Brandon Lee. Phillips pales in comparison. :)

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I honestly don't know if it would help at all. They have largely the same reports on both channels these days during competing newscasts -- sometimes even "live" reports at the same time. The only difference is some investigative pieces, weather and, I think, sports.

 

Perhaps they should just give up on Wake Up Arizona and simulcast GMAZ on both stations.

 

Careful what you wish for.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well, tonight was the first simulcast of 3TV News on CBS5. The weekend evening newscasts have officially been combined according to the CBS5 website. Jared Dillingham and Lindsey Rieser anchored with Ashlee DiMartino doing weather and Joe Pequeno doing the sports. Also, the newscasts were expanded in the early evening 5pm to 6pm on 3 with 5pm to 5;30pm and 6pm to 7pm on 5. The late newscast runs from 9 to 10pm on 3 and 10 to 11pm on both 3 and 5.

 

I guess the good news is that Kim Quintero will no longer have to do double-duty on weekend am's and pm's. She can now focus on GMAZ, working a much more normal shift!

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Well, tonight was the first simulcast of 3TV News on CBS5. The weekend evening newscasts have officially been combined according to the CBS5 website. Jared Dillingham and Lindsey Rieser anchored with Ashlee DiMartino doing weather and Joe Pequeno doing the sports. Also, the newscasts were expanded in the early evening 5pm to 6pm on 3 with 5pm to 5;30pm and 6pm to 7pm on 5. The late newscast runs from 9 to 10pm on 3 and 10 to 11pm on both 3 and 5.

 

I guess the good news is that Kim Quintero will no longer have to do double-duty on weekend am's and pm's. She can now focus on GMAZ, working a much more normal shift!

 

That actually sounds like a really good weekend offering. Consolidation might help them focus on producing one better product. I didn't see it, so what graphics/music/set were used?

 

Looks like it was almost KTVK except for a special KPHO-specific bug...

 

SzlGAPO.png

 

They need to figure out a way to rebrand these stations in a way where they can do this and not have it be a kludge.

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