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WABC - 7 Eyewitness News


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John was WEWS's first **star** anchor after market legend Dorothy Fuldheim. Later on he went to WTVJ to face the unenviable task of succeeding another broadcasting pioneer, Ralph Renick.

 

John's brother Judd later went to WJKW (the former and current WJW), then to WKYC for two stays in the 80s and 90s... where he was initially paired with Al Roker as chief meteorologist (NBC ran WKYC as an AAA team for WMAQ and WNBC until 1990).

 

Lisa joined WKYC shortly after NBC sold off majority control of the station.

 

John Hambrick co-anchored News4NewYork with Chuck Scarborough on WNBC in the early 80s. I believe when he left he was replace by Pat Harper, which was a great pairing.

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Is it me or was there a uniquely front line/no fill in line up for most of today's broadcasts? Except for Shirleen and Diana, everyone was on deck. That seems different from other Labor Day holidays. I could be wrong about that, of course. I almost wonder if all were on call because of the big hurricane story that wound up dissolving into very little. I mean, we even saw Jim Dolan on camera during the Sunday newscasts. It feels like there was anticipation for something big.

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Is it me or was there a uniquely front line/no fill in line up for most of today's broadcasts? Except for Shirleen and Diana, everyone was on deck. That seems different from other Labor Day holidays. I could be wrong about that, of course. I almost wonder if all were on call because of the big hurricane story that wound up dissolving into very little. I mean, we even saw Jim Dolan on camera during the Sunday newscasts. It feels like there was anticipation for something big.

 

Could be; good observation. Not sure about the others, but Bill planned to be in Monday/Labor Day all along.

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Does anyone recall how WABC covered the September 11 attack? Did they at any point carry the network coverage, or did they stick with local coverage throughout the day?

I've seen YouTube video- mainly local, switching to national here and there (mainly to swap out anchors).

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Does anyone recall how WABC covered the September 11 attack? Did they at any point carry the network coverage, or did they stick with local coverage throughout the day?

 

There's a lot on Youtube. One channel I know of in particular is this one (he has playlists of coverage from each network, NY or national):

https://www.youtube.com/user/ResidentPinto/playlists

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Keeping in mind that September 11th was a Tuesday:

 

WABC was all local around the clock for the first 40 hours (approx). On Wednesday night/Thursday morning they went to network from about 1AM until 4AM, and did that until Sunday night. Their first return to network programming was Sunday night prime time. The week of September 17th they did extended local news during the day, pre-empting soaps and some syndication, but carried network during prime. It was several weeks before a normal schedule returned.

 

One thing to remember about all NY stations that week is that they were all on their own, with only the personnel that were in Manhattan. All entry points to Manhattan were closed before 10AM. So nobody who lived outside Manhattan could come in to work and no assistance could be brought in from other company stations. (Although people who lived in Brooklyn were allowed to walk in/out of Manhattan on the Brooklyn Bridge.) That also meant people who had come to work early that morning from the suburbs couldn't leave. They were put up in hotels but had no change of clothes for several days until stores re-opened. Manhattan was isolated for most of the week. Transit was completely shut down. The only traffic on the streets was military and incoming rescue and assistance vehicles from all over the east coast.

 

So, each station was doing around the clock coverage for days with only the staff they had in Manhattan at the time, and no possibility of relief. Networks were in the same situation and relied heavily on local stations for content.

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Does anyone recall how WABC covered the September 11 attack? Did they at any point carry the network coverage, or did they stick with local coverage throughout the day?

 

All the O&Os stayed local for most of the coverage, 24/7 which also lasted longer than national network coverage which eventually went back to regular programming. It was covered, appropriately, as a local story. If you did not have cable or satellite, then you didn't get coverage since the transmitters came down with the towers. Eventually temporary solutions were set up, and some TV stations made deals with radio outlets to simulcast the audio.

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At that time, stations with transmitters at World Trade had back up transmitters at the Empire State Building. Most were back on over-the-air very quickly through Empire. But signals from Empire at the time were less powerful, so reception over the air was limited to the five boroughs and nearby New Jersey and Westchester. Cable was uninterrupted and most stations were simulcasting on radio within hours.

 

Also, everybody lost microwave receive sites at WTC. And the canyons of lower Manhattan are a black hole, so satellite trucks and 13gig relays were the only way out. Two way radio repeaters were also knocked out. IFB was sketchy, and cell systems and Nextel systems were overloaded. And all while the world was coming apart at the seams.

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At that time, stations with transmitters at World Trade had back up transmitters at the Empire State Building. Most were back on over-the-air very quickly through Empire. But signals from Empire at the time were less powerful, so reception over the air was limited to the five boroughs and nearby New Jersey and Westchester. Cable was uninterrupted and most stations were simulcasting on radio within hours.

 

Also, everybody lost microwave receive sites at WTC. And the canyons of lower Manhattan are a black hole, so satellite trucks and 13gig relays were the only way out. Two way radio repeaters were also knocked out. IFB was sketchy, and cell systems and Nextel systems were overloaded. And all while the world was coming apart at the seams.

 

Fybush.com has had extensive coverage of what local TV stations had to do to get a signal back on the air. Most had abandoned ESB years earlier for the WTC, so there were no back ups for the OTA signal (remember that the signal going to Optimum, TWC, Comcast and the sattelite companies is separate and were never interrupted. Over the first couple of days there were many stop gap measures each station took including using the Armstrong tower in Alpine NJ, some UHF stations (which I believe were at ESB) and others. It took time to get power and coverage back after the initial temporary arrangements. I believe WCBS may have been first to get back on the air (again, over the air only) using a UHF station. If you have access to Fybush.com, it is worth a read. I also believe that local reporters and network reporters were doing double duty with each others' coverage despite locally limited the national coverage being a local story. Network programming resumed in the rest of the country long before it did in this DMA.

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Fybush.com has had extensive coverage of what local TV stations had to do to get a signal back on the air. Most had abandoned ESB years earlier for the WTC, so there were no back ups for the OTA signal (remember that the signal going to Optimum, TWC, Comcast and the sattelite companies is separate and were never interrupted. Over the first couple of days there were many stop gap measures each station took including using the Armstrong tower in Alpine NJ, some UHF stations (which I believe were at ESB) and others. It took time to get power and coverage back after the initial temporary arrangements. I believe WCBS may have been first to get back on the air (again, over the air only) using a UHF station. If you have access to Fybush.com, it is worth a read. I also believe that local reporters and network reporters were doing double duty with each others' coverage despite locally limited the national coverage being a local story. Network programming resumed in the rest of the country long before it did in this DMA.

 

http://www.fybush.com/wtc-recovery/

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  • 2 weeks later...

Have noticed lately that WABC has removed a lot of the banter that happens to toss to weather and, in the mornings, to traffic. Instead, a stinger just happens and the weather or traffic anchor introduces themselves and goes on with the report. Today at 5pm, the anchors didn't even say goodbye. Diana introduced the last report and when the reporter gave her sign off, they just went straight to the 6pm open.

 

I kind of like it especially on busy and serious news days but also kind of miss some of the chatter that would happen.

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Ryan Field of FOX Sports has been named lead sports anchor at WABC, according to twitter accounts belonging to ABC7NY, Field and news anchor Bill Ritter.

 

Here's his FOX bio:

http://www.foxsports.com/presspass/bios/on-air/ryan-field

He starts officially on the 24th

[MEDIA=twitter]785567890212687872[/MEDIA]

[MEDIA=twitter]785546233934778368[/MEDIA]

 

Good luck to him.

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