WABC - 7 Eyewitness News

[TellyGenic 29]

Lee Goldberg welcomes Brittany Bell.  No word on what her time slot(s) will be:
https://abc7ny.com/weather/weather-or-not-lee-goldberg-welcomes-brittany-bell-to-abc7/10866374/?fbclid=IwAR0nhv4nZJngHpI8u_X2bCGzJXWMTM69qBN_qt7P9BinHdocW4upWHfeCi8

[Liugrad2020 80]

2 hours ago, TellyGenic said:

Lee Goldberg welcomes Brittany Bell.  No word on what her time slot(s) will be:
https://abc7ny.com/weather/weather-or-not-lee-goldberg-welcomes-brittany-bell-to-abc7/10866374/?fbclid=IwAR0nhv4nZJngHpI8u_X2bCGzJXWMTM69qBN_qt7P9BinHdocW4upWHfeCi8

My guess is weekend mornings although maybe she will have a weekday spot.

1 minute ago, Liugrad2020 said:

My guess is weekend mornings although maybe she will have a weekday spot.

An outside possibility is that they have two meteorologists for some of their newscasts. WCBS briefly did that in 2002.

[Roadgeek Adam 157]

Janine D'Adamo and David Rogers was the WCBS pair. 

 

2 people doing the same job on the same broadcast isn't really what I'd do. WWOR did it with Russ Salzberg and Monica Pellegrini and "Sports Team 9"  I feel like it screws with the dynamic. 

Edited July 7, 2021 by Roadgeek Adam

[MisterBill 66]

They showed Brittany during the 11pm show tonight. Apparently she was on the web coverage during the storms earlier (although I could be wrong, wasn't paying that close attention). Was surprised to see Sam on all week (so far). Amy is on vacation (again) in the west, so we may see Brittany on Friday morning.

 

Update -- they had her on the 5pm newscast on Wednesday. Sade said something about being good to have a woman meteorologist. Maybe I misunderstood, but she must have forgotten about Amy.

Edited July 7, 2021 by MisterBill

[mountainave 485]

On 7/3/2021 at 10:38 PM, MisterBill said:

 

 

I do not claim to know how things work, but don't they have a weather producer who handles stuff like that?

 

 

I don't believe WABC has in-house weather producers, no.  They basically outsource the function of a weather producer to AccuWeather.  Sometimes (or more than sometimes?) Jeff or Amy work during the week behind the scenes while Sam or Lee are on the air.

[Liugrad2020 80]

4 hours ago, mountainave said:

 

I don't believe WABC has in-house weather producers, no.  They basically outsource the function of a weather producer to AccuWeather.  Sometimes (or more than sometimes?) Jeff or Amy work during the week behind the scenes while Sam or Lee are on the air.

I think I remember Sam saying something about Lee training him on how to use the equipment and that Sam trained Lee with that when Lee first joined WABC while Sam was chief meteorologist way back in 1996.

22 hours ago, MisterBill said:

They showed Brittany during the 11pm show tonight. Apparently she was on the web coverage during the storms earlier (although I could be wrong, wasn't paying that close attention). Was surprised to see Sam on all week (so far). Amy is on vacation (again) in the west, so we may see Brittany on Friday morning.

 

Update -- they had her on the 5pm newscast on Wednesday. Sade said something about being good to have a woman meteorologist. Maybe I misunderstood, but she must have forgotten about Amy.

Could be that unless Brittany is going to be on at 5pm.

[MisterBill 66]

4 hours ago, mountainave said:

 

I don't believe WABC has in-house weather producers, no.  They basically outsource the function of a weather producer to AccuWeather.  Sometimes (or more than sometimes?) Jeff or Amy work during the week behind the scenes while Sam or Lee are on the air.

 

Really? Amy is very active on Instagram, and she never posts from the studio when she is not on air. Yes, they do work as backup when there is a big storm, but you will generally see them on air at some point.

[nynewslover 269]

23 hours ago, MisterBill said:

They showed Brittany during the 11pm show tonight. Apparently she was on the web coverage during the storms earlier (although I could be wrong, wasn't paying that close attention). Was surprised to see Sam on all week (so far). Amy is on vacation (again) in the west, so we may see Brittany on Friday morning.

 

Update -- they had her on the 5pm newscast on Wednesday. Sade said something about being good to have a woman meteorologist. Maybe I misunderstood, but she must have forgotten about Amy.

Why are you surprised? He usually works Monday thru Thursday. 

[MisterBill 66]

13 minutes ago, nynewslover said:

Why are you surprised? He usually works Monday thru Thursday. 

 

You're talking about Sam, I assume? Monday was a pseudo-holiday, I figured he'd be off. We'll see who works Friday. Don't think it will be Amy, unless she returns from out west today.

[IceManNYR 190]

Amy is back and did an update just before 2 PM on the storm that moved through the area.

Edited July 8, 2021 by IceManNYR

[Liugrad2020 80]

12 hours ago, MisterBill said:

 

You're talking about Sam, I assume? Monday was a pseudo-holiday, I figured he'd be off. We'll see who works Friday. Don't think it will be Amy, unless she returns from out west today.

It may be Sam because of the Tropical Storm that’s expected tomorrow morning.

[MorningNews 1199]

What if we just wait on an announcement instead of taking wild and unfounded guesses every newscast?

[MisterBill 66]

5 minutes ago, MorningNews said:

What if we just wait on an announcement instead of taking wild and unfounded guesses every newscast?

 

What fun is that?

2 hours ago, Liugrad2020 said:

It may be Sam because of the Tropical Storm that’s expected tomorrow morning.

 

Yes, and they are starting early at 4am.

[Liugrad2020 80]

1 hour ago, MisterBill said:

 

What fun is that?

 

Yes, and they are starting early at 4am.

So is WCBS. My guess is Sam, Amy and maybe Brittany will be a part of the coverage.

[nynewslover 269]

4 hours ago, Liugrad2020 said:

So is WCBS. My guess is Sam, Amy and maybe Brittany will be a part of the coverage.

Any is doing the 11 tonight probably won’t be back tomorrow morning 

[Liugrad2020 80]

31 minutes ago, nynewslover said:

Any is doing the 11 tonight probably won’t be back tomorrow morning 

I would think Sam will be a part of the coverage given the potential for serious damage from the storm. Was Lee on at all today?

6 hours ago, MorningNews said:

What if we just wait on an announcement instead of taking wild and unfounded guesses every newscast?

What if we don’t want to? Are you the moderator? 

[IceManNYR 190]

They showed Lee, in a recorded video, during the 11PM newscast outside near the ocean saying he would be monitoring the storm overnight into the morning.

[Liugrad2020 80]

6 hours ago, IceManNYR said:

They showed Lee, in a recorded video, during the 11PM newscast outside near the ocean saying he would be monitoring the storm overnight into the morning.

Interesting. 

[MisterBill 66]

4 hours ago, Liugrad2020 said:

Interesting. 

 

Lee was live from somewhere outside of Boston (where he was obviously vacationing) during the 6am hour. And the meteorologists in the studio were Jeff and Brittany, although she was just doing some secondary stuff. I figured Amy would not be there given that she's doing 4pm weather for Lee. And Sam took Friday off, as usual, which was a bit surprising.

[mountainave 485]

31 minutes ago, MisterBill said:

 

Lee was live from somewhere outside of Boston (where he was obviously vacationing) during the 6am hour. And the meteorologists in the studio were Jeff and Brittany, although she was just doing some secondary stuff. I figured Amy would not be there given that she's doing 4pm weather for Lee. And Sam took Friday off, as usual, which was a bit surprising.

He doesn't take Fridays off as though they're vacation days.  He's employed to work four days a week.

[TVNewsLover 701]

33 minutes ago, mountainave said:

He doesn't take Fridays off as though they're vacation days.  He's employed to work four days a week.

Bill Ritter has come in on a weekend for breaking news. I’m sure Lee has popped in on a Saturday or Sunday too. I think the point others were trying to make was that in breaking news/weather events, anchors/meteorologists will come in on a scheduled day off (Lee was on vacation and appeared). It’s also possible that Sam may not have been able to fly out yesterday either. 

[MisterBill 66]

1 hour ago, mountainave said:

He doesn't take Fridays off as though they're vacation days.  He's employed to work four days a week.

 

They thought it was going to be an important enough event for them to schedule the news to begin early, and showed a graphic that included him. Lee is reporting from vacation.  I don't really care one way or the other, Jeff is a fine substitute for Sam. It just seemed odd that their normal meteorologist would not change his plans to be there, whether he was scheduled to work or not. I think he had worked a Friday  a week or two ago. Also, worth pointing out that Liugrad2020 had said "It may be Sam because of the Tropical Storm that’s expected tomorrow morning" when I wondered who would be working.

 

I will acknowledge that saying "did not work Friday" would have been more accurate than "took off Friday".

Edited July 9, 2021 by MisterBill

[Liugrad2020 80]

3 hours ago, TVNewsLover said:

Bill Ritter has come in on a weekend for breaking news. I’m sure Lee has popped in on a Saturday or Sunday too. I think the point others were trying to make was that in breaking news/weather events, anchors/meteorologists will come in on a scheduled day off (Lee was on vacation and appeared). It’s also possible that Sam may not have been able to fly out yesterday either. 

Exactly. While Sam didn’t take the day off today if he doesn’t work Fridays today would have been a good day for him to work on his day off given the weather event happened. Bill has appeared on weekends during a breaking news event and Lee has for major weather events. 

[wabceyewitness 729]

Do you think it is possible that Sam Champion is human just like us and might have a variety of reasons why he could not or did not want to be available to work on his scheduled day off? 

We have had storms classified as tropical storms hit the area before — twice last summer — and storms hit that have done far worse. There has been much talk of how early in the season Elsa is for a hurricane/tropical storm, yet, just last year we had a tropical storm affect NYC on July 10. 

 

While it was a news event that warranted additional coverage and some special reports, there was nothing unique or extraordinary about it that warranted a mandatory all hands on deck. 
 

 

 

[Liugrad2020 80]

4 hours ago, wabceyewitness said:

Do you think it is possible that Sam Champion is human just like us and might have a variety of reasons why he could not or did not want to be available to work on his scheduled day off? 

We have had storms classified as tropical storms hit the area before — twice last summer — and storms hit that have done far worse. There has been much talk of how early in the season Elsa is for a hurricane/tropical storm, yet, just last year we had a tropical storm affect NYC on July 10. 

 

While it was a news event that warranted additional coverage and some special reports, there was nothing unique or extraordinary about it that warranted a mandatory all hands on deck. 
 

 

 

I would think for the money he makes that he could work on a day off on occasion. Most of the other weather people on WABC and at other NYC stations work on days they are scheduled to be off during major weather stories. Now what will be interesting is what happens once Brittany Bell officially has a newscast that she does the weather for. Sam is full time because he works 10 hours a day 4 days a week and opposed to most of the others who work 8 hours a day for 5 days a week. If Brittany takes Sams place at noon it will be interesting to see how he gets to 10 hours a day for 4 days a week as I don’t see him doing mornings for 5 days a week. Now I have to expect someone to say “who cares?” While it doesn’t impact my life id think that WABC has better ways to use their money than on Sam to only work a few hours a week. I don’t dislike him but he’s not that special. WABC did okay while he was gone from 2006 to 2019.