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Mark effron OUT as wpix news director


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Tunedinnyc, always spot on.....

 

I know what you mean...that's why you should take this news with a grain of salt. But, still...I figured I should let people know...After all, Barmash has been right many times (not necessarily all the times), but I do believe this. He needs to go. Also, Mark Effron's father just died (that is confirmed BTW, not something Barmash made up), so Tribune is apparently trying to avoid a PR nightmare by denying (THAT is according to Barmash).
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Jerry Barmash (sorry, there's no other source to get this info. from other than him) says that PIX is consulting with former WABC ND Kenny Plotnik to be the new ND. Apparently whoever the new ND will be, he/she will be in place by sometime next month. Kenny would be fantastic IMO, he certainly has credibility working at WABC for over 25 years (a winning station, as we know, #1 in the US) and would be able to get PIX back to where it needs to be.

 

This is still all speculation as PIX hasn't even confirmed that Mark Effron is gone. According to PR director Jessica Bellucci, Effron will be back to work on Monday. We'll have to see about that...

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Jerry Barmash (sorry, there's no other source to get this info. from other than him) says that PIX is consulting with former WABC ND Kenny Plotnik to be the new ND. Apparently whoever the new ND will be, he/she will be in place by sometime next month. Kenny would be fantastic IMO, he certainly has credibility working at WABC for over 25 years (a winning station, as we know, #1 in the US) and would be able to get PIX back to where it needs to be.

 

This is still all speculation as PIX hasn't even confirmed that Mark Effron is gone. According to PR director Jessica Bellucci, Effron will be back to work on Monday. We'll have to see about that...

Jerry Barmash did not say Kenny Plotkin is consulting with WPIX. He stated that Kenny is availabe and would be a good choice. He then stated that Kenny is now consulting, but not necessarily with WPIX. The point is, Jerry Barmash expressed an opinion, and there no proof that the two are talking
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So was he the assistant ND prior to? (If I come off as hiding from a rock, it's because I had no interest following WPIX since the scandalous changes.)

 

John Houseman was the assistant ND then became interim News Director after Carey left.
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Kenny would be fantastic IMO, he certainly has credibility working at WABC for over 25 years (a winning station, as we know, #1 in the US) and would be able to get PIX back to where it needs to be.

 

WABC-TV could and would only be described as "#1 in the US" from a marketing perspective, and that description would ONLY be uttered within the New York DMA. It could be argued that the station's viewership exceeds that of every individual broadcast television station in the United States, and that statement is likely accurate. But that boastful claim would have no bearing outside of the New York metro DMA. And Disney-ABC would not market that claim outside of this market as it would be counter-productive to the interests of every other ABC O&O television station.

 

 

Is Bill Carey still working at the station or did he get let go? He needs to be barred for working for any TV station for life. I think NYers still remember that 1996 bloodbath/massacre that he was part of wrecking at WCBS.

 

abric answered the first question.

 

Bill Carey has proven himself to be a horrible news director. His track record, like Sherman's March, leaves a disaster trail in television news akin to scorched earth. He wrecked the news divisions of two stations resulting in casualites in non-news dayparts. It has taken years for each station to recover, and it could be successfully argued that each station has not yet fully recovered. That said, I would guess only about 10% of "NYers" would remember the 1996 bloodbath/massacre at WCBS-TV, and out of that 10%, only 10% would recall it was Bill Carey who was responsible.

 

As to being barred for working for any TV station for life, that is highly unlikely. In fact, it is very likely that he will be recruited at least once more in his career to a station in the NYC market. Carey has experience, name-recognition, and knows many industry insiders. Given the option, a station would rather recruit a news director with a horrible track record than take a chance on recruiting a news director with no evidence of a track record.

 

In this industry, gambles and speculation are often met with scorn from TPTB. This is why Katie Couric's syndicated talk show was given the green-light despite there being no obvious direction for the show from it's inception. The success of the show was guaranteed by it being hosted by Couric, an established television talent, produced by Jeff Zucker (who left and was replaced by Couric herself), and titling the show "Katie" Did that guarantee come to fruition? Obviously not. But in the minds of TPTB, there was no gamble, and thus any failure was mitigated by that security or non-risk.

 

Bringing this back around to NYC news, it is highly unlikely that anyone other than someone with an established track record, good or bad, will be recruited by WPIX. All viewers - and Tribune - can hope for is that whoever is ultimately chosen to lead as ND will continue to deliver the improvements the station has recently been enjoying.

 

 

Bill Carey stepped down as news director on October 3, 2012. Mark Effron has been the ND since April 2013

 

Yep.

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WABC-TV could and would only be described as "#1 in the US" from a marketing perspective, and that description would ONLY be uttered within the New York DMA. It could be argued that the station's viewership exceeds that of every individual broadcast television station in the United States, and that statement is likely accurate. But that boastful claim would have no bearing outside of the New York metro DMA. And Disney-ABC would not market that claim outside of this market as it would be counter-productive to the interests of every other ABC O&O television station.

 

 

abric answered the first question.

 

Bill Carey has proven himself to be a horrible news director. His track record, like Sherman's March, leaves a disaster trail in television news akin to scorched earth. He wrecked the news divisions of two stations resulting in casualites in non-news dayparts. It has taken years for each station to recover, and it could be successfully argued that each station has not yet fully recovered. That said, I would guess only about 10% of "NYers" would remember the 1996 bloodbath/massacre at WCBS-TV, and out of that 10%, only 10% would recall it was Bill Carey who was responsible.

 

As to being barred for working for any TV station for life, that is highly unlikely. In fact, it is very likely that he will be recruited at least once more in his career to a station in the NYC market. Carey has experience, name-recognition, and knows many industry insiders. Given the option, a station would rather recruit a news director with a horrible track record than take a chance on recruiting a news director with no evidence of a track record.

 

In this industry, gambles and speculation are often met with scorn from TPTB. This is why Katie Couric's syndicated talk show was given the green-light despite there being no obvious direction for the show from it's inception. The success of the show was guaranteed by it being hosted by Couric, an established television talent, produced by Jeff Zucker (who left and was replaced by Couric herself), and titling the show "Katie" Did that guarantee come to fruition? Obviously not. But in the minds of TPTB, there was no gamble, and thus any failure was mitigated by that security or non-risk.

 

Bringing this back around to NYC news, it is highly unlikely that anyone other than someone with an established track record, good or bad, will be recruited by WPIX. All viewers - and Tribune - can hope for is that whoever is ultimately chosen to lead as ND will continue to deliver the improvements the station has recently been enjoying.

 

 

Yep.

I always laugh hard when you guys beat up Bill Carey... He was here in Detroit between 2000 and 2005 and was actually responsible for revitalizing the product greatly. Apparently he has something against New York because we are still not nearly as good as we were under him, not only that but his assistant ND in Detroit and at PIX is in charge now and the product is getting back to the old Bill Carey style slowly but surely.
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Bill Carey is currently EP at the disaster that is TouchVision. He and Lee Abrams are hell bent on making their vision of "news for a younger generation" a reality via broadcast digital subchannels and a slow website.

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I always laugh hard when you guys beat up Bill Carey... He was here in Detroit between 2000 and 2005 and was actually responsible for revitalizing the product greatly. Apparently he has something against New York because we are still not nearly as good as we were under him, not only that but his assistant ND in Detroit and at PIX is in charge now and the product is getting back to the old Bill Carey style slowly but surely.

 

How exactly did Bill Carey revitalize the product during his tenure at WXYX-TV Detroit, and how did that improve ratings for the station? And how do you mean "we are still not nearly as good as we were under him"?

 

As I understand it, WXYZ-TV's newscasts generally finish second-place, behind WDIV-TV Detroit. Are you sure the second-place finish is due solely to the departure of Carey, or could it be due to factors over at WDIV-TV?

 

He may have made good decisions in Detroit, or maybe he just got some luck. Either way, and I don't say this pretentiously, but the New York market historically is a very different animal. What works in Detroit, San Francisco, Houston, Chicago, Los Angeles and even nearby Philadelphia probably won't work in New York City. This market, despite being very liberal in thought processes, is notoriously conservative when it comes to it's television and radio consumption habits. Abrupt drastic changes are generally not well-received, no matter how well-intentioned, and they are often rewarded unceremoniously by audience abandonment.

 

That fact notwithstanding, Carey's two revitalization endeavors here in the New York market were outright bone-headed and dumb. Axing legendary talent at WCBS-TV, despite the station's poorer performance at the time, resonated poorly with the viewers. Having no real end-game made matters even worse, and the station suffered in most dayparts for nearly a decade following the debacle. Over at WPIX, he ran the same plays, only this time he did have an end-game: changing a newscast into a cheap high-school yak-fest, and bringing in Lionel to add authentication to the bilge.

Only one way to describe that project and it's end result: :bang: :withstupid: :confused:

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He didn't fire any legendary talent, it went from second to first at all but 11pm. The next news director got that show to #1. It was largely a stale product and complete talent cleanout for money reasons in 2009-2010 that got them down to second. They last finished #1 in something in 2012, but a bad news director from Grand Rapids, one that makes your Bill Carey complaints look great, took over in 2010 and was fired in 2013 because he performed so poorly. The product absolutely went to hell. The current news director, Dave Manney, is modeling the product off of what Bill Carey did... WABC. He has experience doing it, he was Carey's assistant from 2000-2003 here and worked at WXYZ for several years before that so he knows the market and what the station is about. Manney also worked with Carey at PIX and then went to WNBC to be managing editor before coming here in January. The product is slowly returning to it's old form now.

 

As for what he brought here:

-A slate of high quality reporters

-Focus on long established talent

-ABC O&O look and feel complete with GO graphics, Eyewitness News music and On Your Side branding

-A much more forceful advertising approach, also O&O style

-A harder hitting and more solid brand of journalism

-Huge focus on investigative and breaking news

-Focus on engaging the community through a revitalized Call For Action team

-#1 ratings across all slots except 11pm where WDIV led until 2007.

-Innovative 7pm newscast when World News Tonight moved up to 630, featuring more breaking news and studio interviews.

 

The only luck was a stronger ABC primetime lineup in the 2000's.

 

All that led to higher ratings because they were aggressively putting out a quality product and people noticed.

 

WXYZ slipped to #2 after Andrea Parquet-Taylor left in mid-2009. The recession hitting combined with 2010-2012 attrition of talent that had been around for 30 plus years, non-renewals of contracts (lots of Carey people) under a new GM and the hiring of WXMI Grand Rapids news director Tim Dye led the product to fall completely from any chance at first place by 2013. That is why Dye was fired and the station searched hard for a quality News Director, it took them about 6 months to hire Manney.

 

WDIV has been a bastion of steady for the last 20-30 years. They are in the position now that WXYZ was in last decade in terms of veteran talent. Many have been there for 30 or more years and they slowly stock up on new talent for inevitable attrition. WXYZ did absolutely no stocking up for the attrition after Carey left. That was a huge mistake and dismissing all the non-veteran talent in 2010 didn't help.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

Amy Waldman and Chuck Carter are apparently now in charge since Mark Effron exited the building on Friday. According to the article, no outsiders seem to want to step foot into WPIX. And I can certainly understand that. If I had a suggestion, it would be longtime former ND Karen Scott, if she's willing to get back into it again, and if they offer it to her. PIX really thrived under her command.

http://tunedinnyc.com/2014/10/14/mark-effron-exits-wpix-whos-next-as-news-director/#more-2064

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  • 2 weeks later...
Guest NewsHound

Amy Waldman and Chuck Carter are apparently now in charge since Mark Effron exited the building on Friday. According to the article, no outsiders seem to want to step foot into WPIX. And I can certainly understand that. If I had a suggestion, it would be longtime former ND Karen Scott, if she's willing to get back into it again, and if they offer it to her. PIX really thrived under her command.

http://tunedinnyc.com/2014/10/14/mark-effron-exits-wpix-whos-next-as-news-director/#more-2064

Karen Scott most likely won't return. She and PIX were in court several years back over an age-discrimination suit she filed after her termination. She's most likely poison to them now.

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  • 3 weeks later...

 

Well Kenny Plotnik is now at a station in Boston accoring to Phil Lipof. Another thought I had.. What about Diane Doctor? What's she up too these days? I bet if she got hired we would see Mr.G out and Dave Price in lol

 

According to Barmash's article, Diane Doctor was approached and declined the offer. It would be interesting to see what would happen if Diane took the job, however.

 

On another note, it wouldn't surprise me if it took a few months to find the new ND. After Carey stepped down, it took about 6 months for them to hire Effron, from what I recall.

 

On a final note, I don't think Amy Waldman and Chuck Carter are doing a bad job. PIX's newscasts seem jam-packed with exclusives, investigations, feature reports, and human interest stories more than ever. I guess part of that reason is because it's November sweeps. I'm honestly dying to know the results (especially of how PIX fared in this sweeps period, given the recent winnings over the summer).

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