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didn't larry give up his anchor chair due to him wanting to stay on the reporting beat more?

 

I think it may have been a mutual decision between him and management. At one point, he was the weekend anchor, legal analyst and a investigative reporter (with Dane). That's a lot for one person to do effectively.

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Morning Anchor George Smith is moving to sports. Kristin Nicole will replace him on Good Day Chicago.

 

Not totally illogical as Smith was with ESPN when Sammy Sosa was with the Cubs so he might have some connections or something.

 

http://www.adweek.com/tvspy/wfld-moves-morning-anchor-to-sports/175943

 

 

Good. He wasn't given much to do after 6A aside from reading the headlines at 9A. Hopefully this move works out for him and they don't drop him when his contract is up in 2018. It will be interesting to see how they use him and Evan going forward.

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Him Evan and a Lou?

 

We already know Lou is #1, but it's not clear however who is #2. Will George anchor @ Noon & report for 5P & 9P? Will he take over Friday/Saturday anchoring duties from Evan? Does Evan then focus almost exclusively on reporting? It's been quite some time since they have had 3 full-time sportscasters, so it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

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  • 1 month later...

To me, this isn't the story of Fox 32's ascension, but the fall of WGN. A combination of independence on 9, and a few good lead-ins on Fox makes for bad news for Chicago's Very Own, but it really goes beyond that. Granted, it's early, but WGN's primetime schedule isn't getting any better as the baseball season ends. But again, not that's not necessarily their biggest problem. I'm going to suggest something I never thought I'd ever say...Frankly, one could make the legitimate argument that Fox is putting out the superior product at 9pm right now, and that's why WGN needs to be afraid. Sure, there are those annoying Fox-y things that will never go away, but I can't help but think that viewer fatigue is finally setting in on WGN.

 

Instead of trying something unique with the well-deserved right, the expansion to 10 o'clock just dragged down the quality of the 9, robbing segments and features from the big show to feed the baby, moving around some longtime fixtures (i.e. sports, shifting from the end of the hour to 9:40), and filling in the gaps with more Skilling and useless filler. The last 10-15 minutes of the 9 o'clock news are a virtual throwaway. To a broader extent, opting for a single team across all nighttime shows is what really kills it, for me. I'm not the biggest Micah Materre fan, and I generally lose any interest in watching more than a few minutes of their 3.5 hour PM on-air shift when she's on. I'm sure others feel that way about any of the 4 lead personalities. The WGN News at Nine used to be appointment television, but when I have the option to watch the same product at 4, 5, 10, or not at all, the luster fades for the flagship.

 

Heck the morning show is divided into 3 different blocks, and the midday news is comfortably formatted 2 ways. The one hour morning news adapted and thrived as it ballooned to 6 hours, and I never felt like the news at noon suffered by adding an hour at 11 (with a pit stop at 11:30). Why can't the evening shows figure that out?

 

As for WFLD, 9 o'clock is certainly attainable right now. They should focus on that, and string a few months or even a year of gains/victories together before we declare it to be more than just a fluke. They're going to need older viewers to truly get over the hump (and go against the cardinal rule of television demography), since the demo really isn't an issue. Get that together, then you can set your sights on other dayparts. Unless the proverbial bomb drops only on Bradley Place, #1 in the mornings ain't happening anytime soon. Besides, they need to jump 4 stations in the morning, not just 1.

 

I'll repost the relevant parts in the WGN thread tomorrow with a few unoriginal, familiar, but reasonable suggestions of my own.

 

And one more item for my incoherent rant...Would it kill Dan Roan to wear a gosh darn pair of real life, big boy suit pants? I seriously can't be the only person than can see his bare knees and cargo shorts through the desk. Get a new desk...and set, and then you can sit there in a thong, for all I care.

 

G'night, e'rybody.

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At some point, the suits will have to look at the Mattere/Suppelsa pairing. Maybe they should try and poach Karen Jordan from 7, and have her replace Micah.

 

I wouldn't sound the alarms just yet. There are a few things that have worked in WFLD's favor...

 

1. Stability. No on-air people have been fired or quit since the new ND started in April. He has simply found ways to better utilize the people he has which seems to be working.

 

2. Addition of the 5P newscast. I think this has rejuvenated morale and set them up to try harder to improve the product overall (whether it's at 5P, 9P, etc..).

 

3. Social media. They have really been pushing Facebook (probably harder than WMAQ pushes their app every 10 secs per newscast). Dawn live chats during the 9P, that Jake Hamilton kid is popular and the Fresco News app seems to be catching on.

 

One would imagine trying to produce 11 1\2 hrs of news daily (M-F) that's informative, engaging and original is a taxing endeavor and my guess is that it's starting to catch up to WGN.

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BREAKING: Sylvia Perez is joining Fox 32 as weekend morning anchor and special report contributor on the "surging" 9 o'clock news.

 

Feder: http://www.robertfeder.com/2016/09/26/sylvia-perez-joins-fox-32-weekend-anchor/

 

I believe that it was WFLD needed, hire a Chicago veteran to "surge" its news operation. However that could backfire because Bob Sirott and Walter Jacobson didn't help the ratings there.

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I believe that it was WFLD needed, hire a Chicago veteran to "surge" its news operation. However that could backfire because Bob Sirott and Walter Jacobson didn't help the ratings there.

 

Firing people left and right every other month, constantly changing formats/news presentation and a hosts of other things is what hurt WFLD and not Bob and Walter per se. Bob's first stint at WFLD could be considered somewhat successful, but his ego got the best of him then (and always has). Walter had a pretty decent run too (12-14 yrs.?), but honesty, anchoring was never his strong point.

 

They are in dire need of more experienced people and the hiring of Perez is hopefully just the beginning of building a more solid team of anchors/reporters. And if one day she somehow ends up taking over Dawn's spot, then so be it. I doubt anyone would be up in arms over that scenario.

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

WMAQ went a solid hour. Meh, that's okay enough. WLS, on the other hand, must've been told by the network to return for the end of the Penn State/Ohio State game, going online-only for like 15 minutes for postgame. They gave the football viewers a ton of warning to switch to 7.2, but then brought it back to 7.1, leaving the game on 2 channels (plus ESPN3), and giving the Cubs fans NO OTA option. That borders on inexcusable, to me.

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