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Yet another long-time WCNC personality is leaving. Ira Cronin, longtime weekend sports anchor, who as of late has been serving as the weekday morning anchor, is leaving for KOAA, where he will have the same job.

 

http://charlottemediascene.blogspot.com/2015/02/wcnc-morning-host-ira-cronin-leaving.html

That sounds quite silly in my mind, since that is a HUGE market downgrade for the same job...
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The country's first black-owned TV station will be honored with a historical marker at its former studios.

 

The marker will be for WGPR-TV, which apparently also has a highly active historical society. WGPR-FM 107.5 also broadcast from the site until the Freemasons opted to LMA it out to Radio One in 2011.

 

As we should all know by now, that station was sold to CBS in 1994 and became WWJ-TV to match AM sister station Newsradio 950 WWJ.

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KDVR had a bad meltdown this morning. The audio board failed before the morning show. They ran Antenna TV from 5:00 to 6:00 a.m. instead of news. The weather and traffic talent used hard-wire mics when the news began. This didn't affect KWGN's news at all.

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That sounds quite silly in my mind, since that is a HUGE market downgrade for the same job...

 

Well if you watched WCNC, Ben Thompson was seen more frequently in the mornings and noon and he was a weekend anchor. So it seem to me that Ian contract was coming up and probably figured that his contract wasn't going to be renewed and got the hell out of dodge.

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http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/columnists/barryhorn/20150213-hot-air-george-riba-the-man-behind-8000-stories-closes-book-on-37-year-wfaa-career.ece

 

Marty Haag, the iconic longtime news director at Channel 8: “If I was ever going to build a news department at another station, I would start with George Riba.”

After 42 years in Dallas-Fort Worth TV (37+ as a sports reporter (and fill-in anchor) at WFAA), George Riba is calling it a day this week. Tonight a retrospective will air, and Friday is Riba's last day. I knew he'd been at it a while, but not that long. Happy retirement, George.

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According to Sophia Choi (WSB) Starting March 1st, GMA will be airing on Sunday mornings now from 8-9am on WSB, currently WSB shows a 4 hour block (7-11am) of local news on Sunday mornings.

 

That means there will be no local news at 8:30 a.m. on Sunday mornings in Atlanta, since FOX 5 still airs The Georgia Gang at that timeslot after Good Day Atlanta at 8:00 a.m. on Sundays.

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If anybody is looking for work, try WEVV. The Evansville CBS station was bought by Bayou City Broadcasting which says it plans to launch its newscast somewhere

in the July and September time frame. The station has listed 16 different roles to fill the launch.

 

http://www.wevv.com/jobs/news-staff

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Oh boy, this isn't good. Apparently a fight broke out at KOB between an anchor and a reporter right before yesterday's 6pm news:

 

 

According to insiders, a young reporter was being ‘counseled’ by ND Michelle Donaldson. "Whatever Donaldson said, wasn’t good enough for Joles and he added his own comments," said a source.

 

Longtime KOB Reporter Stuart Dyson tried to intervene and calm the situation down. It didn't work and word is that Joles got in Dyson's face and also the face of Photographer Joseph Lynch who jumped in to protect Dyson. Sources say punches were thrown.

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WOW~ They were in fist a cuffs at Eyewitness News 4? The article goes on to say that the news director said Joles is having a hard time fitting into the this modern day broadcasting era. Does that means you think he'll be replace soon, or when his next contract cycle comes up?

 

No idea, no clue, but Joles is their main evening anchor and he's been in the market for quite some time.

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KSHB's traffic and features reporter (and sometimes news anchor) Kacie McDonnell will join Sporting KC, a soccer franchise, to do hosting and sideline reporting. It should be noted that KMCI, which is owned by KSHB, broadcasts their games. So it's basically cross promotion for their newscasts. The article below says McDonnell will stay on the morning newscasts too so I guess she will be pulling six day work weeks during soccer season. I guess she got this job because she is locked in a contract with Scripps for a couple years and realizes she can't go anywhere anytime soon.

 

http://www.sportingkc.com/news/2015/02/sporting-kc-hires-kshb-tv-41-action-news-reporter-kacie-mcdonnell-skctvs-new-network-host

 

Also I've seen many press releases in my day but this is one of the worst. I mean they literally found an old interview of her and just copied a quote of her from it and made up another sentence. How pathetic. I've read the interview on TVSpy before, I'm not going to dig up the link, you can Google it if you care.

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KSHB's traffic and features reporter (and sometimes news anchor) Kacie McDonnell will join Sporting KC, a soccer franchise, to do hosting and sideline reporting. It should be noted that KMCI, which is owned by KSHB, broadcasts their games. So it's basically cross promotion for their newscasts. The article below says McDonnell will stay on the morning newscasts too so I guess she will be pulling six day work weeks during soccer season. I guess she got this job because she is locked in a contract with Scripps for a couple years and realizes she can't go anywhere anytime soon.

 

http://www.sportingkc.com/news/2015/02/sporting-kc-hires-kshb-tv-41-action-news-reporter-kacie-mcdonnell-skctvs-new-network-host

 

Also I've seen many press releases in my day but this is one of the worst. I mean they literally found an old interview of her and just copied a quote of her from it and made up another sentence. How pathetic. I've read the interview on TVSpy before, I'm not going to dig up the link, you can Google it if you care.

KMCI is owned by Scripps, not KSHB.
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KFMB is having a power outage currently, looks like they are on generator power at this time.

 

That would explain why they haven't posted anything on Facebook for the last four hours. Their last post was of Kyle Kraska returning to the station for a visit, the first time since being shot. What a coincidence.

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KSHB is also adding news on KMCI at 7:00 a.m. beginning in April. KSHB will rearrange its weekend news lineup as well, starting weekend news at 6:00 a.m., moving Weekend Today to 7:00, then continuing local news at 9:00 in the morning.

 

Question: how come KSHB doesn't produce the nightly 9 o'clock news on KMCI? You'd think that'd be a no-brainer but they air syndicated shows at that time...
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Question: how come KSHB doesn't produce the nightly 9 o'clock news on KMCI? You'd think that'd be a no-brainer but they air syndicated shows at that time...

KMCI dosen't air a 9PM news but did between 2000 and 2003. It got cancelled simply because it was getting trounced by WDAF. With KSMO and KCWE now having their 9PM news produced by KCTV and KMBC, respectively, KMCI really won't be able to make much headway, especially considering KSHB is having ratings struggles of its own.
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Question: how come KSHB doesn't produce the nightly 9 o'clock news on KMCI? You'd think that'd be a no-brainer but they air syndicated shows at that time...

 

They did in the early 2000s. KMBC/KCWE and KCTV/KSMO do have such newscasts which may explain why KSHB doesn't; there's an unusual amount of competition in the timeslot.

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KMCI dosen't air a 9PM news but did between 2000 and 2003. It got cancelled simply because it was getting trounced by WDAF. With KSMO and KCWE now having their 9PM news produced by KCTV and KMBC, respectively, KMCI really won't be able to make much headway, especially considering KSHB is having ratings struggles of its own.

That brings up kind of a side question: are there any Scripps stations that aren't struggling? I know KSHB has been doing ok for a bit and then it's slipped rather badly lately. KMGH wasnt doing too well last I heard... WCPO slipped.... WXYZ is in a distant third.... WEWS isn't winning... WMAR isn't... Yuck... I can't speak for WFTS or their stations in California. KNXV won something a little while back... It just doesn't look real good.
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That brings up kind of a side question: are there any Scripps stations that aren't struggling? I know KSHB has been doing ok for a bit and then it's slipped rather badly lately. KMGH wasnt doing too well last I heard... WCPO slipped.... WXYZ is in a distant third.... WEWS isn't winning... WMAR isn't... Yuck... I can't speak for WFTS or their stations in California. KNXV won something a little while back... It just doesn't look real good.

 

I'll say this about KSHB. I think they struggle because they produce an inferior news product. I don't think any of their recent hires are older than 35, and even then I think that's a stretch to say that. I think most of their recent hires have to be younger than 30. I mean I read on TVSpy the other day they just hired someone from Bakersfield, that's basically a 100 market jump. The talent this ND has hired are young and inexperienced for a mid-major market. And when you hire inexperienced, you generally get shoddier reporting. Like this. When they were doing OK it was mostly under a better management team both of who are no longer at the station.

 

And they're not hiring young because of looks. It's a side benefit but this station is doing it solely because of cost savings. Also I looked at their jobs page the other day. They STILL haven't found their replacement for Mark Clegg, no AND either, which I think has been vacant for over a year now. And they have some other major vacancies to fill. They are understaffed but sure seem to be taking their time.

 

It also doesn't help when your corporate office is dropping winning programming like Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy for crap like "The NOW". I know we all knock Sinclair but at least they show they have a lick of sense when it comes to running and programming TV stations. Sad to see the downfall of what was once one of the "gold standard" companies in journalism and winning TV stations. I am glad we don't have Scripps TV stations here (I already have to deal with a similarly subpar group, Gannett).

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