Good news for former WKMG-Local 6 anchor Mark McEwen. He’s returning to network TV.
However, it’s just for a day — next Saturday when he presents the weather on CBS’ Saturday Early Show.
“It’s very heartening to be back on TV,” McEwen told Orlando Sentinel TV Guy Hal Boedeker. “I want to show people you can overcome a stroke or anything. I got in touch with them [CBS] about by doing entertainment pieces. They came back and said, ‘How about the weather?’ I said OK. It’s a one-day fill-in.”
As you likely know, McEwen suffered a massive stroke in 2005, just a couple of months after he was named the new morning anchor for Local 6.
Since then has come lots of therapy, public appearances to raise awareness about strokes and a book he wrote about his experience, “After the Stroke: My Journey Back to Life.” He even has a website to promote the publication.
McEwen told Boedeker that while he’s “doing fine,” “I’m still kind of dealing with the aftermath of a massive stroke.”
The high-definition revolution has made it to local cable television.
Bright House Sports Network announced it is now airing local shows in HD. In a posting on its website, the channel announced, ”Bright House Sports Network is now in High Definition! See Toyota Sports Connection, Average Angler Adventures, Hooked on Fishing, high school football Game of the Week and approximately 20 college football games in HD, LIVE on channel 1147!”
So, with the sports network now in HD, what does that mean for Bright House’s local news channels — Central Florida News 13 here in Orlando and Bay News 9 in Tampa?
Perhaps Bright House decided to test out the HD technology first with the less-demanding sports channel before rolling out HD to its news channels.
It was a solid if unremarkable debut Monday for WFTV’s new Eyewitness News at 6:30 p.m. on sister station WRDQ-TV 27 — and that’s probably exactly what you want out of your first show.
The big problem for all the stations on Monday — there just wasn’t that much news on Labor Day. At 6, all the stations led with that tried-and-true fallback for Central Florida: It was raining.
But it was weather-related news that the 6:30 show kept repeating. A semi-truck jackknifed on a slick Interstate 4, closing the westbound lanes. Anchors Vanessa Welch and Josh Bronson had five reports on the accident during the 30-minute show. Other than the initial report, the only other “news” about the accident was that fuel was leaking from the truck. Still, worthy of five mentions? Maybe when nothing else is going on.
So, what’s the new 6:30 news good for? Basically, you can skip the 5, 5:30 and 6 p.m. Eyewitness News shows and get everything that’s important in the 6:30 show. Well, everything except sports — showing how that topic continues to diminish in importance for Orlando’s stations. So, if you get home late and don’t care about sports, this is the newscast for you.
I did have to chuckle at the promos for the new newscast which proclaim, “Now there’s local news at 6:30!” I’m sure that comes as a surprise to the folks over at WKMG, who have been producing their hourlong 6 p.m. news for more than a year.
Labor Day will mark the launch of WFTV’s 6:30 p.m. newscast on sister station WRDQ-TV 27. The new Eyewitness News at 6:30, anchored by Vanessa Welch and Josh Benson, will go head-to-head against WKMG-Local 6′s The 6 o’clock News with Lauren Rowe and Mike Garofalo. So Central Florida … which local newscast at 6:30 p.m. do you think will have the most viewers at the end of the month?
Local 6 has been doing news at 6:30 for more than year. Eyewitness News is Central Florida’s top-rated news, but will viewers who watch at 5, 5:30 or 6 follow the Channel 9 gang over to WRDQ at 6:30?
Remember back in April, when WFTV-Channel 9 announced that it would turn over its 9.3 digital channel to a new Hispanic station, WAWA-LP 47?
Here’s how the Orlando Sentinel reported the news: “WAWA, an affiliate of the GenTV network, will have a spot on WFTV’s digital subchannel 9.3 and will be on the air no later than June. WAWA will offer a half-hour newscast 9:30 p.m. and will hire at least seven people to start, General Manager Laura Santos said. The station also will offer news updates through the day.”
Well, here we are in September, and there’s still only a test pattern on channel 9.3. So, other than playing with the test pattern, has anything been going on with this new station?
A quick check of the Internet found a WFTV.com page for Katie Coronado. “Today, Katie is part of the WAWA-TV 47 news team where she is executive director of news, as well as anchor. The station is the Central Florida affiliate of GenTV, the newly created U.S. network of Caracol Television, one of the most well-known networks in the Spanish-speaking world. She also reports for WFTV Channel 9, Central Florida’s ABC affiliate, and the top-rated news station in the market.”
So, the station has a GM and a news director. Will it get a signal on WFTV’s channel 9.3? Just askin’.
Good news for former WKMG-Local 6 anchor Mark McEwen. He’s returning to network TV.
