Category Archives: Orlando TV

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Spotlight on top Orlando TV advertisers

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Sam Behr in 1988 commercial

They’re what you watch — or maybe don’t watch — between the news, weather and sports on Orlando TV. Either way, you can’t avoid them.

They’re the iconic commercials that dot the television landscape in Central Florida. Orlando Sentinel TV Guy Hal Boedeker takes a look at several of the local TV ad stars —  Tom Park, Sam Pak and John Morgan.

Boedeker reports: “Some advertisers can’t be missed. Toyota of Orlando does 60 to 80 commercials per month for Central Florida. Attorney Morgan has 40 spots running at any time in this TV market.”

But, for my money, the Orlando ad pitchmen Hall of Fame has to include Sam Behr, who was the spokesman for Allied Discounts Tires in the 1980s, as well as Art Grindle and, later, son Artie Grindle. Behr’s catch phrase was “Tires ain’t pretty.” The Grindles’ lines were “I want to sell you a car!” for dad, which later became “I want to sell you a van!” for Artie. Click on the videos below to see some old-school Orlando TV commercials. (And just turn on your TV for the current crop!).

>> Scroll to the 1 minute mark to see the Sam Behr commercial …

>> Scroll to the 30 second mark to see the Artie Grindle ad …

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Orlando is test market for new Fran Drescher show

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Fran Drescher Tawk ShowFran Descher — aka “The Nanny” — is taking baby steps into the talk show world right through Orlando.

“The Fran Drescher Tawk Show” premieres Friday at 11 a.m. on WOFL-Fox 35 and five other Fox owned-and-operated stations. It’s a three-week experiment to see if the show generates enough audience to warrant a national rollout, and it’s the same way Fox started the Wendy Williams Show.

MediaWeek.com reported: Drescher said her show would “cover all my passions, everything from pedicures to politics.” As a rape and cancer survivor and author of Cancer Schmancer in 2002, she’s also looking forward to “sharing my life lessons.”

The show is based in Los Angeles. Besides WOFL, the other Fox stations carrying the show are WNYW-Fox 5 in New York, KTTV-Fox 11 in L.A., WTXF-Fox 29 in Philadelphia, KMSP-Fox 9 in Minneapolis and KSAZ-Fox 10 in Phoenix.

To see the show’s website, click here.

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Blast from the Past: Channel 6′s Sunday night

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Continuing our Blast from the Past series of newspaper ads for Orlando TV stations, today we roll back the clock to 1968.

Here’s an advertisement that appeared for CBS’ Sunday night lineup on WDBO-Channel 6. “Channel 6 has the look of a winner,” was the Orlando station’s slogan — and it was likely true that the station was the top-rated one in the Orlando market that year.

What was happening that Sunday night?

According to the advertisement’s text, Lassie tries to elude a timber wolf in Alaska, while Mark trains a dog on Gentle Ben.

Here’s the description from Ed Sullivan: “Ed’s guests: Tom Jones, singer, Wayne & Shuster, comedy team, and Jimi Hendrix, recording star, with Ray Bloch’s Orchestra.”

The Smothers Brothers were welcoming Kate Smith and Jefferson Airplane, and on Mission: Impossible, Phelps and Cinnamon try to stop a dangerous adversary’s plans.

And the ad also previews Monday morning’s Merv Griffin show. The scheduled  guests were Alejandro Rey, Bill Dana, Xavier Cugart & Charo, Richard Pryor, with Arthur Treacher.

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WFTV’s sister station adds more news

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When Oprah takes her final bow, we know that in Orlando we’ll see Dr. Oz appearing in her place on WFTV. That won’t be the case at Channel 9′s Atlanta sister station, Cox flagship WSB-ABC 2.

The Atlanta station announced Tuesday that  it will add an hour of news starting at 4 p.m. the day after it airs Oprah’s final show, TVNewscheck.com reports. And the station plans on hiring 20 more employees as part of the news expansion, AJC.com reports.

“This is a big move for the station,” said Bill Hoffman, WSB VP-GM and formerly in the same positions with WFTV. “It will add more assets to our capabilities to cover the market’s important local news and give Channel 2 Action News another hour of opportunity to serve viewers with local news when they want it.”

If Dr. Oz can’t hold or improve on Oprah’s numbers locally next fall, I would expect to see Channel 9 follow the example of its big sister.

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Blast from the Past: WESH’s Cinema 2 ad

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In addition to cataloging Orlando TV history, I also collect old newspapers. Lots and lots of old newspapers. And I have many copies of the Orlando Sentinel (or, as it was known for a time, the Sentinel Star).

Over the next couple of days, I’ll post different newspaper advertisements from Orlando TV stations.

Today’s ad comes from February 1981. Back then, before Oprah, lots of stations — including WESH-Channel 2 — aired movies in the afternoon leading into their evening newscasts. Here’s WESH’s “Cinema 2″ movie stunt for the February sweeps: Sci-Fi movie week. In case you can’t read the type in the ad, here’s what it says: “Sci-Fi. Two words that mean the best science fiction around. This week! Prehistoric monsters. Atomic ants. Giant frogs. Panther-sized rats. Afternoon movies are here!”

WESH 2 movie advertisement from February 1981

WESH-Channel 2 movie advertisement from February 1981

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Another news channel for Orlando cable TV?

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Between lots of travel for business (and some for pleasure), I’m playing catchup with the latest Orlando TV news…

Interesting — and unconfirmed — rumor passed on by a tipster: Bright House may be getting ready to add its Tampa Bay news channel, Bay News 9, to its Orlando channel lineup that already includes Central Florida News 13. Stay tuned. …

Former WKMG traffic reporter Secily Wilson returned to local television screens with a splash. She and her family were on the Orlando-based Family Feud game show. She had a bit of a slip in answering a question in the Fast Money segement — and it made her a YouTube star (with more than 940,000 views so far). Sentinel TV Guy Hal Boedeker catches up with Wilson to see what she’s been doing and how she hopes to return to television beyond game shows. …

Have you noticed the changes at WOFL-Fox 35 during the November sweep? The station has rebranded its 4:30 a.m. to 10 a.m news block “Good Day,” added a news ticker to its newscasts and has seemed to be much more aggressive. Will it make a difference in the ratings? …

Speaking of Fox 35, anchor Cale Ramaker tweeted this update about a former co-anchor:  ”Had a very nice lunch with my former co-anchor Corrina Sullivan, today. Very happy with her decision to be a full-time Mom.” …

GM Jim Carter is verrrrry happy with the performance of his Orlando duopoly, WESH 2 and especially WKCF-CW18. “Absolutely. They have got it going. Our prime-time ratings [on WKCF] this year in October were up 21 percent from last year,” he told the Sentinel. Read the full Q&A with Carter here.

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