Category Archives: WESH-2

Personnel Changes Coming to WESH

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You’ll likely be seeing some new faces on WESH soon, but the real question is whether these new faces will be replacing any existing ones at the station.

WESH is advertising for an evening news anchor and a meteorologist on its website. The anchor might be part of Channel 2′s plan to break its evening newscasts back into 30-minute blocks. Several months ago in a staff shakeup, WESH sent 5:30 anchor Raul Martinez to weekends and decided to package the 5 p.m. newscast as an hourlong show with Jim Payne and Wendy Chioji anchoring it as well as the 6 p.m. newscast.

As for the meteorologist, WESH has not yet filled its weekend morning weather slot, previously held by Marty Stebbins. This might be it, or is there another change in the weather coming? Stay tuned …

SPEAKING OF THE WEATHER …
Orlando Sentinel good guy Scott Maxwell writes today about WOFL’s Jim Van Fleet – weatherman by day, country music sensation by night. Give it a read here.

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Going Out of the Biz, and Going Out of Town …

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WESH Sunrise reporter Shannon FitzPatrick signed off Wednesday morning. She’s leaving the TV biz to pursue a career in real estate and marketing. (I’d like to have a dollar for every TV person who has gone into real estate, but I digress.) FitzPatrick started at WESH in 1998 and moved to the Sunrise show in 2005. Little-known trivia about FitzPatrick: She’s the niece of 1980s WESH anchor Carol Granstrom.

Meanwhile, over at WFTV, I failed to note the departure of weekend anchor Jorge Estevez. His last day on the air was March 19. He’s heading to Miami’s CBS O&O, WFOR. No word on his replacement at Channel 9, although with Cynthia Demos also off this past Saturday-Sunday, it was Greg Warmoth and Chris Egert filling in on the weekend desk.

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It’s Spring Break Time in O-Town

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Spring time: I’m taking a few days off from work this week, and I’m not alone. It’s spring break time but for many O-Town anchors. Just flipping around the dial last night, I discovered these anchors are also taking time off this week:
WFTV — Bob Opsahl, Martie Salt, Tom Terry
Fox 35 — Cale Ramaker
WESH 2 — Jim Payne
Local 6 — Bob Frier

Love is on the air: Not sure if you caught the funny story in Philly involving former WOFL morning weather guy Doug Kammerer. He was doing a live shot for NBC O&O WCAU when some young lovers started going at it behind him. Here’s the Philly Daily News’ item about it.

From big screen to computer screen: While getting the link for Doug’s bio for the above item, on his web page at WCAU — and those of other on-air talent — you can download their pictures as your computer’s wallpaper. Not sure why, but …

Going all in: The Orlando Sentinel’s Scott Maxwell has the scoop on WKMG sports anchor Lee Goldberg’s annual Celebrity Texas Hold ‘Em Tournament, benefiting Maitland’s Jewish Community Center. Wrote Maxwell, "Once the dealing started, WKMG anchor Jacqueline London was one of the first celebs out. ‘I had to be back on the air,’ she cheerfully protested. ‘Otherwise, I would’ve won it all.’ " The event raised more than $30,000.

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CW Signs Up 18 — Plus Other Stuff

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It’s been a newsy couple of days so far this week …

The new CW Network signed up its first round of affiliates on Wednesday, and among the group of five was Orlando’s WKCF-Channel 18. The future former home of the WB network will now be the place where the CW calls home in Central Florida. WKCF won out over independent WRDQ-Channel 27. I’m not sure how strong of a contender Channel 27 was for CW affiliation, but a couple of insiders said the station sure was interested. Emmis-owned WKCF is still up for sale, by the way, and CW affiliation should help those prospects. The other new netlet this fall, Fox-owned My Network TV, will end up on Fox-owned WRBW-Channel 65, currently home to UPN. Read the full story.

Marc Middleton ended a 20-something-year career at WESH on Tuesday, signing off after the noon news. Middleton came to WESH initially as its sports director back in the early 1980s. He later swapped places with then-morning anchor Bill Shaffer. As reported earlier, Middleton is teaming up with former Channel 2 anchor Andrea Coudriet in starting a media relations company.

Reynolds Wolf, former morning meteorologist at WKMG-Channel 6, is joining CNN as a new weathercaster. After leaving O-Town, Wolf was at KMOV in St. Louis. He starts Monday. Here’s more info.

Central Florida News 13 is getting a full-time Tallahassee bureau. Station owner Bright House Networks said the bureau, working out of FSU station WFSU-Channel 11 (PBS), will feed stories to CFN 13 as well as sister station Bay News 9 in Tampa. "What happens in Tallahassee on a daily basis affects all of us living in Florida," Elliott Wiser, vice president of news programming for Bright House Networks Florida Group, told the Orlando Sentinel.

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Here’s an Anchor Idea for WESH

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Go ahead and call me crazy. But what if WESH did something dramatic with its anchor line-up … like move Pat Clarke over one seat, from sports to the main anchor chair next to Wendy Chioji?

When I’ve seen Clarke and Chioji on Channel 2′s Olympic Zone broadcasts, they really seem to click and have great chemistry. And Clarke has clearly shown he can handle more air time than the couple of minutes he gets for sports nightly.

Such a move wouldn’t be unprecedented. Down in Miami, sports guy Tony Segreto was moved over to the main anchor chair at WTVJ years ago. And WKMG’s sports anchor Todd Lewis switched to morning news anchor for awhile before heading back to sports.

I doubt this Clarke move to the anchor chair will happen — and, no, I haven’t heard anything — but it just struck me as something WESH might want to consider. And, yes, I must admit that the conspiracy theorist in me thinks that maybe, just maybe, anchor Jim Payne was dispatched to Italy so Channel 2 could pair Clarke and Chioji for a two-week tryout on the Olympics Zone.

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Olympic Spirit Sinks in Orlando

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NBC’s ratings woes from its Torino Olympics coverage have been well-documented already. The ratings are expected to pick up this week with the figure skating competition, but will that be enough to ignite Olympics TV fever in Orlando?

So far, through Tuesday night’s Olympics programming, WESH-Channel 2 is getting some of the worst ratings in the state for the Torino Games. According to NBC, Orlando also ranks 37th among Nielsen’s 55 metered markets for Olympics ratings, with WESH averaging a 12.6 and 19 share.

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