Category Archives: WOFL-35

No March madness: WFTV still No. 1

Posted on by
Reply

The unusual — and basically meaningless — March sweeps ended on Wednesday. To no one’s surprise, WFTV-Channel 9 was once again the Nielsen powerhouse for Central Florida.

The ratings numbers show 9′s Eyewitness News was the top choice in households and in the 25-54 demo in all the time periods. WESH 2 News was No. 2, followed by WKMG’s Local 6 News.

At 10 p.m., WOFL’s Fox 35 News nearly doubled the viewers for the WFTV-produced Eyewitness News at 10 on WRDQ-Channel 27.

Details and more numbers here from from the Orlando Sentinel’s TV Guy.

Continue reading →

Who will jump into the pool with Fox 35?

Posted on by
Reply

As you may have heard, Fox O&O stations are teaming with other stations in their markets to create a pooled news service to feed news to both stations and cut costs.

The latest examples came Wednesday when Fox announced a deal with E.W. Scripps stations to pool resouces. According to TVNewsday.com, Fox and Scripps stations in Tampa (WTVT-Fox, WFTS-ABC), Phoenix (KSAZ-Fox, KNSV-ABC) and Detroit (WJBK-Fox, WXYZ-ABC) will create local news services to pool content gathering, allowing the stations to reduce costs by not sending multiple crews to news events.

How will it work? Reports TVNewsday: “The news service management will autonomously identify the stories to be covered each day and make arrangements to collect and deliver the video back to each of the participating stations.  Each station will then decide how to use the video adding their own reporting and editorial style.”

So, the question for O-Town watchers: What station will WOFL-Fox 35 team with to start a local news service here? I’m guessing WESH-2. Why? WESH owner Hearst-Argyle and Fox both have O&O stations in five markets: Boston, Orlando, Kansas City, Milwaukee and Winston-Salem/Greensboro/High Point, N.C. WFTV owner Cox Enterprises and WKMG owner Post-Newsweek don’t have as much market overlap with Fox as H-A.

So, we’ll see what happens — but I would bet the farm Fox will be partnering with someone in O-Town in the not-too-distant future.

Continue reading →

Fox 35 shuffles anchor assignments

Posted on by
Reply

New Fox 35 news director Gavin Maliska is starting to shake things up at WOFL.

This week he shuffled the station’s anchor lineup.  Mike Dunston, who was on Fox at 5, is now the morning co-anchor with Jacquie Sosa and Heidi Hatch. Former morning anchor Tom Johnson has been moved to sports anchor. And temporarily filling in on the 5 p.m. newscast is weekend anchor and Fox 35 utilityman Keith Landry.

Johnson, who previously was a sportscaster, has been helping out in the Fox 35 sports department for awhile. Fox has been short-handed in sports for nearly a year after sportcaster Thomas Forester departed the station after an ugly incident with then-news director Bob Clinkingbeard.

Will it help improve ratings? We’ll see, but Fox 35 traditional sees a bump from American Idol — so making the change now that Idol is starting up makes sense.

Continue reading →

Cabrera leaves WESH, Garofalo and Longo come to town

Posted on by
Reply

It’s been a good, long while since I’ve blogged about anything. Buy my resolution for 2009 is to write more — so I’m getting an early start. Here’s some of the stuff that’s been going on recently in O-Town’s TV Land …

Meteorologist Ivan Cabrera has left WESH. Cabrera’s agent, Rob Jordan, told Sentinel TV Guy Hal Boedeker, “He signed a confidentiality agreement and is not commenting. It was all very amicable.” According to Boedeker, WESH space reporter Dan Billow — who has a meteorology degree — may be helping out with the weather now that Channel 2 is down to just four mets. Cabrera had been with WESH since May 2006, but what’s next for him? Well, he is doing voiceover work. He has a Web site where you can hear some of his samples.

Is Bob Frier getting pushed out at WKMG? We hope not, but it sure looks suspicious over at Local 6. The station has brought in Mike Garofalo from KOAT in Albuquerque to anchor the 4 and 6 p.m. newscasts with Jacqueline London. Frier will now co-anchor the 5 and 11 p.m. shows with London, and Garofalo will report for the 11 p.m. show. There is an O-Town connection with Garofalo. Back in New Mexico, working with Garofalo at KOAT was former WOFL-Fox 35 anchor Shelly Ribando.

Do you realize that as we head into 2009, the only news director who started 2008 with an O-Town station and is finishing the year is WFTV’s Bob Jordan? Bob Longo at WESH is the newest ND in town, coming from WTAE in Pittsburgh to replace Barb Maushard, who took a corporate job with Hearst-Argyle. WOFL-Fox 35 brought in Gavin Maliska in November to replace Bob Clinkingbeard, and in February WKMG hired Steve Hyvonen from WEWS in Cleveland in replace Susan Forbes.

 

Continue reading →

Former WKMG anchor Jacquie Sosa joining WOFL

Posted on by
Reply

Jacquie Sosa, who was paired with Mark McEwen in one of the earlier (and unsuccessful) attempts to revive WKMG’s morning news, will be back on TV in the mornings starting Thursday — the first day of the November sweeps.

Sosa is the newest co-anchor of the Fox 35 Morning News on WOFL. She’ll join a team that includes Jim Van Fleet, Heidi Hatch, Tom Johnson and Cris Martinez.

 ”I have been blessed with the opportunity to spend the

Continue reading →

Gibson to anchor World News from Orlando this week

Posted on by
Reply

Some notes to start the week …

ABC’s World News with Charles Gibson will air from Orlando on Thursday night. His visit to the Sunshine State is part of ABC’s “Battleground Bus Tour,” which will take Gibson to key areas around the country that could decide the presidential election. Other stops after Orlando, according to ABC: Valdosta, Ga., on Friday; Dayton, Ohio, on Monday, Oct. 6; Bowling Green, Ohio, on Tuesday, Oct. 7; Kalamazoo, Mich., on Wednesday, Oct. 8; Racine, Wisc., on Thursday, Oct. 9; and Davenport, Iowa, on Friday, Oct. 10. In addition to anchoring World News from Orlando, Gibson will also remain in Orlando to anchor the Vice Presidential Debate that will be taking place Thursday night in St. Louis.

More politics: Orlando’s TV stations are enjoying the political season and the infusion of cash those annoying political ads bring. According to the Orlando Sentinel, since the Aug. 26 primary, candidates and parties have spent nearly $3.5 million on O-Town’s local TV stations and Bright House cable. The Sentinel says the Democrats are outspending the Republicans locally by a 2-to-1 margin. To give you an idea of how the money piles up, a 30-second spot on WFTV’s top-rated Eyewitness News at 6 p.m. costs $1,650 — and Barack Obama has been buying 2-minute blocks for some of his ads.

Help wanted: Want to be the news director at Fox 35? Just click here. The job is the one formerly help by Bob Clinkingbeard (great name for a pirate ). He left WOFL earlier this month after about three years at the station. Jeff Zeller, assistant ND, is running the newsroom until a replacement is found.

 

Continue reading →