We told you yesterday about Good Morning America weatherman Sam Champion’s plans to give his forecast underwater at Epcot for Earth Day. And that’s just what he did. It’s one part cool, one part distracting. Until you have to listen to someone giving a weather forecast in scuba suit, you don’t realize how much a person has to breath when they talk. If you missed it, here’s video from ABC News.
Good Morning America’s Sam Champion was Tweeting Wednesday about his arrival in Orlando and visit to Walt Disney World’s Epcot. The ABC News morning weatherman is at the theme park for Earth Day, and he’s taking a dive in the Living Seas exhibit. (That’s a Twitpic he posted Wednesday afternoon.)
If you tune in Thursday morning on WFTV-Channel 9, you just might see Champion do the weather underwater, he tells Orlando Sentinel TV Guy Hal Boedeker.
Despite that silly gimmick, Champion said he takes the 40th anniversary of Earth Day very seriously.
“Our passion about environmentalism can come and go,” Champion told Boedeker. “You can’t be Mr. or Ms. Planet 24 hours a day, but deep down, we care about the world around us. We care about clean water, clean air, clean beaches.”
Champion calls Earth Day “a reminder to take care of the place we live — it’s like a reminder that pops up on your BlackBerry.”
Just two weeks after WESH 2 launched the first 4:30 a.m. newscast in Orlando, it already has some early, early morning competition.
With little fanfare, WOFL-Fox 35 has expanded its morning newscast, now starting at 4:30 a.m. too. The Fox O&O now produces FIVE-AND-A-HALF hours of local news each morning.
Boasting “We Own The Morning,” the station ran a promo for the expanded morning newscast during Tuesday night’s Fox 35 News at 10. Also in the promo: anchor Keith Landry, who apparently has been taken off weekends and moved to the expanded morning show. That would answer the question I posed on Sunday, wondering if Fox had changed its weekend anchors. (I guess that’s a yes.)
So, how long until WFTV’s Eyewitness News Daybreak and WKMG’s Morning News also expand to 4:30 a.m.?
Some new and familiar faces in new places on TV …
Nancy Alvarez, former member of the Problem Solvers investigations unit at WKMG-Local 6, is returning to Central Florida. She’s the new weekend anchor at WFTV, according to Sentinel TV Guy Hal Boedeker. She left Local 6 in 2007 to work at WBBH-NBC 2 in Fort Myers. …
Scott Rates, WKMG’s top news photog, is heading to WFTV-Channel 9, reports NewsBlues.com. Rates, who also reports, edits, and runs the live truck, starts at Eyewitness News next week. …
Former WFTV reporter Jamison Uhler is heading back to the Sunshine State — to become an anchor at WFTS-ABC 26 in Tampa. According to the Tampa Tribune, Uhler, 34, currently an anchor/reporter at NBC O&O WCAU-10 in Philadelphia, has been hired to co-anchor WFTS’ 5 and 11 p.m. newscasts. …
And finally, Nicole Pesecky has joined WKMG as a GA. She previously was at KCBD-NBC 11 in Lubbock, Texas.
Here’s the latest Orlando TV News …
WKMG’s much-discussed mandatory “newsroom summit” is now history … but what happened? According to some folks who were there, it wasn’t nearly as draconian as anticipated. “It was a lot of uproar over nothing,” a Local 6 staffer told the Orlando Sentinel. “It was really fun, helpful. Everyone walked out feeling better about their jobs. It was a positive thing. People left with an appreciation for what others do.” Basically, as I predicted, it was more of a corporate team-building exercise. The staff met to discuss ways to improve improve TV news, and workers switched duties to experience how others do their jobs. Did you attend and have a different view? Then email me by clicking the “Contact Us” link at the top of the page. …
Speaking of the summit, remember last week when MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann named WKMG news director Steve Hyvonen one of his “Worst Persons in the World”? Turns out there may be more of a backstory there. According to TVNewser.com, Hyvonen used to work as a news manager at MSNBC dayside in the early 2000s, but not with Olbermann. As Olbermann ended his segment by telling Local 6 staffers to write down Hyvonen’s name as a newsroom “battery drainer,” he added cryptically, “That was for the staff here.” Click here to watch the segment again. …
Switching over to Fox 35: Saturday’s Fox 35 News at 10 started about an hour late — due to Fox’s 4 p.m. baseball game going into the 20th inning! Yes, the game lasted nearly 7 hours, with the New York Mets finally beating the host St. Louis Cardinals 2-1. Imagine if the game had started in prime time? Also, I noticed that in place of usual weekend anchors Keith Landry and Talitha Vickers, WOFL had Tom Johnson and Tracy Jacim anchoring on Saturday and Sunday. Is that something new, or were they just filling in? …
Finally, former WOFL reporter Erin Logan has been fired from her anchor-reporter job at WNDU-NBC 16 in South Bend, Ind. She was dismissed after being arrested following a domestic dispute involving a former NFL player. Click here to read more from the South Bend Tribune. She was at Fox 35 in 2005-06.
Bob Opsahl
WFTV Eyewitness News anchorman Bob Ospahl opens up about his long career in Orlando in an interview with Sentinel TV Guy Hal Boedeker.
For example, has Opsahl ever considered leaving Channel 9 and Orlando for a job in a larger market?
Said Opsahl, “Like most folks in TV news, I had early visions of advancing to the so-called ‘Big Time,’ moving to larger markets, and possibly even the network someday. And I did have some offers over the years. But a few things kept me from making those moves. First, I love Orlando. It’s been home base for me since 1968. And most of my family members live here, too. Second, I wasn’t convinced that any success here would necessarily translate to another market. And third, I grew up in an Air Force family, where moving was a way of life. Many times when my Dad got transferred I would have to leave all my friends behind and start over again in another state. So, the opportunity to finally put down roots, and stay in one place was very appealing to me.
“And here’s a fun fact: When I started at Channel 9, in 1978, the Orlando market was the 43rd largest in the country. Now, it’s 19th. So, I did move to a much bigger market, and I didn’t have to leave town.”