New Fox at 5 is A.M. TV in the P.M.

Posted on by
Reply

For its new Fox at 5 news that debuted Monday, WOFL promised its 5 p.m. start-up would be a different kind of newscast. It kept its word.

Solo anchor Amy Kaufeldt remains standing for the hour-long newscast. Chief meteorologist Glenn Richards is relegated to a new "backyard garden" outside Fox 35′s studios in Lake Mary. (The garden looks nice, but don’t expect any tranquility there with Glenn since the station sits next to I-4, and the drone of rush-hour traffic is noticeable in his many weather hits.)

Overall, the new newscast has that "morning show" feel, even to the point of former morning anchor Kaufeldt regularly reminding viewers of the time and temperature with traffic hits.

Continue reading →

Trying to Catch Up to the News

Posted on by
Reply

Some quick hits to bring you up to date — if you’re not there already ….

  • According to NewsBlues.com, Channel 9 weekend sports anchor Zach Klein looked up from his desk Saturday afternoon at 4:30 to see a delivery truck ripping through the East-West Expressway retaining fence and heading straight for his office at the WFTV studios on South Street. One of the station’s satellite dishes slowed the truck just 50 feet short of the news department. The truck was part of a three-vehicle accident that sent two children to the hospital.

    Continue reading →

Help Wanted Sign Out at Daily Buzz

Posted on by
Reply

The Daily Buzz is looking for a new anchor.

The Orlando-based national morning show has posted on tvjobs.com looking for someone "to sit next to our current host Andrea Jackson." Uh, isn’t that what John Brown does now?

The answer is yes. The show confirms that Brown is leaving, and the posting is for his position.

In more Buzz news, show marketing director Chris Iller is heading out West to be part of ACME’s Albuquerque duopoly. Coming in to take the Buzz’s marketing duties are Steve Bailey and Deanne Schulz. Bailey is the VP of ACME Promotions as well as the official new marketing director for the show, and Schulz handles media and affiliate relations.

Continue reading →

It’s Nearly A Clean Sweep for WFTV

Posted on by
Reply

As the dust from the February ratings period settles, it’s become clear there’s no stopping the WFTV juggernaut. Channel 9 was No. 1 in six of the seven daily newscasts, with only WKMG’s noon news preventing a clean sweep by WFTV.

The real race is for No. 2 in O-Town, and it looks like WKMG has improved to solid second-place status ahead of WESH in most news time periods.

Based on information distributed to the media by WFTV, here are some details:

Continue reading →

CW Signs Up 18 — Plus Other Stuff

Posted on by
Reply

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.

Continue reading →

Kaufeldt Moves on to Fox at 5

Posted on by
Reply

Amy Kaufeldt bid goodbye to her morning co-anchors on Fox 35 Friday. She’s moving to the new "Fox at 5" evening newscast, which begins on March 6 on WOFL.

Here’s what we know about the new newscast and what’s going to happen on WOFL’s morning show. The new 5 p.m. newscast will be split into 20-minute segments, heavy with weather first with chief met Glenn Richards. The show is being described as "family friendly" — aka, lots of soft features, I would suspect.

As for mornings, Kaufeldt said Trei Johnson is replacing her as anchor, effective Monday. Julie Kim replaces Johnson as field reporter for the morning show.

Best part about the move to the evening newscast fro Kaufeldt? She’s now on a 9 a.m.-6 p.m. work day. Pretty amazing.

Click here for Kaufeldt’s morning news goodbye

Continue reading →