As WOFL prepares to launch its new 5 p.m. newscast in a little more than a week, it will be doing so without Assistant News Director Chris Ford. After three years, he’s leaving WOFL to become assistant news director at Tribune Co.’s CLTV cable operation in Chicago.
The Fox 35 news at 5 p.m. is set for a March 6 debut, with Amy Kaufeldt and Glenn Richards.
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.
Shawn Bartelt, director of sales for Cox’s stations in Charlotte, N.C. (WSOC and WAXN) will succeed Bill Hoffman as vice president and general manager of Orlando’s WFTV and WRDQ.
According to a press release, Bartelt joined Cox in 2000 as director of sales at WSOC and WAXN. She began her broadcasting career at WWSB in Sarasota in 1977 as a reporter on the late-night shift and left in 1978 to become a daytime reporter and weekend anchor at WMBB in Panama City. In 1979 she returned to WWSB as daytime reporter and weekend anchor. She joined Storer Cable in Sarasota as local origination manager from 1981-1986 where she coordinated and hosted local programming covering Sarasota County and then launched and managed the sales team there from 1986-1988.
In 1989, she returned to WWSB on the broadcasting side as a local account executive and was soon promoted to national sales manager. She held positions as national sales manager at Orlando’s WESH from 1990-1992, local sales manager at WTOG in Tampa from 1993-1994 and general sales manager at WPBF in West Palm from 1994-2000.
WFTV and WRDQ General Manager Bill Hoffman is leaving Orlando to become GM at Cox-owned flagship WSB in Atlanta. It was under Hoffman’s tenure that stability returned to WFTV, including the re-hiring of news director Bob Jordan and the return of Eyewitness News to ratings dominance across the board.
Hoffman will replace retiring WSB GM Greg Stone, who has been with Cox for 43 years. WSB has consistently been named as one of the top-rated ABC affiliates in the country in terms of local news audience
Hoffman joined Cox in 1979 as an account representative at TeleRep. He left in 1983 to become national sales manager at Cox-owned WPXI-TV in Pittsburgh and then left the company to serve as local and national sales manager of WCCO-TV in Minneapolis, Minn. from 1984-1990. He returned to Cox in July 1990 as office manager at TeleRep and held his position there until 1995 when he moved to WSB-TV as local sales manager.
In 1997, Hoffman transferred to WFTV in Orlando as general sales manager and was promoted to director of sales in 2000 and then vice president and general manager in 2002.
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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Orlando’s former UPN 65 is getting a new name and a new network. Get ready for My TV 65.
News Corp. announced plans Wednesday to create a new network for its Fox-owned stations that are losing UPN affiliation when that network shuts down this fall. News Corp. will launch My Network TV on Sept. 5, and WRBW will be among the O&O stations that will make up the new netlet.
According to Broadcasting and Cable, My Network TV will consist of 12 hours of original programming each week, with shows airing at 8-10 p.m. Monday through Saturday. It will launch with two hour-long dramas, English-language telenovelas from News Corp.-owned Twentieth Television. Desires will focus on two brothers on the run from the mob, while Secrets will be set in the fashion industry. Each of the soaps will run five nights a week.