The Golden Age of MySpace.com

Posted on by
Reply

Following up on the item about the two WKMG reporters who posted on MySpace.com, listing themselves as 15 year olds …

Heard from several people, including one person who said he was a friend of the women, who explained this is a common practice on the MySpace site to keep some privacy.

Another agreed, "The only way to hide your profile is to change your birthday to 14 or 15. The police actually encourage it in order to protect your information. If you list your age over that then anyone can read your profile, stories, and see your friends! Most users are listed this way … duh!"

Duh, indeed! That was news to me. Anytime I see adults posing as 15 year olds, I get suspicious. But apparently that suspicion was misplaced.

Meanwhile, the MySpace pages for Jessica D’Onofrio and Jessica Sanchez now list their real ages.

Continue reading →

Jurkowski Returning to WKMG

Posted on by
Reply

Former Local 6 reporter Todd Jurkowski has been hired as Channel 6′s new weekend anchor. Jurkowski currently is the 4 p.m. anchor/reporter for his hometown NBC affiliate, WBBH in Fort Myers. He’s a Lee County native and worked at the station before he came to Orlando the first time, then returned to the station after he left O-Town.

"It’s a bit melancholy leaving the hometown, having grown up here," Jurkowski told the Fort Myers News-Press. "My long-term goal was to be the main anchor here. I couldn’t get a guarantee of that, so I had to go with something rock solid."

Jurkowski’s last day hasn’t been settled yet. In Orlando, he’ll replace Gerald Reznick, who left the anchor desk because of a vision disorder.

Continue reading →

Prank or Sweeps Story in the Making?

Posted on by
Reply

I received an e-mail late last week saying to check out two postings on the popular site MySpace.com.

The first link was to a 15-year-old girl named Jessica (top left) who lives in Orlando. The second link was to another girl named "Lady J" (top right), this one saying she is 15, lives in Orlando and "If it weren’t for Myspace I’d have no friends."

What’s interesting is the "girls" in the photos look very, very similar to WKMG reporters Jessica D’Onofrio (bottom left) and Jessica Sanchez (bottom right).

So, is this a hoax, a prank … or possibly part of a Local 6 sweeps story trying to find out if anyone will attempt to pick up these "underage" girls? You decide.

I’m totally in favor of getting scuzzballs off the street, but this sure seems to raise a lot of ethical questions about doing

Continue reading →

First on Fox! Super Sweeps Exaggeration

Posted on by
Reply

Sweeps are a time when some stations try to grab viewers by, well, stretching the truth a bit to pass off old news as "breaking news" or by labeling widely reported stories as "exclusives." Some like, Fox 35, try both — to con viewers into thinking they’re breaking an exclusive story that "you have to see!"

Monday night during 24, WOFL aired a promo for its 10 p.m. news. Anchor Shelly Ribando breathless reported, "Fox 35 makes an alarming discovery! Foreign companies taking charge of security in our nation’s ports! Tonight, on Fox 35 News at 10." Same tease with same wording ran later during Fox 35′s newscast. Remember, this is Fox 35 saying it’s making this "alarming discovery."

Continue reading →

Hijacking in Orlando? Hmmm, Maybe

Posted on by
Reply

I’m not sure if it was a terrorist group — or more likely some bored loner kid in a basement somewhere — but the RogerSimmons.com Orlando TV Talk Forum message board was hacked on Friday morning. (And when I say "hacked," basically that means they were able to overwrite some of the coding so their page showed up instead of the messages posted there.)

If you went to the site, instead of getting the message board you were greeted by a big page that said "Allahu Akbar" — which translates from Arabic as "God is Great." It also said "Islamic Warriors" were responsible for hijacking the site. Hmmm. Maybe, maybe not.

But, in reality, no harm was done. The message board was easily restored because all the data is backed up each day.

So make sure you keep posting all about Orlando TV … because if you don’t, then the terrorists have won!

Continue reading →

It’s CW Decision Time for WKCF, WRDQ

Posted on by
Reply

TVWeek reports that more than 200 TV station owners and executives received their first communications from the new CW Network on Tuesday — starting the process for affiliate selection.

In Orlando, that affiliation choice comes down to two stations:

  • WKCF-Channel 18, the current WB affiliate and one of the strongest WB stations in the nation.
  • WRDQ-Channel 27, the independent station owned by Cox and run by the stongest station in the market, WFTV.

Selection of O-Town’s CW station could come quickly, according to the letters sent out. "Affiliation materials will be sent out this week. At the same time, we will be contacting each company involved in the first wave of affiliation discussions," the letter said. "We will do what is necessary to move quickly to evaluate each market, as well as to provide each television station that wishes to participate in our evaluation process an opportunity to do so."

As they say in TV, stay tuned …

Continue reading →