Tag Archives: News 13

Hurricane Charley anniversary telethon Thursday

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Credit: Orlando Weekly

Courtesy Orlando Weekly

WKMG broadcast fascinating recollections of Hurricane Charley — and the other storms of 2004 — on Wednesday night. Reporter Donald Forbes had a particulary moving tale of riding out the storm in Port Charlotte crouched next to a wall, finally reaching the safety of the station’s satellite truck only after the storm’s eye arrived with an eerie orange glow.

A reminder that on Thursday — the fifth anniversary of Charley — WKMG-Local 6, WOFL-Fox 35 and Central Florida News 13 are teaming up for a daylong telethon to benefit the Red Cross. The stations will be providing coverage of the telethon, which runs from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. To donate, you can call 1-888-288-9279.

Finally, I couldn’t let the Charley anniversary pass without another look at one of my favorite Orlando Weekly cartoons from 2004. Tom Terry and Tom Sorrells became the most popular people in Central Florida for their endless hours of on-air work during Charley, Frances and Jeanne — but, no offense guys, we don’t ever want to see that much of you two again!

Hurricane Charley: Orlando stations remember anniversary with special, Red Cross telethon

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hurricanecharleyThursday will mark the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Charley’s surprising and destructive visit to Orlando.

Orlando’s TV stations performed a great public service on Aug. 13, 2004 — dismissing the official National Hurricane Center track for the storm and correctly predicting the hurricane was headed to Orlando, not to Tampa. The stations gave residents extra time to prepare for the storm — but no one could have known it would be a hurricane drill that would have to be repeated two more times during our relentless summer of storms.

Area stations are marking the anniversary in different ways. WKMG-Local 6 — which lost power during Hurricane Charley and remained on the air only by using a generator from one of its live trucks — will air a one-hour special Wednesday that recalls not only Charley but the other storms of 2004. “Charley, Frances & Jeanne: Five Years Later” will air at 8 p.m. Wednesday.

WKMG is joining WOFL-Fox 35 and Central Florida News 13 in hosting a daylong telethon, beginning at 5 a.m. Thursday. Money collected will go to the American Red Cross — which provided relief to Central Floridians during Charley, Frances and Jeanne. Read more about the telethon here.

After the jump, photos and video of Hurricane Charley’s Orlando visit

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News 13 jumps out of news-sharing pool

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ttt-cfn13It didn’t take long for Orlando’s news pool to spring a leak.

The Sentinel’s Hal Boedeker reports that Central Florida News 13 has left the news-sharing pool that also included WKMG-Local 6 and WOFL-Fox 35.  “I don’t think it’s as beneficial to our organization as we hoped,” News 13 GM Robin Smythe told Boedeker. “We’re stepping away from it on a daily basis. The experiment is going extremely well. Everyone is playing well with each other. We have a different deadline structure from the traditional newscasts. Our story coverage needs are different, the timing is different.”

The news-sharing agreement — in which News 13, Local 6 and Fox 35 shared video of certain news events — started less than a month ago. It mirrored news sharing deals that have been popping up in other markets across the nation.

WKMG GM Skip Valet told Boedeker the pool will continue with Local 6 and Fox 35. “For now, it’s the two of us,” Valet said. “It’s going fine. Robin wasn’t specific about what didn’t work for her. WOFL and WKMG are pleased with how it’s working out.”

Local 6, Fox 35 and News 13 start pooling coverage as experiment

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Orlando’s TV news departments have jumped into the pool — hoping to save a splash of cash.

Following a national trend, the newsrooms at WKMG-Local 6, WOFL-Fox 35 and Central Florida News 13 have startinged pooling their video on certain assignments. NewsBlues.com reports that the experiment began Tuesday, and it involves assignment managers at the three stations determining stories they can share video on. Then, the stories will be fed via FTP to the other stations at 11:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. In theory, the deal saves stations money — instead of each sending a crew to cover a news conference, only one crew will go and share the video with the others. (You save money because you need fewer crews; or in the case of Orlando’s stations — you can cover more news because you have already have fewer feet on the street because of staff reductions.)

Interesting that the big dogs in town — top-rated WFTV-Channel 9 and No.2 WESH-2 – are not participating. Also intersting will be seeing how long this experiment will last in our ultra-competitive market.

Just last week, a similar pool agreement among several Atlanta stations started falling apart when CBS affiliate WGCL pulled out of the month-old agreement. WGCL thought the pool agreement was slow to respond to breaking news (and we have none of the around here, right?). Read more about the Atlanta situation here.


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Longo lands at Central Florida News 13

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Some quick hits to start your week:

  • Nice to see reporter Adam Longo bounce back from WKMG’s downsizing. He’s got a gig with Central Florida News 13. His bio on the CFNews13.com Web site says he’s weekend anchor, although I spotted him doing live shots on Friday when a busload of tourists stopped at Celebration hospital to get checked for flu-like symptoms. I know Adam hasn’t been at CFN 13 that long, but could they at least grab a photo for his bio? …
  • Speaking of Central Florida News 13, while Longo’s bio has been added, the one for Melissa Crabtree has gone missing. Anyone seen her? …
  • Are you a fan of NBC’s smart and witty sitcom, 30 Rock? If so, good news. Fox and Tribune Co. announced a deal last week to air reruns of the Tina Fey show on their stations — and that includes WOFL-Fox 35 and WRBW-MyTV 65. The shows will air in the 2011 season. Read more here … Continue reading →

News 13, WESH pick up awards

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Central Florida News 13 took home three awards from the Florida Associated Press Broadcasters competition on Saturday. Chief met Jeff Day won first place for best weathercast for his coverage of Tropical Storm Fay. Scott Fais won second place for best short light feature about Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon. And the station took second place for best Web site. If there were other O-Town winners, just let me know. The AP has not updated its Web site with the results of the awards.

Meanwhile, WESH reporter Greg Fox recently picked his his second consecutive USC Annenberg Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Television Political Journalism in the category of Individual Achievement at a Local Station. According to the judges, Fox was recognized for excellent journalistic analysis and helping voters evaluate what candidates said in a ‘Truth Test’ series. It was also WESH parent Hearst-Argyle’s fifth consecutive Cronkite award.

And, Hearst-Argyle also won a Peabody Award from the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism for its Commitment 2008 election and issues series. The honor recognizes the work of WESH as well as other Hearst-Argyle stations in covering the 2008 elections. It was H-A’s fifth Peabody in the past seven years — included in that group was the 2003 award WESH won for the “Building Homes, Building Problems” series looking at Florida’s homebuilding practices. The Peabody awards will be presented on May 18 in New York.

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