RogerSimmons.com Orlando TV News

Posts Tagged ‘Gavin Maliska’

Fox 35 shuffles anchor assignments

January 27th, 2009

New Fox 35 news director Gavin Maliska is starting to shake things up at WOFL.

This week he shuffled the station’s anchor lineup. Mike Dunston, who was on Fox at 5, is now the morning co-anchor with Jacquie Sosa and Heidi Hatch. Former morning anchor Tom Johnson has been moved to sports anchor. And temporarily filling in on the 5 p.m. newscast is weekend anchor and Fox 35 utilityman Keith Landry.

Johnson, who previously was a sportscaster, has been helping out in the Fox 35 sports department for awhile. Fox has been short-handed in sports for nearly a year after sportcaster Thomas Forester departed the station after an ugly incident with then-news director Bob Clinkingbeard.

Will it help improve ratings? We’ll see, but Fox 35 traditional sees a bump from American Idol — so making the change now that Idol is starting up makes sense.

No comments »

Posted in Orlando TV, WOFL-35

Tags: Gavin Maliska Heidi Hatch Jacquie Sosa Keith Landry Mike Dunston WOFL-35

Cabrera leaves WESH, Garofalo and Longo come to town

December 30th, 2008

It’s been a good, long while since I’ve blogged about anything. Buy my resolution for 2009 is to write more — so I’m getting an early start. Here’s some of the stuff that’s been going on recently in O-Town’s TV Land …

Meteorologist Ivan Cabrera has left WESH. Cabrera’s agent, Rob Jordan, told Sentinel TV Guy Hal Boedeker, “He signed a confidentiality agreement and is not commenting. It was all very amicable.” According to Boedeker, WESH space reporter Dan Billow — who has a meteorology degree — may be helping out with the weather now that Channel 2 is down to just four mets. Cabrera had been with WESH since May 2006, but what’s next for him? Well, he is doing voiceover work. He has a Web site where you can hear some of his samples.

Is Bob Frier getting pushed out at WKMG? We hope not, but it sure looks suspicious over at Local 6. The station has brought in Mike Garofalo from KOAT in Albuquerque to anchor the 4 and 6 p.m. newscasts with Jacqueline London. Frier will now co-anchor the 5 and 11 p.m. shows with London, and Garofalo will report for the 11 p.m. show. There is an O-Town connection with Garofalo. Back in New Mexico, working with Garofalo at KOAT was former WOFL-Fox 35 anchor Shelly Ribando.

Do you realize that as we head into 2009, the only news director who started 2008 with an O-Town station and is finishing the year is WFTV’s Bob Jordan? Bob Longo at WESH is the newest ND in town, coming from WTAE in Pittsburgh to replace Barb Maushard, who took a corporate job with Hearst-Argyle. WOFL-Fox 35 brought in Gavin Maliska in November to replace Bob Clinkingbeard, and in February WKMG hired Steve Hyvonen from WEWS in Cleveland in replace Susan Forbes.

No comments »

Posted in Orlando TV, WESH-2, WFTV-9, WKMG-6, WOFL-35

Tags: Barb Maushard Bob Friet Bob Jordan Bob Longo Dan Billow Gavin Maliska Jacqueline London Mike Garofalo Steve Hyvonen Susan Forbes WESH-2 WKMG-6

Fox 35 hires Maliska as new news director

November 7th, 2008

Here’s your Friday Fast Five:

Gavin Maliska is the new news director for WOFL-Fox 35, according to NewsBlues. Maliska comes from Tribune-owned Fox affiliate WXIN in Indianapolis, where he was the ND. His Fox-heavy background includes being the deuce at WJBK in Detroit and managing editor at WFLD in Chicago. He also was managing editor for an internet sports company, and he was formerly the deputy business editor at the Chicago Sun-Times (got to like those newspaper guys!). …

Good news for Maliska is that the also-ran station he’s arriving to lead didn’t finish last in Tuesday night’s election coverage. According to Sentinel TV Guy Hal Boedeker, WFTV led the local ratings race with an 11.1 rating, followed by WESH (8 rating), CNN (7), Fox News Channel (6.7), MSNBC (4.6), WOFL (3.8) and — ouch! — WKMG (3.8). That placed Local 6 ahead of only Central Florida News 13’s 1.9 rating. …

WKMG sports anchor “Ping” — aka David Pingalore — is playing sports instead of covering it this week. He’s playing as an amateur in Disney’s Children Miracle Network Classic tournament that started Thursday. According to the Sentinel’s Josh Robbins, Ping played college golf at Jacksonville University, lettering during the 1993-94 academic year. “Just being out here on the driving range now, I feel the adrenaline,” Pingalore said before the event. “But I can only imagine Thursday. It’ll be the equivalent of six Mountain Dews.” Ping shot a 65 on the par 72 course and was tied for 51st place among the amateurs after the first round. Click here for the leaderboard. …

Don Smith is leaving WESH’s creative servics department to head West to Salt Lake City for a similar role with the ABC/CW duppoly. Smith came KHOU to WESH back in 2005, ane he helped change the station’s on-air look with some memorable campaigns. And he likes barbecue, so you know he’s a good guy. …

And finally, Andy Fisher — former general sales manager at WFTV — is retiring his post as president of Cox Television. Fisher has been with Cox for 24 years and he has been the company’s president since 2001. Cox, of course, owns Channel 9.