Personnel Changes Coming to WESH

You’ll likely be seeing some new faces on WESH soon, but the real question is whether these new faces will be replacing any existing ones at the station.

WESH is advertising for an evening news anchor and a meteorologist on its website. The anchor might be part of Channel 2′s plan to break its evening newscasts back into 30-minute blocks. Several months ago in a staff shakeup, WESH sent 5:30 anchor Raul Martinez to weekends and decided to package the 5 p.m. newscast as an hourlong show with Jim Payne and Wendy Chioji anchoring it as well as the 6 p.m. newscast.

As for the meteorologist, WESH has not yet filled its weekend morning weather slot, previously held by Marty Stebbins. This might be it, or is there another change in the weather coming? Stay tuned …

SPEAKING OF THE WEATHER
Orlando Sentinel good guy Scott Maxwell writes today about WOFL’s Jim Van Fleet – weatherman by day, country music sensation by night. Give it a read here.

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Here’s an Anchor Idea for WESH

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.

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News That Won’t Slow You Down

Some quick hits for you today:

>> WESH starts its Olympic coverage tonight with the debut of its nightly preview show, The O-Zone. News anchor Wendy Chioji and sports director Pat Clarke host the show from Universal Orlando. It airs at 7:30 p.m.

>> In the past week, KABC in Los Angeles and WXIA in Atlanta started broadcasting their news in high definition. When do you think that will start in O-Town, and who will be the first? I would place my bet on WFTV.

>> Comings and goins at WFTV: Reporter Carl Willis has left to join KPRC in Houston. David Ham from WGGB in Springfield, Mass., and Tim Wetzel from WINK in Fort Myers join Channel 9 as reporters.

>> Can’t get enough Daily Buzz? Sure, there’s the three-hour show live on WB18 each morning, and the 24-hours-a-day replay on WB 18′s digital subchannel. But is that really enough? If not, check out the show’s website, DailyBuzz.tv, for video offerings including "Fast Casts" and "Behind the Scenes." It’s pretty entertaining.

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