Is Wendy Chioji becoming the Katie Couric of Orlando?
Tag Archives: WESH-2
Changes also in weather at WESH
Perhaps overlooked in the shakeup of WESH’s anchors are the changes taking place in the WESH WeatherPlus storm center.
The new met is Jason Brewer (right), who comes to WESH from Houston’s KPRC-NBC 2. Brewer has been doing the weekend weather at the Houston station since May 2006. Previous to that he was the chief met at KOSA in Odessa, Texas, and also worked at WTVD-ABC 11 in Raleigh-Durham, N.C.Chioji confirms WESH anchor shakeup
WESH’s Wendy Chioji confirms the station’s reassignment of its anchors, including her role as solo anchor at 6 p.m. "I’m going to have a lot of creative control. I just love that," she told the Orlando Sentinel’s Hal Boedeker about the 6 p.m. newscast. Chioji says she will have a say in the story lineup for the revamped 6 p.m. show, which will also offer longer stories and more issue reports.
WESH prepares to swap anchors
Expect a complete makeover of Channel 2′s anchor assignments shortly, according to a WESH insider. Included will be a solo anchor shift at 6 p.m. for Wendy Chioji, a return to the 11 p.m. show by Jim Payne and a more prominent evening role for morning weather guy Tony Mainolfi.
- 4-5 p.m. — Martha Sugalski and Chioji anchor
- 5-6 p.m. — Payne and Sugalski anchor
- 6-6:30 p.m. — Chioji anchors solo
- 11-11:35 p.m. — Payne and Sugalski anchor
New WESH and WFTV a.m. promos
Here are WFTV’s and WESH’s promos for their new morning newscasts on their sister stations. >> Click to watch
Morning news battle heats up today
Good morning, Orlando. You may not realize it, but you’re waking up in what has become the most competitive market for morning news in the nation — with more local news, with more national news and with plenty of surprises.
Monday morning, WESH-Channel 2 and WFTV-Channel 9 will start their early newscasts at 5 a.m. and then keep on broadcasting once their respective network morning shows go on the air at 7 o’clock. Instead of watching NBC’s Today, you can view WESH 2 News on CW 18 from 7-9 a.m. by switching over to WKCF-Channel 18. Instead of watching Good Morning America, you can tune to Eyewitness News This Morning from 7-8:30 a.m. by going to WRDQ-Channel 27.
WESH’s and WFTV’s news expansion to their sister duopoly stations sets up a local 7-9 a.m. showdown for the first time. WOFL-Fox 35 has had the 7-9 a.m. local broadcast news franchise to itself for six years since it launched its morning news in 2000. (Oh, and we can’t overlook cable’s Central Florida News 13, whose all-local newscasts do well in the mornings, too.)
WFTV was the first to announce its plans to expand its Eyewitness News franchise in the morning to sister station WRDQ. The details were revealed in early December, but the station has been planning the new morning news since July.