Tag Archives: WESH-2

Recent RogerSimmons.com Orlando TV News reports involving WESH-Channel 2, the NBC affiliate for Central Florida. The station calls its newscasts WESH 2 News.

Hurricane Irene: Orlando TV’s connection

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Former WESH anchor Tom Schaad (right) anchors storm coverage on WAVY-10 in Norfolk.

A couple of notes from a weekend of TV news dominated by Hurricane Irene…

HLN spent Saturday showing coverage from affiliate stations along the East Coast, including Norfolk’s WAVY-NBC 10. On the desk there was former WESH 2 anchor Tom Schaad — a veteran of Orlando’s hurricane-filled season of 2004.

Meanwhile on Sunday, WFTV News Director Bob Jordan – a man who doesn’t hesitate to speak his mind – was busy on Twitter critiquing the New York-centric, doom-and-gloom storm coverage. Some samples of his entertaining tweets:

  • Watching network coverage of the (marginal) hurricane. All I can say is, “Oh, the hyperbole.”
  • In 2004, 5 named storms hit FL. 3 of them (Charley, Frances & Jean) had winds in excess of 115MPH. Sorry NYC, your storm is puny.
  • Some of these network reporters (networks shall remain unnamed) look downright foolish.
  • ABC Reporter informs us that winds are about 20 miles per hour at his location. That’s no typo. TWENTY miles per hour.
  • GMA anchor open at 9A references “MONSTER hurricane.” This is not, has not been and will not be a Monster hurricane. It is a tropical storm.
  • WFTV had more boots on the ground covering the ’04 hurricanes than ABC News does covering this “monster hurricane.”
  • Not much evidence of social media on ABC this morning. They are behind the curve.
  • At 11AM, ABC graphics and copy still refer to Irene as a “hurricane.” This is beyond hype, this is deliberate misinformation.

WESH reporter gets a surprise from Hurricane Irene

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WESH reporter Dan Billow gets an unexpected visit from Hurricane Irene.

As Hurricane Irene passed by Central Florida, Orlando’s TV news crews were camped out along to coast to watch waves and report on beach erosion. WESH 2 reporter/meteorologist Dan Billow got an up-close-and-personal interaction with Irene — as he was drenched by a wave on Satellite Beach moments before a live shot.  He wasn’t injured — well, except for perhaps his pride as his crew broke out laughing at Billow’s misfortune. Click here to see the video on YouTube.com.

 

Blast from the past: It’s Mike Douglas on WESH

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Blast from the Past features an icon of TV talk shows, Mike Douglas.

This ad from November 1965 touts Douglas’ show on WESH-Channel 2 as a “merry go round of mirth and madness.” I vaguely remember the Mike Douglas Show, and not sure I would use the words “mirth” and “madness” to describe it. But hey, I was only 9 months old when this ad appeared.

Blast from the past: WDBO-6 ad from 1975

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Blast from the Past continues with a bit of history in this classic advertisment.

The date was June 14, 1973. You would think having an embattled President Richard Nixon in town give the commencement address at UCF (then known as Florida Technological University) would be the top story on Orlando TV, but it wasn’t.

Tragedy struck in Central Florida. Two workers were killed when a 1,500-foot transmission tower — the tallest structure in Florida at the time — came crashing down in Bithlo. The tower included transmitters for Channels 6, 9 and 24 plus radio stations WDBO-92.3 FM and WDIZ-100.3 FM. The accident would have a profound impact on Central Florida media.

WFTV was off the air for several weeks after the accident. WDBO-TV was able to use an old backup tower, but with a greatly reduced transmission. Neither station would return to full power until more than two years. In the meanwhile, WESH-2 — with its transmitter in Orange City — became the dominant (and only full-power) station.

Here’s the advertisement from Channel 6 in November 1975 announcing that it was back to full power on a new TV tower.

 

WESH’s Me-TV part of diginet expansion

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Just a few short weeks ago, Orlando TV viewers were given the chance to view one of the newest “diginets” — Memorable Entertainment Television, or Me-TV for short.

Me-TV, which replaced WeatherPlus on WESH’s 2.2 digital subchannel, offers classic sitcoms and dramas from the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. I had seen Me-TV previously in Chicago and liked the shows, and I am finding myself watching it a lot during prime time now.

Since indulging me wasn’t the reason, why did WESH drop WeatherPlus for Me-TV? It has to do with revenue. TV stations across the nation are looking for ways to cash in with more programming on their digital channels — and for many the solution is to air programming from new start-up digital networks, or digitnets.

TVNewsCheck.com has a great article about digitnets, and am I surprised to see that Orlando TV actually has a large number of the available networks, but there are a lot of others out there. Check this list to see what’s available for digital channels.