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.
After ending up as the only network broadcast station in town not to be offering wall-to-wall coverage of the Casey Anthony trial, WESH 2 will join the crowd on Wednesday.
“We took a deliberate approach and put our resources online and into newscasts,” WESH General Manager Jim Carter told the Orlando Sentinel. “The interest continues to be overwhelming. We feel with our people we can do a terrific job, a better job than others.”
WESH will move its regular programming to digital channel 2.2 when showing Casey Anthony coverage on its main channel.
Why did WESH blink? I had someone who used to be in the TV news biz explain that Casey coverage could be a game-changer in the TV ratings pecking order. Depending on what station viewers gravitate to for coverage, that decision could change their nightly TV news habits. We’ll see.
Casey Anthony coverage on all 4 major network affiliates in Central Florida.
Casey Anthony’s murder trial is easily the biggest television news event in Orlando’s history.
Each day, it seems, the local television stations keep turning their coverage up a notch. All aired the opening statements, then planned to settle into live streaming coverage that would appear mostly online. But that plan went out the window almost immediately when Casey’s father, George Anthony, was called as the state’s first witness. Just minutes after they had returned to regular programming, they were cutting in with George’s testimony. It was a sign of things to come.
WKMG-Local 6 began broadcasting the trial on its digital subchannel 6.2, but has been dropping its afternoon programming to air the trial on its main 6.1 channel.
WFTV-Channel 9 opted to start carrying coverage on its sister station, WRDQ-TV 27. But once Oprah Winfrey’s show ended, WFTV replaced it at 4 p.m. with live coverage of the trial to lead into its 5 p.m. newscast. Now, WFTV has moved all Casey coverage throughout the day over to Channel 9.1 – bumping ABC soaps for this real-life drama.
Today, WOFL-Fox 35 — which is also airing the trial on its main channel, aired a station promo touting that its “the No. 1 choice for Casey Anthony coverage” — based on Nielsen ratings. (Really, a promo for that? See for yourself below.)
But its not just Orlando stations that are obsessed with the trial. Tru TV and HLN have been adding live coverage, and HLN’s primetime shows with Dr. Drew and Joy Behar are dominated by Casey trial discussion.
If and when Casey Anthony takes the witness stand, I would not be at all surprised to see CNN, Fox News and MSNBC carry that live. The only question is when the jury finally delivers its verdict, will main networks ABC, CBS and NBC carry that live? I wouldn’t bet against it.
The other question I have is how much is this coverage costing Orlando’s stations’ pocketbooks? In addition to fees for parking their mobile “studios” across the street from the Orange County Courthouse and the Monday-Saturday staffing for trial sessions, they are losing commercial revenue during non-stop trial coverage. (I won’t even get into the online costs involved with bandwidth fees for all the streaming video folks are watching online.)
Firefighters attempt to stabilize the WESH 2 live truck before removing reporter Greg Fox and his photographer (Courtesy WKMG)
WKMG’s new 7 p.m. newscast had its first scoop Wednesday night — video of an accident involving a WESH 2 News live van stuck under Interstate 4.
According to Local 6, the Channel 2 van nearly rolled over when the live mast became stuck under the I-4 overpass on Wymore Road, near WESH’s headquarters.
In video shown on WKMG, firefighters attempted to stabilize the vehicle before safely removing WESH reporter Greg Fox and a photographer, identified as “Frank.” Neither was injured.
According to the Orlando Sentinel, “The driver said he had been on Interstate 4 and passed under another overpass successfully and did not know how the mast got into the ‘up’ position.”
The roster includes CBS News’ Byron Pitts (1986-88 at WESH), CNN’s Jessica Yellin (1998-2000 at News 13), ABC News’ Deborah Roberts (1997-90 at WFTV), CBS News’ Wyatt Andrews (1977-79 at WFTV) and Fox News’ Trace Gallagher (1993-96 at WCPX).
A couple of others I thought of who went on to bigger and better things after their Orlando TV news days: Milissa Rehberger and Bill Karins, both formerly of WOFL and now with MSNBC; Shepard Smith, formerly of WCPX and now with Fox News; Lisa Colagrossi, formerly of WKMG now with WABC; Rob Stafford, formerly of WFTV and Dateline NBC, now anchor at WMAQ Chicago; Ryan Baker, formerly of WCPX-WKMG, now sports anchor at WBBM Chicago; Stewart Scott, formerly of WESH now at ESPN; Anne Craig, formerly of WOFL now at WNYW in New York; and James Ford, formerly of WFTV now at WPIX in New York.
If you know of others, add them as a comment on this post.
Don’t worry about ringing in 2011 without having WESH 2 or CW 18 on your DirecTV hookup.
The Orlando stations’ parent, Hearst Television, reached a retransmission deal with the satellite TV provider on Thursday afternoon.
“WESH is pleased to report a new carriage agreement has been reached with DirecTV. DirecTV subscribers will continue to be able to receive WESH with no disruption of service,” read a statement on WESH.com.
Colbert Report host Stephen Colbert takes a shot at WESH for the source of its story: “An anonymous slurring woman hanging around a school at night.” Watch the segment below…
After ending up as the only network broadcast station in town not to be offering wall-to-wall coverage of the Casey Anthony trial, WESH 2 will join the crowd on Wednesday.
