Tag Archives: WFTV-9

Recent RogerSimmons.com Orlando TV News reports involving WFTV-Channel 9, the ABC affiliate for Central Florida. The station calls its newscasts Eyewitness News. Channel 9′s original call letters were WLOF (We Love Orlando Florida).

WFTV: Eyewitness the news moves

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Some familiar faces are leaving and some new faces are arriving at Central Florida’s top-rated Eyewitness News. Here’s the rundown:

> Weekend evening meteorologist Arch Kennedy has been named the new chief met at WZTV-Fox 17 in Nashville. He went on air for the first time at WFTV on Aug. 13, 2004 — the day Hurricane Charley hit Central Florida. The station will fill Kennedy’s position and is currently looking for a replacement.

> Jodie Fleischer has been hired selected as a general assignment reporter by Atlanta’s WSB-ABC 2, the Cox sister station to WFTV.

> Josh Einiger is now reporting for WNBC-4 in New York. (Note: Earlier I mistakenly wrote that state Sen. Gary Siplin made Einiger a local legend by repeating "I love you Josh. I love you Josh" during an interview. The Siplin interview was with former WFTV reporter Josh Wilson, who now works for FEMA. Sorry about that.) And former weekend

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Gators championship special on WFTV

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The Florida Gators are in college basketball’s national championship game — again. WKMG-Channel 6 will air CBS’ coverage of the game against Ohio State tonight starting at 9.

 

WFTV-Channel 9 has sent a handful of people to the Georgia Dome and will air a pre-game special on the Gators tonight at 7:30. "Gators: Go for the Glory" will have sports anchors Zach Klein and Jenny Dunn — who both hosted Sunday’s Sports Night on 9 highlight show live from Atlanta.

News anchor Cynthia Demos will kick off WFTV’s Gators coverage with live reports from Atlanta this morning on Eyewitness News Daybreak.

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Thief gets into WFTV, steals from employees

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Looks like WKMG’s new "Catch A Criminal" feature could have a new subject — the guy who robbed workers at WFTV this week.

According to Channel 9′s Web site, the station’s security cameras caught the thief trying to get into a locked employee entrance around 9:45 a.m. — during regular business hours. "Then he walked around the building, past the live vans to the back, where he slipped in a side door. He walked inside and stole debit cards from five WFTV employees," the story said. Those employees later saw thousands of dollars worth of charges on their debit cards.

Police think the man may be the same person who got into the Orlando Sentinel’s building and stole from employees there. Police said almost every large office building in downtown Orlando has been targeted by thieves, who have gotten away with cash, credit cards and even computers — all the time posing as workers or visitors in the buildings.

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Stations deliver with storm coverage

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All of the area media outlets did an outstanding job with coverage of Friday’s deadly tornadoes. They alerted viewers overnight about the tornado warnings and then went wall to wall with more than 12 hours of coverage of the storms’ destruction.

Even before their regularly scheduled 5 a.m. newscasts Friday, the meteorologists at WESH, WKMG and WFTV were providing weather cut-ins before and after midnight. All those stations stayed with coverage from 5 a.m. through 6:30 p.m. WOFL-Fox 35 was also in storm-coverage mode, but returned to regular programming long before the other Big 3 did. CFN 13 also did well providing coverage during its regular 24-hour news schedule.

WESH not only pre-empted programming on Channel 2 for storm coverage, but also ran its news for hours on sister station WKCF-CW 18. Much of WESH’s coverage was also broadcast on MSNBC, and CNN was taking feeds from WESH, WFTV and WKMG. WESH and WKMG closed out Friday night with extended editions of their 11 p.m. newscasts.

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Morning news battle heats up today

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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.

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