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).

Orlando TV news history chronicled in new galleries

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Channel 9's news team in 1978

Bob Jordan never looked so young. Same with Danny Treanor.

And remember Dave Walker from CNN’s early days? Before he went to cable, he was on the anchor desk at WESH-Channel 2, reporting “Newscope” each evening.

Those are just a few of the many images you can view in three new galleries being posted on RogerSimmons.com today. We’ve spent the past several months going through thousands of pages of online archives of several area newspapers to create galleries of advertisements promoting Orlando TV news. We have compiled advertisements from the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. And we’re only getting started. So click around and take a look back at Orlando TV history.

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.

Blast from the past: Channel 9 news ad from 1969

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Blast from the Past focuses today on WFTV-Channel 9 and ABC.

This ad is from February 1969, promoting the ratings-challenged news on ABC and Channel 9. Frank Reynolds was the anchor of the “ABC Evening News.” Ray Reuster — who would later have a long career with the Daytona Beach News-Journal — was at the helm of the “Channel 9 News.” (Yep, there really was a time when there wasn’t Eyewitness News on WFTV.)

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.

 

Blast from the past: WFTV ad from 1981

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Our summertime series, Blast from the Past, continues with this ad for the Eyewitness News team that first boosted Channel 9 to news dominance in Central Florida. Here you see the promotion for the 5:30 p.m. newscast with anchors Bob Opsahl and Carole Nelson, and then the 6 o’clock team that included (from left) sports director Mike Storms, Nelson, news director/anchor Bob Jordan and weatherman Danny Treanor.

Oh, Oprah! WESH pulls ahead of WFTV at 5 p.m.

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The folks at WFTV are missing Oprah right now. In the just completed July ratings, WESH 2 News finished ahead of Channel 9′s Eyewitness News at 5 p.m. in the 25-54 demo.

For years, WFTV’s 5 o’clock news benefited from following the Oprah Winfrey Show. But Oprah’s show is over — and so is the Casey Anthony trial — creating a new early news race for viewers. According to the Orlando Sentinel,  WESH averaged 27,600 viewers at 5 p.m. to  WFTV’s 27,200 in the 25-54 demographic. WOFL’s Fox 35 News averaged 15,300 while WKMG’s Local 6 News had  8,200.

WESH also finished No. 1 in the demo at 11 p.m. Still, when using total viewers, WFTV won all newscasts.

But anytime WFTV doesn’t win a news time period, it is news.  And if you think not finishing No. 1 in the demo isn’t important to Channel 9, think again. Did you see the last-minute push WFTV rolled out — using a cash stunt to get viewers to watch the last 5 minutes of Oprah (which, leads into Eyewitness News)? If WESH remains strong at 5 p.m., look for more cash giveaways from Central Florida’s News Leader.

Read the full Orlando Sentinel story here.