Tag Archives: WOFL-35

Recent RogerSimmons.com Orlando TV News reports involving WOFL-Channel 35, the Fox affiliate for Central Florida. The station calls its newscasts Fox 35 News. WOFL is owned by Fox Broadcasting and is part of an Orlando duopoly with WRBW-Channel 65. Channel 35′s original call letters were WSWB.

Without American Idol, Fox 35 falls behind WRDQ

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WRDQ beats WOFL at 10 -- but the gap was not as large as this WRDQ graphic would make it appear on first glance

WRDQ beats WOFL at 10 -- but the gap was not as large as this WRDQ graphic would make it appear on first glance

Catching up on some Orlando TV News after taking a short blogging break…

Yes, it’s really true. For the first time since its launch in 2002, WRDQ’s 10 p.m. newscast knocked off the No. 1 early-late news in town: Fox 35 News at 10. According to a WRDQ news release, Eyewitness News at Ten won the time period with adults 25-54 Monday through Friday in the August ratings period. TV27 delivered 1,113 more adults than Fox 35, despite having a lower-rated lead-in. TV27 grew 136 percent off its Oprah rerun lead-in while WOFL lost 33 percent of its lead-in audience. “The tremendous growth Eyewitness News at Ten has shown in August is a testament to TV27′s dedication to provide viewers with a quality fast-paced newscast,” said WFTV/WRDQ GM Shawn Bartelt. “I’m excited to see this trend continue for our Eyewitness News brand.” …

And after being dethroned in July as the morning news king by WESH, WFTV was back on top in August. From 5-7 a.m., Channel 9′s Eyewitness News Daybreak pulled in 20,538 adults 25-45. WESH 2′s Sunrise was No. 2 with 14,440, followed closely by Local 6′s Morning News with 14,180 and Fox 35 Morning News with 12,250. …

WFTV won all the news time periods in August, including the iconic 6 p.m. time period where it had 49,042 adults 25-54, followed by WESH (29,152), WKMG (14,665) and WOFL (11,775) …

A new Twitter site is posting Orlando TV ratings daily.OrlandoRatings has the scoop. The numbers look legit, but analyze at your own risk.

Savannah, snake to meet Conan O’Brien

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ttt-towerFormer Orlando radio personality Savannah is scheduled to appear tonight on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien. You can see her with a really big snake.

Savannah tells Orlando Sentinel columnist Scott Maxwell that she and her son left Orlando and headed to California. As Maxwell explains, “And she snagged a job working for a ‘prehistoric’ pet seller, which led to a shot at showing off a 350-pound snake with Conan O’Brien Friday night.” Read more here.

SOME QUICK HITS: More details are out about WOFL’s expansion of its morning news to 10 a.m. — scheduled to start Sept. 14. Station GM Stan Knott told the Orlando Sentinel that the news from 8:30 to 10 a.m. will be called Good Day. Former morning anchor Amy Kaufeldt will helm Good Day and continue with her 5 p.m. anchor duties …  WESH’s 10 p.m. news on WKCF-CW 18 debuts Monday night. … Knott says that despite WESH’s move — and WFTV’s programming of its news on WRDQ-27, WOFL has no plans to add news to its sister station, WRBW-My 65. … Chris Blanton at FLNewscenter.com explains how he came across an online for Central Florida News 13 — while visiting LATimes.com. He explains why.

No charges for hoe-swinging grandma

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WESH and WOFL will not press charges against the hoe-swinging grandma who attacked their news crews earlier this week. But if some folks had their way, there would be charges filed against the news crews.

First, the stations’ points of view. “While the incident and the woman’s actions are disturbing, and in my opinion criminal, our employees have at this time decided to not pursue charges against her,” WESH News Director Bob Longo told Sentinel TV Guy Hal Boedeker. Fox 35 GM Stan Knott told Boedeker, “Obviously, the lady was very upset. Fortunately, none of our guys was hit or hurt. It’s just a good reminder to keep your head up. It’s wild.”

Boedeker reported the story on his Sentinel blog. At least 40 comments were left on the posting — with a surprising number supporting grandma. A sampling of the comments: “Maybe some of these TV people should think about knock on someone’s door and shoving a camera in their face” … “Shows the intelligence of reporters and journalist in general” … “The news crews were out of line. Lucky she only had a hoe.”

Woman attacks Orlando news crews with hoe

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WESH videographer being attacked by grandma

WESH videographer being attacked by grandma with hoe

It’s the news video everyone is still talking about: An angry grandmother attacks news crews from both WESH-2 and WOFL-Fox 35 with a garden hoe.

The incident happened on Monday when WESH reporter Gail Paschall-Brown and her videographer, along with Fox 35 reporter Holly Bristow and her videographer, visited a home in Cocoa. The news crews were there to follow up on a weekend story about two teenage girls who were found dancing at a strip club. The crews came to the home to seek comment from a relative of one of the girls.

The woman, later identified as a grandmother of one of the girls, takes one look at the television cameras and exclaims, “Don’t put that [f'ing] camera in my face!”  Grabbing her hoe, she charges at Fox 35 camera then turns her attention to WESH’s camera, swinging the garden tool. She actually strikes the WESH camera, but fortunately the videographer is not injured.

As all of this is going on, Bristow is smartly trying to get out of the way, while Pascal-Brown — got to say, the woman’s got guts — tries to reason with the unreasonable, irrate grandma. It’s very, very bizarre — and was caught on tape by the two stations.

No word on whether either station will press charges against the woman.

Here’s a link to WESH’s video of the incident.  Fox 35′s video of the attack is below. And here’s a link to WOFL’s story.

Fox 35 live cam tracks Guardian construction

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guardianHow excited is Fox 35 about getting its new $1.5 million Guardian dual pole radar? The station has set up a live cam so folks can follow along with the construction progress. The station broke ground for the Doppler tower on Aug. 5. At the time, chief meteorologist Glenn Richards said it would take about 45 days for “the most powerful radar system in Central Florida” to be operational. From the photos, looks like the foundation is finished and they’re starting to go vertical. Check it out yourself.

Hurricane Charley anniversary telethon Thursday

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Credit: Orlando Weekly

Courtesy Orlando Weekly

WKMG broadcast fascinating recollections of Hurricane Charley — and the other storms of 2004 — on Wednesday night. Reporter Donald Forbes had a particulary moving tale of riding out the storm in Port Charlotte crouched next to a wall, finally reaching the safety of the station’s satellite truck only after the storm’s eye arrived with an eerie orange glow.

A reminder that on Thursday — the fifth anniversary of Charley — WKMG-Local 6, WOFL-Fox 35 and Central Florida News 13 are teaming up for a daylong telethon to benefit the Red Cross. The stations will be providing coverage of the telethon, which runs from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. To donate, you can call 1-888-288-9279.

Finally, I couldn’t let the Charley anniversary pass without another look at one of my favorite Orlando Weekly cartoons from 2004. Tom Terry and Tom Sorrells became the most popular people in Central Florida for their endless hours of on-air work during Charley, Frances and Jeanne — but, no offense guys, we don’t ever want to see that much of you two again!