From Orlando, it’s time for some television news …
New beat for Bob
Veteran Orlando reporter Bob Kealing, who left WESH in May, has a new job starting Monday. He’ll become senior spokesman for the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office. Kealing posted on his Facebook page last week, “I’m also very happy to announce that Monday I begin my new position as Senior Public Affairs Administrator/PIO for Seminole County Sheriff Dennis Lemma. I’m honored to be the new spokesman for such a professional and progressive law enforcement agency.” …
Station deal
What’s going on with Univision in Orlando? I missed the news originally, but I recently came across an item about Univision reaching a deal with LocusPoint Networks to purchase Orlando’s WRCF-CD. It’s listed as a Class A station that identifies itself as Channel 29 but is currently broadcasting Retro TV Network programs on digital channel 35 and will be switching to channel 16 once the FCC implements its channel repacking plan. Univision also owns WOTF-Channel 43, which is a UniMas station. But here’s the kicker: Orlando’s Univision affiliate is WVEN-Channel 26, owned not by Univision but by Entravision Communications — which also runs WOTF for Univision. Is Univision planning an Orlando channel swap? Is Entravision getting ready and introducing a lot of Entravision branding during WVEN’s newscasts? Just wonderin’. …
Now hiring
With Jamie Seh’s elevation to sports director, some were speculating that WKMG might cut back on sports and not fill Seh’s old weekend position. But, Channel 6 has posted an opening for a sports reporter/anchor. “Tell great stories in a great market! WKMG-TV, Orlando, FL is looking for an expert storyteller who can work contacts and break exclusive sports stories,” Channel 6 says in its job posting. For more info, or if interested the position, click here. …
Is nws still news?
You may have seen one of several stories floating around the web last week about how the network evening news shows change their titles on some days so they won’t be counted in the Nielsen ratings. It’s a practice that’s been going on for quite awhile and is allowed by Nielsen. But, it had me wondering if that was WKMG’s motivation on July 4 to not air its regular — and usually top rated — 11 p.m. news and instead air a special edition that could be excluded from the weekly numbers.
