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,…
Blast from the past: WESH, NBC ad from 1968
Blast from the Past continues with this ad for the 1968 NBC fall lineup on WESH-2. The online archives this came from are only in black and white. Too bad, since I believe the NBC peacock here was in its full color glory when this advertisement appeared in the Daytona…
Blast from the past: Prime time on WMOD-Channel 43
Blast from the Past goes back to 1986 today. That’s not that too far back, but a lot has changed since then. Take these advertisements for WMOD-Channel 43 for example. In 1982, the Melbourne-based station became the area’s second independent station — following in the footsteps of Channel 35. WMOD…
News 13 to start mornings with Marla Weech
Central Florida News 13 announced Monday that Orlando TV news veteran Marla Weech is now the anchor for Your Morning News. Weech, who has been on Orlando TV since the 1980s on channels 6 and 9, joined News 13 earlier this year. “I can’t think of a better person than…
Blast from the past: WFTV ad from 1981
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…
WESH’s Me-TV part of diginet expansion
Just a few short weeks ago, Orlando TV viewers were given the chance to view one of the newest “diginets” — Memorable Entertainment Television, or Me-TV for short. Me-TV, which replaced WeatherPlus on WESH’s 2.2 digital subchannel, offers classic sitcoms and dramas from the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. I…
Oh, Oprah! WESH pulls ahead of WFTV at 5 p.m.
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 —…
Heidi Hatch, Todd Romero, Laura Diaz find new roles
Yes, Virginia — there really is life after Orlando TV, and here are some examples to prove it. Former Fox 35 morning anchor Heidi Hatch, who left the station in June, has landed at Salt Lake City’s KUTV. She’ll be anchoring a new 4 p.m. newscast at the CBS affiliate…
Blast from the Past: WESH 2 logo from 1965
Thanks to the online archives of the Daytona Beach Morning Journal, we’ve discovered another Orlando TV station logo from long ago. Here’s one for then-Daytona Beach based WESH-2. This logo from 1965 touts the station as “Florida’s Channel 2” and incorporates the NBC “snake” logo. Based on our research, the…
Blast from the past: WOFL ad from 1979
WOFL is now quite the ratings force locally, thanks in large part to Fox. But back in 1979, WOFL was just trying to survive. Orlando’s original “independent” station, WSWB-Channel 35, signed on in 1974 but ran into money troubles and went dark just three years later. A new ownership group…