NBC 10 M.I.A.

As the Phillies wrapped things up last night during the World Series -- beating the Tampa Bay Rays, local stations went on-air with "Breaking News" of the coverage of local reaction. Channels 3 and 6 went LIVE with reporters out-and-about as well as their choppers hovering over the city. Once FOX Sports were completing their coverage -- FOX29 joined 3 and 6 in covering the hoopla.
Where was channel 10? They were MISSING IN ACTION...and opted to continue business-as-usual with NBC's "Lipstick Jungle". This was a HUGE story and "NBC 10 News" dropped the ball! Yes, Channel 10 did get on-air with the usual broadcast of "My PHL-17 News at Ten" with about ten minutes of coverage.
While the city was bursting at the seams with excitement, revelry and celebration of its "everlovin' Phils", creating crowds along Broad Street not seen except for Mummers parades, Channel 10 was nowhere to be seen with LIVE coverage.
I have to wonder about the logic of the powers-that-be running that news division. This station has taken a landslide in the last several years and placed themselves in the backseat to Channel 3.
Whatever happened to the days under the Doerr regime? Those days are definately gone under Chris Blackman's lame regime, that's for sure! The station has lost its edge...its aggressiveness...and has become unwatchable.

Radar When You Need It!

The heavy rain this past Saturday made one wonder whether the World Series Game would see its first pitch! As the day wore on the rain became heavier. It was later after the rain delay when I saw John Bolaris break into FOX programming to let viewers know the back edge of the storm was slowly moving through and that radar predicted the rain would end by 9:30. Well, it wasn't exactly 9:30 but the rain ended shortly thereafter. THIS is when television weather is at its best and when all of these weather tools are important. MLB officials were watching the latest weather radar and forecasts knowing there would have to be a rain delay. Sure enough, the first pitch went off at 10:00 for another Phillies win!

BEAT to the punch

I emailed Laura Nachman to let her know she beat me to the punch on her post today about Dorothy Krysiuk at FOX-29.
The more accurate story in Krysiuk's departure from FOX 29 is that management have been pressing for her to add the 5 o'clock newscast to her daily duties. Currently, Kerri-Lee Halkett has been handling traffic on the 5 o'clock newscast. Krysiuk has resisted and made it clear she wanted no parts of a split shift and having to return in the afternoon. When push came to shove--her contract was not renewed and she chose to exit. Adios to Krysiuk! Her last day is Friday October 31st.
Krysiuk began at Channel 10 doing traffic on their morning newscast and prior to that--was a producer for Metro Networks.
According to Michael Klein's column yesterday--Jamie Schupak will temporarily fill in until a permanent replacement is decided. Schupak has been a fill-in for Bob Kelly at CBS-3 and is probably the "better of" the replacements that fill in from TrafficPulse.

NBC Philadelphia

WCAU-TV debuted their new address on the web today -- NBCPhiladelphia. The site is less cluttered and busy than was NBC10.com. According to the NY Daily News, the new NBC-launched website is intended to downplay the local station "in an effort to pursue a different breed of Web user than the ones relying on TV for news". You will notice the homepage does not include the typical station logo and talent images.
Speaking of NBC10--still awaiting the debut of their new set. As you know if you're a viewer, they've been doing their newscasts the past two months from the set of "All That & More".

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO...?

Jacqueline Boulden...who reported and anchored at FOX-29? Jacqueline was on staff at FOX from 1988 till 1999 at which point she left the "TV biz". Jacqueline's efforts now are in her own video production/graphic and web design company, "Boulden MultiMedia", in Philadelphia. Jacqueline worked upstate until 1984 at WNEP, the ABC affiliate. From there, she went on to anchor in Orlando for four years before coming to Philadelphia.
Here is a clip of her anchoring at WNEP New Years eve--1981

Look For Seacrest Here

Word from Q-102 is that Philadelphia listeners will be treated to Ryan Seacrest's radio show here anytime now. The station has been without a Program Director until recently. Now that he is in place--word is the next step is to reprogram afternoons with Seacrest in the midday. "On-Air with Ryan Seacrest" was just recently added in New York at Z-100. In Pennsylvania, Seacrest can be heard on Harrisburg's Kiss-FM and in the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area on Variety 97.7-FM.

Rob Guarino Lands in Albuquerque

Former FOX-29 meteorologist has landed at KOAT-TV, the ABC station in Albuquerque, New Mexico as weekday morning weatherguy. Guarino was let go from FOX late last year and has been off the airwaves since--except for a few fill-ins for a station in Seattle.

NBC's Weather Plus

Word from "TV Week" is that NBC has decided after four years to pull the plug on its Weather Plus network. The phase out will happen over the next two months and Weather Plus will be just a memory by years end. I'm sorry to see this happen as not only will there be job loss--but another network to go belly up. NBC's minority stake in The Weather Channel not long ago made it pretty obvious that Weather Plus would not last. This of course will make NBC 10's digital 10.2 go dark. The story is HERE.

Storm Clouds Over 10

Those storm clouds that loomed over Channel 3 have seemed to move west and have positioned themselves over Channel 10 these days.
Shortly after Vince DeMentri filed suit against CAU as well as former co-anchor Lori Delgado comes word from Michael Klein at the Philadelphia Inquirer that Delgado resigned from NBC10 effective immediately. Word is--"to spend more time with family".
As one poster put it on one of the industry boards, "Larry Mendte, CHECK; Alycia Lane, CHECK; Vince DeMentri, CHECK; Lori Delgado, CHECK". The controversy just seems to go on and on and on. A web poll on Philly.com asks who has more drama, channel 3; channel 10 or "just sick of all the drama, period"...and the masses voted channel 3, followed by "sick of the drama" with channel 10 limping in last.
The story is HERE.

KYW *WORST* TV Weatherman!

Here's a video clip from KYW back in the 80's of what HAD TO BE the *worst* weather person I've ever seen. He was Melvin Epps and not sure how long he was at KYW...but this clip is good for a laugh. Also notice the *typo* on the wording of the weather map graphic.

NBC 10 News

Look for NBC 10 to debut a new set anytime now in October as well as to turn on the High Def button--so to speak. WCAU is the last of the major stations in Philadelphia to go High Def. All of the newscasts have been done the last month from the set of "All That & More" which is nothing exciting visually. I hear the set will be "gorgeous" as I'm told and pretty high tech. The station has been on the same news set now for years so it is time for a re-do! I'm told it has been a pretty exhaustive procedure of dismantling the old set and constructing/bringing in the new set to put together. No definite debut date, though...guessing maybe October 6th or October 13th so be sure to DVR channel 10.