Gary Papa Passes On...

I join the fans, viewers and the 6ABC family in mourning the passing of Gary Papa. My thoughts and prayers are with his wife and two sons. Channel 6 devoted their entire 90 minutes (5 p.m.-6:32 p.m.) to Gary's life and time at Channel 6. You can read about his life here

At the close of the 6 p.m. "Action News" they showed a 2 minute video montage of Gary played to the song "The Time of My Life" which was quite touching.

You can watch the announcing of Gary's death, by Jim Gardner,here.

Rest in peace Gary!

Phone Rings Live On-Air

Near the close of PVI's 6 p.m. Action News tonight (Mon 6/15th)--Adam Joseph (filling in for Dave Roberts) was throwing it back to Jim Gardner as he sat back down at the anchor desk detailing thunderstorms coming into Center City from neighboring Montgomery county. As Adam said "a small storm, but a POTENT storm--with the possibility that..." at which point the phone behind Gardner began to ring. Adam acknowledged it by laughing and saying "someone's calling us over here, who is it Jim?"
Gardner turned right around, saying "the phone is ringing!"...picked up the phone and said "HELLO?". Adam cracked up again saying "THEY HUNG UP!". Gardner then responded by saying, "running out of time here--I'm sorry!". Gardner went on to say, "first time THAT'S EVER HAPPENED!" as he squinted, smiled and shook his head in amusement. Gardner promoted the upcoming World News Tonight and as they went to commercial, Gardner picked up the phone again with Jaime Apody and Adam Joseph laughing at Gardner.
Nothing like LIVE TV, at its best!

What is up with???

...the women on-air wearing the false eye lashes? I first wrote about this in regards to channel 6's Monica Malpass. She looked ridiculous and still does, in my opinion. Yeah-yeah, I know...it's because of HD. Now, I stumble across channel 10 and Traci Davidson and weather gal Michelle Grossman are doing it now too! It looks just as bad on them and I hate to say it -- but -- Grossman looked like she might be working the corner of Broad and Spruce. Davidson is one of the more attractive young ladies on our air and simply does not need false eyelashes to "make her eyes pop". Just my opinion.

Bye-Bye John Blunt

After about 25 years John Blunt waves goodbye from channel 10 where he's been employed since 1984. At one time, Blunt was anchor of the "Live at 5" newscast and has spent the last handful of years anchoring weekend mornings at 10 and reporting three days during the week.

Bye-Bye "Wake UP News"

Laura Nachman reports this morning on the demise of CW57's "Wake UP News" anchored by Natasha Brown along with Christa Quinn and Shaun Murphy. It's unfortunate the market is losing another *local* broadcast and another alternative to news broadcasts currently being offered.
The plan is to continue CBS-3's "Eyewitness News" from 7-9 a.m. after they say goodbye on channel 3.

What's Got Me Bugged?

I'll steal the phrase from FOX-29's segment "What's Bugging You" because THIS POST is about FOX-29's "News at Ten".
On Thursday night's broadcast, May 14th--the news crew at FOX decided they should lead their newscast with the John & Kate rocky relationship story of TLC network's "John & Kate Plus 8". I find it unbelievable this would lead a local newscast when Chrysler announced the same day that close to 800 dealerships in this country would close in the next few weeks. Approximately 15 in our local area are affected.
Is this the direction FOX-29 is going? *NewsFLUFF*? It sure makes one wonder.

UPDATED: Use of Digital Feeds

Here's an UPDATE to my 4/20/09 post "Use of Digital Feeds". A new HD digital network, "Live Well HD Network" launched April 27th on the top ten ABC owned-and-operated stations in the top markets, including here in Philadelphia on WPVI-2. The new network is scheduled to debut in other markets by September of this year.
The program schedule includes six 30 thirty minute series including an interior design show, Home with Lisa Q; a healthy cooking show, Let's Dish; beauty and fashion show, Mirror/Mirror; a health and medicine show called Say Ahh ; an outdoor lifestyles program, Motion; and Advice for Life, an advice driven type program.