Call to KOMO newsroom confirms brand new main anchor Chris Nguyen is gone from station. Another reader of mine says Chris has now pulled his initial job announcement off Instagram. That did not last long at all. Can also verify that Ryan Simms is still on board there and yet another reader says his bio and pic were never on the web site??!!! Insider says the webteam has been notified to fix it. OOHH KOMO.
Wayne, I am one of those people who read your blog often and contribute my two cents, so my apologizes if my analysis sounds like an hour-long longform doc instead of a 60-second VO/SOT or 90-second PKG. I do like staying Anonymous in the same way Mark Felt was Deep Throat during the Watergate controversy. (How many those of the Millennial generation like me actually READ about this?) Now, if you ask me, "K-OH-NO" could have waited until the February book was done before releasing Nguyen. Whether management chose to buy out the remainder of his contract, it paints red paint in their books, the union (SAG AFTRA, etc.) However, in some of the newscasts, Nguyen lacked a certain kind of rapport or chemistry with Nam or Shen. My thinking is that those anchors coming from the big leagues of network TV news have some kind of inflated ego that they should say more, be on camera more, etc. Then again, those are my thoughts and thoughts alone. As for the whole Simms situation, his situation was similar with another, now former Seattle reporter, Patrick Quinn (who had done freelance GA at KIRO). I don't know the exact timing, but unless both stations did a "reportorial swap", draw straws as KOMO has a bigger talent pool than KIRO (is that station still floating?), it would seem like a cost-saving (cough,"cheap", cough) measure, rather than having their parent companies (COX and Sinclair, respectively) to spend money on a nationwide search. Unless KOMO management didn't think Simms was going to be a full-time member of the staff could be why the web team hasn't added his profile on the website. I interned at KOMO at the tail-end of the Fisher ownership, but it is sad to see such a legacy station become this fleeting shadow of its former self. This goes for KING, KIRO and FOX13 as it is tiring hearing this same darn cliche of "telling people's stories" with the flaunting selfie and what not. This is why ratings have gone down, this is why less people watch TV news when public trust instead becomes a public farce.
ReplyDeleteBack when Dan was still at KOMO, Eric and Molly did the 5pm newscast, and Dan and Mary did the 6pm. Not sure why Chris and Preston couldn't have split it up just like that. For KOMO to push Preston out after he was here for 6 years, and was certainly the next man in the anchor chair next to Molly and Mary, that is astonishing. Didn't really care for Chris, he was ok. I would rather see Steve McCarren at the anchor desk in the evenings, if I'm being honest. He is well spoken and has a great, calming influence, and does like a good laugh, like our friend, Eric Johnson. I so miss Eric, he was simply the best. And I miss his heroes....those were the days at KOMO. Forever gone. And while I'm at it, Stella needs to go. 'Nuff said.
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