With the layoff of KING anchor Steve Soliz, it will be interesting to see how the late afternoon and evening shows will stack up. We already know Joyce Taylor's name is on the 5 p.m. branding and she works well with Greg Copeland on the signature 6:30 pm show following NBC Nightly News. There is speculation that more newscasts will only have solo anchors from here on in, except for the mornings.
But could Madison Wade, who does weekend nights, get some weekday double anchor action three days a week.
We shall see.
Single anchors will soon be the norm, broken up by more hubbed franchise pieces and weather. Throw in a bit of local spot news and you have a cheap formula management won’t be able to resist. Meanwhile, cord-cutting and reliance on digital formats will continue to make all this tinkering with broadcast news futile.
ReplyDeleteWayne, check out Jason Sloss on KIRO 7. Weekend anchor with Frankie doing weather. With a little work I see him as network ready. Not a spring chicken but a very solid presentation. Best I've seen since Dan Lewis and Eric Johnson! He may have already been like Brad Goode was. Of course Brad is only working for Wa Federal bank now and doing Goode for business a couple days on Komo. I really miss my old buddy Herb Weisbaum. Nobody worked harder that him!!
ReplyDeleteNo way. Hair is awful. Look not authoritative at all like Goode or even Eric Turner
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I think that is a little "too" much of a compliment if you ask me and to compare Sloss with Lewis and Johnson (even in their prime) is something of a belly laugh. I worked with all four of those men during my intern days at KOMO and all four had "network" material in them. Lewis made live breaking news look so easy and did it all without a script or a teleprompter. Johnson could easily have been the Charles Kuralt/Osgood of my generation (Millennials) with his "Eric's Heroes" segment. His writing was one of a kind and no one I know could ever come close which is why he kept winning Emmy after Emmy for Best Writing. Goode had that "one-two punch" that he could do news and business (in a context even a non-business school major student would understand), not to mention when you need a strong presence on the AM newscast as you start your day. Weisbaum was sort of like the brother to Connie Thompson as their bread-and-butter was consumer news much like David Horowitz's "Fight Back!" segment on KNBC-LA. Although their segments were not as frequent, they both became legends in their own right, particularly Thompson broke color barriers for women in television back in the 70s. Going back to Sloss, he is kind of the Theron Zahn that he can do news and sports (as he came from a sports background before Seattle and KIRO no longer has a sports department), but doesn't have command of the anchor desk, so his strength would be versatility. He could use some spit-and-polish here and out in the field, but he is not yet at the network level. If you wanted another guy that was network material here in Seattle, KING5 "Danger" Jim Forman. That's my two cents. -"Mark Felt"
DeleteIf local news is so unprofitable that they have to keep finding efficiencies, why are there so many stations producing so many hours of it? When you add in KONG, KZJO, and KUNS, we have hours and hours of repeats of the same few stories. At least KSTW had the good sense to give up. I'd rather have fewer hours of better produced news to choose from.
ReplyDeleteIt's not about news, it's about lots of inventory for commoditized programming that's cheaper than the syndie stuff.
ReplyDeleteI'll just have to agree to disagree, he's much better than Theron! Much better than most of the current anchors. Hair wise, OK. But that can be fixed. I worked for many years at KOMO as well as other outlets. Dan Lewis was by far the best anchor of his time. I liked the down home feel of Steve Raible. Favorite weathermn, Ray Ramsey and Harry Woppler. Wayne Cody and Tony Ventrella when it comes to sportcasters. Kathy Gertsen (spelling?) when it comes to women in broadcasting!
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