Amber Eikel, the GM at Fox 13 Seattle, announced today she will be timmediately taking on duties of running the Fox O&O in Los Angeles, KTTV. It comes just as her Seattle station is expanding streaming, significantly adjusting its production of daily news to include major replayed sections, not to mention the upcoming changes in the morning news format, going to a full 5 hours straight before the summer is over. Seems like an odd time to split duties. In her memo to staff she writes: "The only reason FOX leadership believes this is possible is because Seattle is in such great shape." I would argue that it is more a major money saver for FOX at the GM level, which is happening in all of the top markets. More with less, right? Let's not try to fool the folks. Nothing is Forever, Amber (movie inside joke)! The Assistant News Director was just let go, as was one major talk talent, so ND Jake Wiederich will have extra on his plate with moving parts looming.
If Fox leadership believes that "Seattle is in such great shape" then I have to wonder what Fox might have in store for their other owned and operated stations. Will they be doing what Fox 13 has done here in recent weeks?
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, after Fox 13 dropped Assistant News Director Hatmaker, they have since dumped the Assistant News Director at WFLD in Chicago. Changes are afoot.
ReplyDeleteThis just in....Fox in Washington DC WTTG is sending its ND to be GM of Fox 2 WJBK in Detroit.
ReplyDeleteThank you for passing that bit of news along. Fox is sure rearranging the puzzle pieces on its puzzle board right now.
DeleteFox is shaking things up at the local level for sure.
ReplyDeleteCorrect me if I am wrong, but didn't FOX 13 have at one time TWO Assistant ND's?
ReplyDeleteNot aware Fox had two Asst. ND's. Maybe it was morning and evening EPs?
ReplyDeleteI think the first Assistant ND was Denise Guerrero (according to her Linkedin) as she was the Managing Editor at 13 from 2018-21 and then moved up to the Assistant ND role after that until she left a couple of years ago in 2023. I know from some of my anonymous sources that she was a tough cookie to work with both at 13 and during her decade-long run KING5, but unless she and Kelly Hatmaker seemed to have worked those roles back-to-back, management kept Hatmaker and gave Guerrero the boot. Aside from that, with all the newscasts that 13 is churning out (live or pre-taped), it will be interesting to see how the numbers reflect that when we reach the fall November book comes out. I still stand firm on the notion that news should be done LIVE.
DeleteI knew Denise when I was working with KING and she was let go as ME. Those are two different positions, in that ME is editorial, AND is administrative, and many larger stations have that model.
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