Former popular KCPQ met Walter Kelley, who I believed moved to Arizona after leaving the station here, has turned up in the West Palm FL market. He posted the story:
"Big news! I'm thrilled to join WPTV as your new morning meteorologist! After 23 incredible years in Seattle, my family and I are excited to call South Florida home. I can't wait to use my atmospheric science background and severe weather experience to keep this amazing community informed and safe. From Mount St. Helens inspiring my career to forecasting Pacific Northwest storms, every experience has led me here. See you bright and early weekday mornings - ready to tackle hurricane season together! 🌪️ #WPTVFamily #SouthFloridaWeather #NewBeginnings"
The station is owned by Scripps.
Great to hear that Walter is making a return to television! WPTV is lucky to have him!
ReplyDeleteScripps is a very troubled company. Stock low, several bad stations in the group, they pre-tape newscasts with no anchors, only packages and feed it their stations. Not exactly valued.
DeleteI'm aware of Scripps' many problems, though I had been under the impression that WPTV hadn't been quite as negativley impacted as some of Scripps' other stations due to their strong ratings performance. I could be wrong about that, though.
DeleteIt's strong there but WMAR in Baltimore is a bad fourth, WKBW is the dog in Buffalo, WEWS in Cleveland has fallen back as well and their much-heralded Newsy project did not succeed. The company is much more focused on live sports.
ReplyDeleteWMAR doesn't do local newscasts on Saturdays, aside from a pre-recorded 11pm show featuring only stories from earlier in the week. That is shocking in a market the size of Baltimore! You would think that there would be at least a small audience for Saturday newscasts.
DeleteWKBW used to be one of the best local news stations in the entire country, which makes their current status quite sad.
WEWS feels like the least damaged station of the three you mentioned. But even it could be better. Airing an informerical weekdays at 12:30pm on a regular basis, as they do, may bring in money, but it makes the schedule look weak.
Its a real shame that Newsy, later Scripps News, didn't make it. From what I heard, it had been gaining viewers ahead of its shutdown/pivot to streaming. It just wasn't bringing in enough money yet. It might have if it had been given more time.
I don't blame Scripps for focusing on live sports. There is certainly a lot to be gained from doing so. But they shouldn't be putting all of their eggs into one basket.
Happy to see Kelley back doing weather. Thought as well he had gone down to AZ (and TBH was surprised he didn't find something down in Phoenix). About Scripps, what you speak of with them I am very disappointed to see Wayne. They are doing a lot with live sports but I also think another focus for them right now is the spelling bee and that, too, is I feel declining also
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