KOMO News morning Holly Menino still made to look subordinate to Patrick Hussion. She might be asking "How's the smoke up there, Pat?" Ridiculous to insist on this two-shot. Does anybody in management watch this show?
Meanwhile, saw NO traffic reporting at 6 Thursday morning on KOMO. Tyrah Majors had that gig before leaving for KIRO. Has the station cut back on traffic??
Not to mention that Menino has apparently added co-anchoring duties with Steve McCarron on ARC Seattle, following Majors departure. Have seen no announcement. Still not balanced.
I got the feeling from how abruptly Majors jumped ship to KIRO that KOMO may have been caught off guard by her intent to leave. Regardless of whether this feeling is accurate or not, KOMO does need to find a new traffic reporter. With school starting well before Labor Day in many districts across the region these days, time is running out for KOMO to have someone in place in time.
ReplyDeleteAs for Menino, KOMO is really doing her a disservice with the poor camera angles they are using. She should be an equal to Hussion and McCarron on the morning team, and while I have no doubt that she is, these poor camera angles do make it appear as though she isn't.
I’m surprised any station still wastes money on a traffic anchor. Nobody who commutes gets their traffic information from television. There are so many real-time traffic apps maps on smartphones it’s a waste of time.
ReplyDeleteIt eats up a lot of time on a morning show with little effort, but I still think it has value. If you're watching, you can get a good heads up without your phone
DeleteIndeed you can. And they can provide info and context that an app might not be able to. Its also timely and relevant information that people might want to know before they hit the road.
DeleteExactly IDC. And KOMO I think can easily contract out for this with Total Traffic or whoever it is that provides the radio stations in town their traffic coverage. Years ago, IIRC, TV stations in the market were doing exactly this before they all brought their coverage in-house
DeleteConsidering most TV news viewers are likely retired… waste of time
ReplyDeleteWe miss Tyra at Komo. The station is got rid of the traffic anchor position. So don’t expect to see a job posting for this. We were told viewers are not getting their traffic from TV on a daily basis, but we still need to cover the big incidents. More work for the anchors now.
ReplyDeleteTyra was offered to stay as a reporter but declined. Rumor is Kiro made an offer Komo couldn’t compete with.
If I was KOMO, I wouldn't have tried to compete with KIRO's offer. The new ND was trying to steal someone from the competion who had designs on building her journalistic resume in addition to her Instagram modeling shots. Not a huge loss in the scheme of things, IMHO. She was never going to anchor news on the mother ship and if traffic was on the outs, let her leave.
ReplyDeleteI'd agree Wayne but to me the idea that Sinclair cutting traffic out of their morning news it would seem like they are ceding something to the competition especially as the other stations still offer that on their broadcasts. If that is the case especially as I suspect they could perhaps have worked with the radio stations' traffic provider to provide that coverage to KOMO on a contract basis, I'd call that a mistake on Sinclair's part IMO
DeleteKOMO is one of the leanest newsrooms in town, but still consistently competes and shows up. I’d say traffic is a position that isn’t a necessity in 2026, but Tyrah brought anchor fill in and ARC duties to the table that now have to be picked up by other very busy anchors and reporters. I think I’d bring in another sports anchor before traffic. Niko is trying to do as much coverage as one person as channels 5 and 13 do with 2-3 people, and at some point that’s not possible for him. KOMO and KIRO also have smaller weather teams than KING and Q.
DeleteI think a freelancer is all KOMO needs to help Niko get thru the end of baseball, the hugh season of football, and the Kraken start. After that it does become more manageable. Really a young MMJ could be an easy answer.
DeleteI agree with Rhett that KOMO cutting traffic of their morning news is a serious mistake. It will weaken their morning newscast greatly not to have regular traffic reports and a dedicated traffic reporter, especially in a market with as much traffic congestion as Seattle. Traffic is often bad here (often some of the worst traffic anywhere in the United States and North America), and it only seems to get worse with time.
DeleteAs for sports, I agree that KOMO should bring in a freelancer to help Niko cover the very busy months of sports that lie ahead. I have no doubt that he will do his best to cover as much as he can, but there is only so much that one person can do.
I'm reaching out to confirm this traffic thing.
ReplyDeleteThe last time KOMO had a dedicated traffic reporter (or two) was Ted Potter and Paul Tosch who contributed both to radio and TV. If you think traffic is that bad, you might want to know that it was far worse during the oil crisis and the Boeing bust during the 1970s. You would be lucky if there was an open gas station in your neck of the woods otherwise you would have to drive out for miles to find gas. As far as KOMO bringing in a freelancer to help out Niko, that is going to be unlikely as they had never more than three (including a photog who was primarily assigned to sports) people on staff. Either way, they already have a de-facto sports person on staff and with a fancy National Correspondent title in Chris Daniels.
ReplyDelete