The Regional Edward R. Murrow award winners have been announced and several South Florida TV stations picked up an award.
Continuing Coverage
WFOR-TV, Miami
Chief Timoney Ethics
Investigative Reporting
WTVJ-TV, Miramar, FL
A Question of Security
Newscast
WFOR-TV, Miami, FL
Four Officers Shot
News Documentary
WPTV-TV, West Palm Beach, FL
Bogus Billing Primetime Special
Spot News Coverage
WFOR-TV, Miami
Manhunt
Herald sports columnist Barry Jackson says the Dolphins are talking with WFOR to move their ancillary programming from WTVJ. WFOR currently airs the presentation games and The Tony Sparano Show could also end up there.
From the previous post about the imminent announcement of a WTVJ buyer someone left this comment:
Companies that are out:
Sunbeam (bid was too low)
Gannett (WTVJ GM said the buyer will be a company she never worked for before, so they are out)
Media General (financial trouble)
Hearst-Argyle (Company has no CEO & no money)
FOX (Pulled out)
Disney-ABC (not buying anymore TV stations)The split is still an option. While Sunbeam couldn’t afford to buy WTVJ, Post-Newsweek still could. Other possible contenders include COX and Tribune.
Jodie:
It needs to be Belo or Cox, for the sake of WTVJ, its employees and it legacy.
Several other visitors have echoed the sentiment that Cox and Belo would be the best thing to happen to WTVJ.
I’ve read a few things about Belo and it looked to me like they run their stations well. KHOU (Houston), WFAA (Dallas) and KING (Seattle) are at the top of the ratings and come off as pretty serious, newsy, stations. If they were to buy NBC6 it would be interesting to see if their approach works in the Miami/Ft. Lauderdale market
update 7/2: someone sent this Broadcasting & Cable blog post from May 28th which says Hearst-Argyle and some private equity companies were looking at WVIT in Hartford, CT which NBC put out for sale in March along with WTVJ.
In May ‘The Early Show’ surprised Maggie Rodriguez for their ‘Positively Prom Week’ segment with a performance by Gloria Estefan who appeared live from Maggie’s school ‘Our Lady of Lourdes’ in Miami.
Gloria sang a little bit of her song ‘Here We Are’ for Maggie and husband Mike.
Are they so cute or what!
Before I forget thanks to Brandon to sending the video
And here’s the whole segment from CBS News
Maggie talks about her prom
I’m told NBC6 staff have been sharing in conversations with people that they expect to know the outcome of the WTVJ sale by mid-July.
I’m thinking that one of three things will happen:
a) WTVJ is split - someone (Sunbeam?) buys the building; another company buys the station
b) The buyer is one of those investment companies. If they’re buying stations in Podunk, America why not get one of the big sharks in Florida?
c) WTVJ gets acquired by one of the bigger media companies like Media General, Belo etc., although I’d think a or b would be more likely considering how bad Media General, Gannett and the others are doing on Wall Street lately. Unless, one of them decides to pull one of those look at us and our confidence in the product type thing.
Wayne who lives in the area sent a few shots from the DTV test most of Orlando’s stations performed in sync on Wednesday evening at 7:59pm. All stations except FOX affiliated WOFL and another smaller station turned their analog channels off for about 10 seconds in a bid to inform viewers about the impending TV doom transition to digital in February of 2009.
WKMG Chief Engineer explaining DTV transition:
WESH Chief Engineer explains dtv:
WKMG tells those watching the digital channel via antenna they passed the test
Just saw this video today. It’s an ad that ran on UK’s Channel 4 on May 29th. A live ad. As in the action happening live on TV.
A dozen skydivers jumped out of an airplane and had to spell Honda by forming each letter while falling toward Earth within a 3 minute time limit. The ad is part of Honda’s UK campaign “Difficult is Worth Doing”.
So it looks like WSVN.com will be getting a new flash player that WorldNow is working on which has an option to embed videos on web sites.
Visitors will also have the ability to add the video link to Facebook, Digg and other social networking sites.
Brian Norcross is leaving WFOR to focus on new business. WFOR VP/GM Shaun McDonald:
“Bryan Norcross informed us today that due to the demands that
accompany his role with his new company, he has decided not to renew
his contract with CBS4 when it expires at the end of this month,”
Norcross teamed with former Hurricane Center director Max Mayfield to create AEN, America’s Emergency Network, which was bought in March. Bryan Norcross was named president and CEO and Mayfield the senior executive vice president of government relations.
David Bernard will now lead WFOR’s weather team. Bryan Norcross was CBS4’s chief meteorologist from 1996 until the end of July 2006 when he stepped down but remained the hurricane specialist during hurricane coverage.
Previously: Bryan Norcross and Max Mayfield Sell Warning System
Previously: Formally announced: Bryan Norcross Leaves Chief Met Job at CBS4
So RCN’s English newscast with Brian Andrews is on and the promos are ready. It July 1st. I think the newscast will be updated twice daily.
From Brian’s blog post it looks like they’ll be using the very nice FlowPlayer which has a video embedding feature.
And he’s staying in Colombia, so that’s all cleared up.
English promo
Spanish promo
English promo from newsroom
Newsroom Spanish promo
Someone by the name of BK who works at WSVN’s graphics department. Well, him and a couple other people but he posted this behind the scenes video from his day at work creating one of the gajilion transitions, bumpers, and teases seen on 7News every day.
Work With BK! from bk on Vimeo.
EcoMedia, a marketing agency which uses 50% of its ad revenue to fund environmental projects is teaming up with WFOR for a Green Schools Initiative that will launch this fall in Miami.
They’ve already worked together on a program called EcoZone for the past 4 years wich included planting more than 1,000 trees in Virginia Key, a public awareness program provided by CBS4, instalation of filters on storm drains, planting of a solar tree and lighting retrofit at Miami City Hall.
The Green Schools Intiative will use corporate sponsor revenues to fun the “greening” of a school in
Miami and also Chicago and San Francisco where EcoMedia is teaming with
other CBS-owned stations.
The WFOR-EcoMedia EcoZone program is being expanded to other cities with CBS-owned affiliates which will provide local sales support for EcoMedia’s ad platforms.
CBS and EcoMedia will also team up with David Letterman’s production company Worldwide Pants to create environmentally themed content.
Adweek: CBS, EcoMedia Extend ‘Zone’
The EcoZone Project
EcoMedia Press Release /PDF/
He Said it First: How the media would cover it
Caution! If you’re at work or prone to have your ears bleed when you hear curse words don’t listen to the following video.