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Archived
Weekly Features
The Buzz |
 Lance
Orozco has been a part of Haleisner.com since our first
launch and we'll miss his weekly updates of what's new in the
world of broadcasting. Lance has handed the reigns over to Joy
Short. She'll now be covering our weekly feature, The Buzz,
and you can read it here. |
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May & June 2001
June 25th, 2001
ANOTHER BAY AREA CHANGE: Ed Kosowski leaves the news director's
post at KGO/San Francisco for WHDH/Boston.
Saturday night's Emmy Show celebrated excellence in Los
Angeles Television |
EMMY CONGRATS: You'll find lots of copy on the Los Angeles area
Emmys elsewhere on Hal's
Emmy page...but if you missed it...here's a few notes. Congratulations
to the crew at KTTV/FOX 11 for winning the Emmy for "Best Daytime
Newscast" for "Good Day, L.A.". KCOP/News 13 won the Emmy for
"Best Regularly Scheduled Newscast Over 35 Minutes". And, double
congrats in the category of "Best Regularly Scheduled Newscast
Under 35 Minutes"...the 11 p.m. newscasts at both KNBC and KVEA
are both Emmy winners.
LEAVING THE COAST: Delia Maldonado leaves her post as n.d. at
CBS affiliate KION/Monterey-Salinas and Fox affiliate KCBA/Salinas-Monterey
to join the Associated Press.
UNIVISION EXPANSION: The nation's biggest Spanish-language
broadcaster, and owner of KMEX/Los Angeles is buying two stations
in Puerto Rico. Univision is also taking over affiliation agreements
with two other stations there. Industry analysts say they deal
is worth about $50 million dollars. Univision will get two VHF
independent stations. The deal includes WLII/San Juan, and WSUR/Ponce.
This is the first ownership move by the L.A. based broadcaster
and network owner into Puerto Rico, which has more than 30 television
stations.
June 18th, 2001
BIG CHANGES FOR YOUNG BROADCASTING: Dennis Herzig is leaving
his News Director's post at KCAL-TV/Los Angeles. There's no
word yet from Young Broadcasting on a replacement. Meanwhile,
Mark Berryhill is leaving his job as VP/News at Young's KRON/San
Francisco. Stacy Owen has been promoted to news direcor at KRON,
the NBC station for the Bay Area which is set to become an independent
at the first of the year.
KCET in LA gets new News Director |
PUBLIC BROADCASTING DOINGS: Phillip Bruce is now news director
at KCET/Los Angeles, taking over news management duties for
Al Corral, who left to join Telemundo in L.A. Bruce has been
with KCET since 1999, as a reporter for the station's news and
public affairs show "Life And Times". Prior to KCET, Bruce was
a reporter at KTLA/Los Angeles and KHOU/Houston.
COURT TV BRANCHES OUT: Court TV's program "Hollywood At Large"
is now also airing in syndication, on KNBC/Los Angeles and WNBC/New
York. The program is hosted by former L.A. news anchor Wendy
Walsh. The program focuses on legal news involving celebrities,
and on television shows which deal with law enforcement and
court issues.
BIG ROAST RESPONSE: The Radio Television News Association
of Southern California held an old-fashioned "roast" for outgoing
Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan. KTTV's John Beard served
as Master of Ceremonies, and the "roasters" included KCAL's
Dave Bryan and RTNA President Crys Quimby. The Mayor made a
ten minute video, a la Bill Clinton's White House Christmas
party tape, taking a fun look at his future plans. (There's
speculation he may run for governor of California). Among his
quips: "Maybe you didn't know this, but the new City Charter
gives me pardon powers. I pardon the Bush twins for acting like
Democrats (Riordan is a Republican). And, I pardon Linda Breakstone
(KCBS Political Correspondent) for...well...being Linda Breakstone!"
MEL'S ON THE MOVE: Mel Karmazin is making overtures about
expanding Viacom in a big way. He says he'd love to buy NBC,
if GE would sell it. (It would take a change in FCC regulations,
even if GE wanted to sell, because it currently prevents companies
from owning two major networks. UPN, which is owned by Viacom,
isn't considered a "major network". Neither is the WB. Meanwhile,
he also says he's interested in CNN. However, AOL/Time Warner
officials say they won't sell it. CBS and ABC have both had
talks with CNN about cost-sharing agreements, for things like
foreign bureaus.
June 4th, 2001
Not content to be a "media star," Larry McCormick
has always been very active in the Los Angeles community
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HONORS FOR LARRY Larry McCormick is celebrating his 30th year
with KTLA, and many of his fellow broadcast journalists helped
him celebrate. KTLA named its news studio after him, in a ceremony
attended by people from almost every station in two. McCormick
was L.A.'s first African-American anchorman
KCOP STILL IN LIMBO The Federal Communications Commission
has put off the final review of News Corporation's bid to buy
the Chris-Craft owned television station group, including Channel
13 here in L.A. The FCC says it wants to give its three new
commissioners, who'll ultimately rule on the proposed deal,
time to full review the proposal. The proposal calls for News
Corporation, the parent of Fox, to pay $5.35 billion dollars
for the ten stations. Most of the stations are UPN affiliates.
The deal would give Fox two stations in L.A. and New York, and,
as you probably know, put KCOP's news operation in jeopardy.
The latest word is that the FCC may now act on the proposal
in July.
DONE DEAL? Telemundo officially has taken over KWHY-TV/Channel
22 from Harriscope Broadcasting, creating L.A.'s first true
TV duopoly. (KNBC and KPXN don't really count...even though
they are both jointly operated out of Burbank, GE doesn't technically
own its UHF partner). KVEA is planning to move KWHY'S news operation
to its Glendale facility later this year. A number of KWHY employees
have been pink-slipped, including two videographers, a producer,
a number of production staffers, and the station's news director.
NEW TALK DUO Feminist attorney Gloria Allred now has a prime
afternoon talkradio slot, after years of doing weekend and fill-in
work. She's now teamed with Mark Taylor from 1-3 p.m. weekdays
on KABC-AM/Los Angeles. Taylor is a longtime radio disc jockey,
most recently on L.A.'s KBIG-FM. The duo first teamed up last
summer, filling in during morning drive.
May 28th, 2001
MEDIA EXPERT DIES Steven Chaffee wrote 13 books, and more
than 100 magazine and journal articles about media. His specialty
was the role of mass media in political campaigns. The U.C.
Santa Barbara professor defended the role of televised political
conventions, saying that despite skeptical reporters and staged
events, they still helped to educate the public on the politcal
process. Chaffee taught at Stanford from 1981 to 1999. After
retiring, he moved to Santa Barbara, were he taught at UCSB
until his death May 15th from a heart problem. Chaffee was 65
years old.
Andrew (left) & Karel (right) were anticipating
their return to the LA airwaves |
TALK SHOW HOST DIES Part of the first openly gay radio talk
show duo on commerical radio in Los Angeles died unexpectedly.
Andrew Howard was half of KFI-AM's "Karel and Andrew" radio
show, with Karel Bouley. Their show ran weeknights on KFI until
several weeks ago, when it was pulled as part of a reshuffling
of programing involving KFI and sister station KLAC. The duo
was still under contract, and programmers say they were planning
to return the team to the airwaves at one of the Clear Channel
stations. "Karel and Andrew" had been with KFI for two years.
Howard died from a pulmonary embolism. He was 34 years old.
END OF AN ERA The closing of the Pacific Coast Stock Exchange's
trading floor in Los Angeles also marks the end of a broadcast
era. That trading floor has long been the home of broadcast
business reporters for KNX and KABC...people like Jim Newman
and Charles Lazlo (not to forget longtime KNX business reporter
Jere Laird). Owners of the exchange closed its L.A. and San
Francisco trading floors in favor of an electronic trading format.
UNIVISION DEAL GOES THROUGH Univision, the owner of KMEX-TV
in Los Angeles, received final approval from the Federal Communications
Commission to complete its purchase of the USA Networks television
station group. That's the station group run by Barry Diller.
At one point, Diller had planned to turn the chain of major
market UHF stations into local news and programming outlets,
and had the format up and running at WAMI-TV in Miami. His L.A.
station (actually, licensed to Ontario) never got a chance to
dump its Home Shopping Network programming to join in the local
programming experiment. Univision is planning use the stations
to start its second Spanish-language network in the U.S. Telemundo
isn't sitting still in L.A., with its purchase of highly successful
Spanish-language independent KWHY-TV (Channel 22).
May 20th, 2001
MICHAEL JACKSON IS BACK No, we're not talking about the pop
music star! Veteran radio talk show host Michael Jackson is
back on the L.A. airwaves. Radio fans know he was a longtime
midday host on KABC-AM. After a big shakeup, he moved to KRLA
1110, when it switched to a talk format about two years ago.
However, because of the CBS/Viacom merger, the new company had
to sell one of its radio stations...and KRLA was out. (Disney/ABC
bought it, and it's now KSPN-AM, carrying ESPN Radio). So, where's
Michael? He's at Clear Channel's KLAC-AM; on from 10 a.m.-2
p.m., followed by syndicated hosts Dr. Dean Edell and Clark
Howard. As for news...so far it's "news in the can" from the
Orange County-based Airborne news and traffic service. The station
is still airing a mixture of talk, sports, and music.
BIG PROMOTION Daybreak anchor Wendy Theies has been promoted
to weeknight anchor at KSBY-TV, the NBC affiliate for San Luis
Obispo/Santa Maria/Santa Barbara.
GREG'S HEADED TO EGYPT Former L.A.-based CNN Correspondent Greg
LaMotte is headed for the Middle East. He''ll be the Cairo Bureau
Chief for the Voice of America. LaMotte was caught up in CNN's
recent wave of cutbacks.
MORE CNN CHANGES? The New York Daily News reports the bosses
at AOL/Time Warner have told CNN executives that the recent
wave of cuts may not be enough, and that they may have to make
more cuts. Meanwhile, there are different reports that CNN sopke
with ABC and CBS about some possible joint operations. In the
past, CBS and CNN explored the possibility of sharing overseas
bureaus, but no agreement was ever reached.
CALL HIM MR. MIDDAY Award-winning consumer/investigative reporter
of KRON-TV/San Francisco is now also a regular anchor for the
NBC (for now!) affiliate. Ducey is now co-anchoring the station's
midday show. He replaces John Kessler, who's still co-anchoring
the stations 5-7 a.m. morning show. In addition to the morning
show, Kessler is now picking up duties as an anchor on Young
Broadcasting's co-owned "Bay TV" newschannel.
May 10, 2001
CONGRATULATIONS to new APTRA President Gary Daigneault, from
KCDZ/Joshua Tree, and new APTRA Vice-President Bret Burkhart,
from KGO/San Francisco. Gary will oversee the organization
for the next year, and plan the 2002 APTRA
Convention, set to take place at the Disneyland Resort.
Meanwhile, Bret will pick a site for the 2003 APTRA Convention,
which will be somewhere (Monterey? San Francisco? Sacramento?
Napa Valley?) in Northern California.
SEMINAR TIME! APTRA'S first seminar of the year is right around
the corner. It will be hosted by APTRA Board Member John Carr,
at KCRA-TV/Sacramento on Saturday, May 19th. It features panels
on doing morning newscasts, your rights as a reporter, investigative
reporting, and tape critiques. It's only $25.00 if you pre-register,
and that includes lunch. Get all the details by visiting APTRA
SHE'S CHANGED HER HANDLE.... Cyndy Ovalle has returned to
AM in the AM. KVEN announces Cyndy as the new co-host of the
morning Boomer show with Lee Marshall on KVEN 1450 AM, Ventura
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