No Mayor's Office for Former Shreveport TV Exec and Anchor

In watching the results of the Shreveport Mayor's election tonight, it looks as though former KTBS anchor/reporter Liz Swaine and former KSLA General Manager Ed Bradley WILL NOT be on the ticket in November. With 99 percent of the votes in, Swaine came in 3rd while Bradley pulled up the rear. Swaine had been a long time staff member in the mayor's office. Bradley resigned as GM of KSLA to enter the race.

KATV's GM Hires Grandson for 7's Sports Department

ATN has received several e-mails saying the KATV GM Dale Nicholson's grandson has been hired to fill the vacancy in the sports department.

Autopsy Finds No Evidence Of Drugs, Alcohol In Eells

Source: Associated Press An autopsy report showed longtime University of Arkansas sportscaster Paul Eells had no alcohol or drugs in his system when he died in a traffic crash on Interstate 40.

Eells was killed July 31 when his car crossed the median at Russellville and hit another vehicle. The other driver, Billie Jo Burton of Dover, also was killed.

An associate state medical examiner, Dr. Frank Peretti, conducted the autopsy at the request of Eells' wife. Vickie Eells authorized Peretti to release the autopsy results. Peretti conducted the autopsy one day after Eells' death and found no indication of drugs or alcohol.

Been working on the road the last two days. Hopefully blogging will get back to normal soon.

Poll of the Week Returns

Thought I'd begin the weekly pool feature again. This week's poll deals with the return of Dawn Scott to KTHV in November. Will Dawn's return to KTHV help the station gain viewers? Take the poll!

KATV Debuts "Seven News Now"

KATV has debuted Seven News Now, a 24/7 stream of news and info available via the internet and its digital over the air signal. According the faq page, "Anyone with a digital receiver that can receive KATV with an antenna can turn to Channel 7-2 to view KATV News Now. Anyone with internet access via KATVnewsNOW.com."

Couric Raises Ratings for CBS O&Os

Source: Media Week CBS is touting the Couric effect for its local TV stations. Since the debut two weeks ago of the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, 16 of CBS' 21 owned-and-operated CBS stations saw ratings jump for both the national news broadcast and their local programming, the company said Tuesday.

Collectively, household ratings for the Evening News on the 16 stations between Sept. 5 and Sept. 15 were up 44 percent, compared to the same two week period last year. Strongest gains were posted in New York on WCBS (up 67 percent); Los Angeles on KCBS (up 68 percent); Chicago on WBBM (up 65 percent); Philadelphia on KYW (up 58 percent); Boston on WBZ (up 60 percent); San Francisco on KPIX (up 33 percent) and Dallas on KTVT (up 44 percent).

Several CBS O & Os also saw ratings increases for their local newscasts, on average up 6 percent. MORE

A Channel Seven Rant

I will get accused of not being fair by the people at KATV but come on here, YOU'VE TAKEN EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND OFF AT 10:30PM!! Just another bad move on your part KATV! Raymond was the only reason to watch even a little of KATV Nightside.

Pearson on the Way Out at KTHV?

A tipster tells ATN, "Looks like Andy Pearson will be out when Dawn comes back."

THV announced several weeks ago former KTHV anchor Dawn Scott will return, thus leaving someone without a chair at the anchor desk. Many had assumed that whoever the person was that got the boot from the weekday evening anchor chair would take over the vacancy on the weekend. But as we all know now a replacement has already been found.

Scott is set to return to the THV anchor desk November 1st.

New Producer on the Way for KATV's Daybreak?

This from a tipster: "Evidently, KATV is looking for a new producer for Daybreak, and they are thinking about giving it to one of the PAs that work on the show. However, Jason Harper and Melinda Mayo are not big fans of these PA's."

Backpack Journalist's Trail Leads to Weekend Anchor Desk

ATN can confirm a tip that KTHV Backpack Journalist Mike Duncan has been promoted to the position of weekend anchor at the station. Duncan joined KTHV in June of this year to become the Little Rock market's first Backpack Journalist. The weekend position has been filled the last number of months by several anchor/reporters at THV following the dismissal of Win Noble.

KFSM-TV Looking for New Owner

Source: Associated Press The New York Times Co. said Tuesday that it intends to sell its group of nine network-affiliated TV stations in order to concentrate on its newspaper and digital businesses.
Chief Executive Janet L. Robinson said in a statement that while the stations were profitable and well-run, the sales would “allow us to sharpen our focus on developing our newspaper and rapidly growing digital businesses, and the synergies between them.”

The stations accounted for 4 percent of the company’s revenue last year. The Times said the station group is expected to have revenue of about $150 million this year and operating profit of about $33 million.

The stations being sold by the Times include:

-WHO-TV in Des Moines, Iowa, an NBC affiliate

-KFSM-TV in Ft. Smith, Ark., a CBS affiliate

-WHNT-TV in Huntsville, Ala., CBS affiliate

-WREG-TV in Memphis, Tenn., a CBS affiliate

-WQAD-TV in Moline, Ill., an ABC affiliate

-WTKR-TV in Norfolk, Va., CBS affiliate

-KFOR-TV in Oklahoma City, Okla., an NBC affiliate

-KAUT-TV in Oklahoma City, Okla., a MyNetworkTV affiliate, and

-WNEP-TV in Scranton, Penn., an ABC affiliate.

Yet ANOTHER KATV'er to KARK

This from a tipster: "From Spots and Dots....Mark Renner has returned to Little Rock as Sales Manager of KARK-TV. The one-time Petry rep had been NSM of KATV in that market prior to taking on other sales management positions at Jefferson Pilot Sports and Univision."

ADG- KTHV to Reap Rewards from CBS Evening News with Katie Couric

Source: Arkansas Democrat/Gazette The only Arkansas angle to be found in Tuesday night’s debut of Katie Couric at the helm of the CBS Evening News was how smoothly her exit strategy - a warm smile and an authoritative shuffle of papers that were probably totally superfluous to her news delivery - segued into the 6 p.m. Arkansas broadcast of Today’s KTHV-TV, Channel 11. It led with anchorwoman Anne Jansen’s furrowed-brow account of a stray bullet that found its way into a child’s wrist over the weekend at Magic Springs.

Channel 11 is certain to reap some rewards from Couric, its new tent-pole lead-in, still grappling with her reluctantly accepted feminist mantle just as Channel 11 grapples with what to do with its increasingly feminized lineup of A-list anchors: The station soon will have Jansen, Dawn Scott and Liz Massey and barely enough news broadcasts to go around.

For her part, Couric seemed to arch an eyebrow at the implication that she should debeautify and debronze before staring into the unblinking CBS eye: The bright white of her blazer amplified how not-white Couric’s skin is.

It is probably a reflection of the still-unlevel male/female playing field that her opening segment evoked the cadence of Carrie Bradshaw’s old “I couldn’t help but wonder... ” voice-overs from Sex and the City: Introducing a meaty and exclusive report on the resurgence of the Taliban, Couric posited, “But in the war on terror, you have to wonder: Is it back to the drawing board?” (If a man had said it, nobody would have thought of Sarah Jessica Parker.)

Couric courts the treachery of the “cute” label - certainly more the province of girlishness than boyishness - when she introduces some tinkering to her Tiffany-network product by announcing, “Something new for the evening news - besides me.” We can’t remember Brian Williams being quite so self-referential in quite the same playful way when he took over for Tom Brokaw. But that has more to do with personality than sex. Worth noting will be how Channel 11 follows the lead of its lead-in and tries to make news-watching an event: Whether you find her a diva or a deliverance, when the halfhour is up, Couric has made the evening news interesting again in a way that nobody has done since Jon Stewart.

Another Former KATV'er Pops up on KARK

First it was former KATV'er Matt Mosler and now former KATV sports anchor Jeff Wingfield is now on KARK on Friday night's contributing to the station's high school football coverage. If I'm not mistaken, Wingfield left KATV to go into ministry work.

And speaking of KARK high school football coverage, it looks as though the station has put together a pretty good sports page, featuring scores and online video highlights.

KHBS-KHOG’S Digital Signal Carriage May Be Discontinued On Cox System

Source: KHBS-KHOG-TV KHBS-KHOG-TV (Channels 40/29) and KHBS-KHOG-DT (Channels 15/21), the Fort Smith-Fayetteville-Springdale-Roger’s leading analog and digital television stations, respectively, today announced that the digital high definition signal of KHBS-KHOG-DT may no longer be carried on Cox cable television systems effective October 1, 2006, if the parties are unable to conclude retransmission-consent negotiations currently underway.

The removal of the station’s digital signals from the Cox system will only result if negotiations between representatives of Hearst-Argyle Television, Inc., KHBS-KHOG TV’s parent company, and Cox are unsuccessful in reaching a conclusion before October 1, 2006. Hearst-Argyle is seeking fair and reasonable terms from Cox in return for allowing Cox to carry KHBS-KHOG-DT’s programming and charge its subscribers for that programming. So as not to inconvenience a large number of its viewers, Hearst-Argyle currently anticipates that it will allow Cox to continue to retransmit KHBS-KHOG-TV’s primary analog signal while the companies continue to work in good faith toward a resolution of retransmission consent terms. Hearst-Argyle will decline to permit Cox, however, also to carry KHBS-KHOG-DT’s valuable high-definition digital programming if Cox refuses to complete a long-term contract governing the carriage of it.

“We’re greatly disappointed that Cox has yet to arrive at a mutually satisfactory solution,” said Jim Prestwood, KHBS-KHOG-TV/DT president and general manager. “Our station is a leader in our market and we’ve made substantial investments to bring our viewers high definition digital programming. Cox has been actively promoting to current and prospective subscribers the addition of our digital channel to its lineup, and charging its subscribers a premium for our high-definition signals. We’re certainly supportive of their adding and promoting our high-definition programming. But they won’t come to terms with us on providing fair consideration for that right. To allow any re-distributor of our station’s digital signal to benefit economically from our efforts without providing us a reasonable contract for that right would be unacceptable for us.” “We sincerely hope we and Cox can conclude our negotiations before October 1 so as not to deprive any of our respective viewers and customers of high definition programming,” Prestwood added.

KTAL Texarkana Bureau Chief Leaves

This from a tipster: "KTAL TV Texarkana Bureau Chief Jason CLark has left the station after four years. His last day was Friday. Heard he was headed to Houston to work outside of business."

KATV Weekend Sports Anchor Gone

This from a tipster: "Justin Acri is the new program director @ 103.7 The Buzz in Little Rock as of next Monday."

According to his bio at KATV.com, Acri joined the KATV News Team in September 1998 as a General Assignment Reporter. He was also the ARSN Radio Broadcast Team's pre-game & post-game reporter which he began in 1999. In 2001, Justin joined the Saturday Daybreak crew as co-host and in 2003 became the Weekend Sports Anchor.

It's A New Day at KARK

So what does everyone think of the new KARK morning program? I had a chance to catch a total of one hour of the program the last two days and think KARK just might be on the right track.

Former KTAL Trouble Shooter Pops up on CNN

Former KTAL-6/Shreveport Trouble Shooter Rich DeMuro is now Senior Editor for CNET.com. Many tv news viewers, including me, in the Ark-La-Tex were surprised to see DeMuro on CNN's American Morning Thursday. I recieved several e-mails reporting the sighting. DeMuro left KTAL in June of last year to become an anchor for Channel One, the school news channel. Apparently DeMuro was part of the staff cuts this past spring when Channel One moved its operations.