Barring locusts and/or nuclear war, Veronica De La Cruz officially begins her anchor duties on KPIX 5 Tuesday night on the 6 PM newscast.Finally.
I just got off the phone and had a pleasant 10-minute conversation with the former MSNBC and NBC newswoman who has finally settled in the Bay Area and is in fact at the station finishing up loads of paperwork.
She explained much of her delay at KPIX was family-related. "My mom has a medical issue and I wanted to be with her--it extended out."
Furthermore, De La Cruz has a year-old child and between finding new digs, caring for her mom and being a single mother, put off her May 5 debut on CBS here. "I love the Bay Area. Can't wait to start. Full of energy and ready to go." De La Cruz will anchor the 6 and 10 PM, (on PIX sister station).
"They want to really beef up the 10 and make it a go-to station for news." In fact, De La Cruz told me she's going to be at PIX' 855 Battery Street studios Monday night to get a first-hand look and feel for the 10 set she'll be a key cog of. She'll only do the 6 News this week as the station finalizes both the look of the set and briefs both on and off-air personnel.
It's that plus PIX's intended purpose of making a splashy hire to supplement its evening newscasts that has led to 415 Media to write extensively about VDLC and her status. Channel 5, I'm told, wants to make the 10 PM Newscast a serious alternative to KTVU's still heady if tired "10 O'clock News"--and the De La Cruz hire is just the start of that mission.
We're happy she's finally on board and will debut Tuesday night.
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Wonder if Lieberman told her how troubled he was about her delayed premiere.
ReplyDeleteHey Rich, hook a brother up! She is cute!
ReplyDeleteLike any of you overweight white guys who post on this blog have a chance at dating a woman like her.
DeleteSays the anchor baby.
DeleteShe'll fit right in in the Bay Area.
ReplyDeleteA single Hispanic mom, yep.
DeleteShe's Filipino dumbass.
DeleteActually, as she is a she, it would be Filipina. Dumbass,
DeleteThe Tom Leykis rule of not dating a single mom goes out the window with this lovely lady. Holy mackerel welcome to the Bay Area Ms. De La Cruz! Thanks for the update Rich, I like you was troubled by the delayed debut of Ms. De La Cruz.
ReplyDeleteI see Eliazbeth Cook is off today. Coincidence?
ReplyDelete"Cute", "Hot", "Glamorous" do not a real local "newscast" make. This isn't porn. She's a beauty, but still a news-reader. Google her tweets. It's all about "pretty."
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the Bay Area Miss De La Cruz. I'm already tired of you.
ReplyDelete6:10 is right. Says she's a single mom an an activist for single moms struggling to get men to pay child support. Says the father of her son has never seen his son nor has any interest in doing so. Not a pretty picture. Story may have had to do with support payments.not settled in New York. Is she making more in SF than she was for NBC / MSNBC?
DeleteIf one doesn't pick a deadbeat to father their child, then they won't be stuck a deadbeat. And as usual, others are sucked into the consequences.
Delete3:27, I have to agree.
DeleteI've seen the show. KTVU has absolutely no worries of this taking away viewers. I'm in my early 30s and this type of news with cute little stories and catchy intros isn't going to fool me. I want news. I go elsewhere for info-tainment.
DeleteHey Rich, it's good that you were able to get Veronica's quite reasonable explanation for her delayed start. Too bad Ch. 5 only contributed to the (very minor) mystery by clamping a lid on all information. You would think that a news organization that encounters bad public relations decisions on a daily basis would know not to make the same mistakes.
ReplyDeleteAs for the run at Ch. 2's 10 PM dominance, well, good luck with that. As weak as KTVU has become, a lone anchor change, by itself, on an off-brand station is not enough to break viewers habits, let alone give them a reason to sample.
Watching Veronica now. Attractive, but to be honest, it looks like from her dress that she's on the way out to the club, not work.
ReplyDeleteIt sure seemed like Allen Martin looked a lot happier with her than with his other female co-anchor.
DeleteHer dress tonite reminded me of Jessica A.'s first nite on ch 11. She wore a very short red dress with a slit up to there. Wow, it was so shocking back then. She was standing and leaned back toward a table and struck her pose. I was wondering if that was how she planned to be competitive with her younger counterparts. She never again repeated that action.
DeleteAs for Veronica, I like her voice and professional delivery.
She just pronounced Vallejo "vuh-LAY-o".
ReplyDeleteCorrectomundo! just like a bay area native.
Let's see how she does with San Rafael, Saint Helena, Sebastopol, Rohnert Park, Guerneville, Gough, Sansome, and Tule.
DeleteShe got Vallejo, but not Inverness.
DeleteWhere was/is Ken Bastida?
ReplyDelete