Friday, November 13, 2015

Back at the Friday 415 Media Bar; Kovaleski Heads to ABC Denver for IR Super Gig; Fox is Really Ruining KTVU; Irrelevant Chronicle

 Gees, one day I have some housekeeping issues to deal with, take a day off, and the whole town starts whispering --"what's going on? --"Where's Rich?" Rich is looking for money to keep his life going and this site relevant --it takes a village to keep it all posted.

We're back, not that we ever left but we are here and that's all that counts.

Tony Kovaleski is indeed off to the Denver ABC station at the end of the month. Nothing bad about KNTV, ("they made me a great offer to stay but this was too good to turn down),": says Tony. I told Tony the cost of living in Rocky Mountain High will be cheaper than the Bay Area. Kovaleski seems genuinely giddy working both as an Investigative reporter and mentor for future IG reps.

*It's not that just FOX is ruining a few stalwarts at KTVU, it's more like they're messing with the entire operation. The "10 o'clock News" is still king but the newscast looks, sounds, and paces different. As in crappy different. The incessant weather teases borders on the absurd. The new talk-back with anchor and reporter is all forced now and even when there's legitimate reason to talk, most of the reporters don't know how to ad-lib. They look out of place. It's that simple.

*Tom Vacar, the next-to-last senior reporter at 2 seems destined for a showdown with FOX management when it's time for him to go at the end of the year most likely. In FOX's mindset, he makes too much money and is too old to continue working. But Fox has a problem. As I've noted here many times, Vacar is a lawyer too and could easily go after the big boys with an age-discrimination suit. That would not bode well for either side. Expect Fox to offer the veteran Vacar a sizable buyout. But what if Tom still wants to work? We get a battle royale then.

*I've been covering less and less of radio because radio is dead in the Bay Area.

*Give Larry Beil the title of "primary anchor" (along with Ashley and Daetz) during the week at KGO; he's too valuable to anchor sports. Give the sports anchoring to Mike Shumann and be a better place.

*Krasny on the air at KQED: a thoughtful, educated, refined, informed host and interviewer --off the air, a mean, nasty, hot-headed jerk.

*Sure the Chronicle is irrelevant --has been for years. If not for the sports section and Herb Caen, I'd have never read the fish wrap --like so many others of you did. Nowadays, it's just useless info with a new EIC hack that half the newsroom hates and a bunch of new reporters with pimples on their face. The senior columnists are splitting and the Editorial board is loose lips sinks ships. If Hearst weren't the owner this paper would be long gone.

*Who's Gil Gross?

27 comments:

  1. I know Krasny & God help you if you catch him in a bad mood. Total complete asshole. Like Christine. Ass...ASS!!!!

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    1. He's that pointy-headed brain with glasses who never got over having his head stuck in the toilet by the jocks, and lives in a permanent state of bitter hostility. Can never prove himself to himself, can't stop trying to prove himself to others. Kind of sad when you think about it.

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  2. Is Kovaleski taking his suspenders to Denver with him?

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  3. > The "10 o'clock News" is still king but the newscast looks, sounds,
    > and paces different. As in crappy different.

    Have you noticed how much *longer* packages are these days?? Reporters doing four minute stories about...nothing in particular. They're filling time so that they don't need to have as many VOs and VOSOTs in the newscast. More VOs and VOSOTs require more writers and editors. So instead we're now getting ridiculously long packages, lots of trips to the "WEATHER AUTHORITY" (How about "RAIN ONNNN!" as their slogan?) and inane chit-chat.

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    1. Actually I thought the "old" 10 O'Clock news always had longer news stories. It was, at least to me what differentiated them from the 30 minutes broadcasts at 11 and what made KTVU stand out. The stories are glorified non-sense many times tho.

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    2. Longer packages? Where?? Where??

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    3. Pay attention. Last night they did a four minute package on some trite thing. When I worked there 2:20 was the max.

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    4. Anon at 9:07....you worked there when the party was already over and the lights were shut off...Fox now doings her packages that are made mostly out of house from other fox stations, it's called "repurposing" and it is great to fill airtime with nonsense and save tons of money on staffing at multiple stations.

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  4. There still is a SF Chronicle??

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  5. Rich, if that smashing brunette in the pic has to do with your "day off", all is forgiven and understood.

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  6. Someone tell Rosemary Orozco the name of the town is "Castro Valley," not "Casto Valley." She said the latter twice the other day.

    I still watch the KTVU news more than the others, but yeah, it really is much lower quality than it used to be.

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  7. You should see Fox's 5 p.m. KTTV newscast in Los Angeles, called "Studio 11 LA." I had a look last week, and it makes KTVU's ten o'clock show look like an Edward R. Murrow report.

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    1. Sexy Lauren Sivan is on it. The sexy Marla Tellez does the early morning Fox11 news.

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  8. With TK on his way maybe Ken Pritchett and Eric Rasmussen can step in. They have much more substance than Pablumbo at ktvu.

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  9. "I'm going back to New York City. I do believe I've had enough." Bob Dylan

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  10. Shumann signed a new deal about a year back. He would have to renegotiate if that is the case. I feel that he is underrated anyway and would do well.

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  11. None of the leftist press will say so, but it is damn well overdue time for a new Crusade. To hell with the ragheads who can only try and change things by blowing up people. To HELL with them!

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    1. Lieberman publishes moronic trash like this but censors rational comments he disagrees with. Pathetic.

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    2. How is it moronic trash? Just because YOU disagree with it? You think the muslims have been doing nice things? You like how they not only seem to think blowing people up is an acceptable means of "change", but how they DEMAND that every society that welcomes them needs to change to accept their ways? You like how even when we welcome their damned refugees and provide for them, they spit in our face and demand halal this and that everywhere, and complain that they have to comply with the same laws and societal norms that the rest of us do?

      Go ahead and think my comment moronic, but I find it much lower on the intelligence level to allow these anti-society animals (sorry, that IS insulting... animals are much smarter, mentally balanced, and peaceful than the entities that fun under the sign of the crescent moon...) to come over here and try to make our once great society the same sort of pedophilic, misogynistic, anti-semitic, anti-education hellhole they came from.

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  12. I enjoy the FOX 10 o'clock news... It was the old KTVU management that started 90 second news stories...and not one second over... and it was Lee Boy Wonder Rosenthal absolutely destroyed KTVU ... "thanks for trusting us" ... "active process live shots." ideas.... the 10 o'clock news now can breathe...

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    1. anon at 4:15...your view is one that is very short sighted and lacks perspective. KTVU used to do longer in depth packages and go deeper into stories because their news director Fred Zhender saw that as good journalism, and a way to differentiate from the half hour news shows. That changed when Ed Chapius was brought in. Consultant driven, and lacking any courage or original thought, KTVU became like all the rest. Story count was the new order of the day. After years of lowering the bar came Rosenthal. The tire fire had been blazing for years by that point. Is the Rosenthal era what YOU refer to as the "old days'?Seriously?

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  13. KGO 810 did about the smartest thing they could do today regarding the Paris attacks -- they took the CNN feed for several hours. CNN stumbled its way through the multiple massacres, reporting wild speculation and relying on unsourced social media. But at least it was better than listening to the local yokels try to explain it all.

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  14. Kovaleski came here three years ago from Denver. He's going back to his old station, KMGH 7, which has been mired in third place for decades. A strange move to go from the No. 6 market to No. 18. Interesting that NBC didn't do a counter offer when he said he was leaving. Hard to believe he'll be paid better by a struggling station in Denver. I would have been more impressed if he had gone back to KUSA, the dominant station in Denver since the 1970s.

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  15. I wonder if Claudine Wong is looking for another job? The bean counters at FOX have lowered the axe on the KTVU stable and it is hard to tell who is next.
    I am 68 years old and retired. In 1985 bean counters came after me and it took about six months to find another job at lower pay. The guy who replaced me got paid less than I did. With a wife and two kids I would have worked for lower pay but I wasn't asked; just shown the door. My kids were asleep when I went to work and sometimes asleep when I returned home in the evenings. If my work load was too heavy I would come in on Saturday and sometimes on Sunday to clear up my desk.. The bean counters did not care about my sacrifices when the axe was lowered.
    I feel sorry for persons who work hard with no loyalty from management.

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  16. Love that shot of Buddha bar. Was there Friday night (Saturday morning). Great jukebox.

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  17. In the past year whenever I would tune to KQED's Forum in the morning, inevitably I'd hear Krasny ask a question that his interviewee had just answered, as in half a minute or so before. He has done this often enough that I mentally wince for him and then change the station. As to his being an ungracious individual off the air, if it is true, then I am truly sorry to read that. When he was with KGO, I enjoyed listening to him at night.

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