Mark Ibanez Happy Party on KTVU; (Even Though it was Sort of Fake); Hartel/Eikel MIA (Wonder Why); Waldman Unease at KRON; Cook-Yamamoto No KPIX ID; No Time for KCBS' Alisa Clancy; Holmes-Savidge 5 PM En-Fuego; Friday Coffee

CONSPICUOUSLY absent from last night's KTVU farewell to Mark Ibanez --News Director, Amber Eikel and GM, Mellynda Hartel--both of whom made the call to tell Ibanez to retire and didn't extend him contractually one last time.

Stay classy, KTVU.

In case you missed it, here's is Ibanez's sendoff.

Warm and fuzzy all around, I'll reserve comment, other than to say, Mark is a good guy and I just know he'll pop up somewhere, maybe in a non-traditional sort of way, but he's not going to sit on a couch and watch golf, as he said.

*Yes, of course 43 years is a long time and no one, no thing lasts forever, but Ibanez didn't exactly look old and wretched. He could very well have continued forward another two or three years, it's just that KTVU and its inept managers, via Fox's institutional want to phase out sports on its O and O stations, told Ibanez to go away...he will land somewhere, as I predict.

*I'm going to resist the temptation to mention that I didn't see Frank Somerville at last night's lovefest at Channel 2--now THAT would have been a doozy.

*Every news organization today is on high alert hoping it doesn't have to publish a story that looks to good to be true, you know what I mean, you fool.

*Ibanez has an NDA but not a non-compete agreement, there's a difference. *Hello, KPIX? (stay tuned).

*Anywhere else in this world, of course a real newspaper and its website would cover, some way, the final chapter of a sports anchor's 43 years, see ya, but the Chronicle, a lousy high-school newspaper, is too busy covering burritos and purple houses in the Mission.

*Justine Waldman and KRON have a disagreement: she feels srt of frustrated that she's been relegated to the minors for over a decade while others have been promoted. I like Waldman a lot and 3 PM doesn't cut it. Waldman is married to Grant Lodes, which complicates a lot of things.

*By the way, I like Lodes too. Underrated anchor.

*KPIX has NO soul. No strong, identifiable, face-of-station anchor, personality that viewres can relate to which has been a constant at PIX for years. You can't operate and function, let alone have any degree of presence in the market when there's NOBODY at your station that serves as a liason to the community. PIX needs a boss to not only rearrange the furniture but also cleanse the entire living room and get rid of the cardboard cutouts on the couch.

*Allen Martin? Hell no. Sorry.

*Liz Cook and Ryan Yamamoto? Oh god no.

*Cook has greatly improved over the years but she's gone back to zero-personality and needs to show w little sense of humor every now and then--Yamamoto, I'm sorry, sounds like a woman, yeah, the voice is just plian awful

*Yeah, KSFO continues to be for sale--and you can buy it, any day now. And it has a great signal but here's the problem: KSFO is dead radio and radio is going dead any day now.

When you bring your kid to the studio and let her do a weather forecast, once, it's cute, two, three, four times, not so cute.

*Alisa Clancy, the giggle woman anchor at KCBS, had another rough time the other night...at 9: 45 PM, she announced it was "7-45." Worse, she made no mention of her error. Five minutes later, as to acknowledge her blunder, she was careful to slowly enunciate the correct time. Mistakes happen, but at KCBS mistakes are part of the business model now.

*I asked a KCBS contact about just how bad it sounds and the person just shrugged their shoulders--as if to say, "we give up." The people who run KCBS either have pictures or are just damn lucky.

*Dark horse duo showing promise at KTVU for a possible 5 PM news placement: Heather Holmes and Alex Savidge: they're good, not by any means great, but the higher-ups seem to think they have chops, whatever. That'll be good news, maybe, for Holmes, who's been waiting on deck to have her own primer for at least a decade.

*Later.