Hard to believe it's beeen six years since his KGO talk show finale.
*A KTVU source confirmed to me, indeed, Fox2 was so desperate to get someone to anchor the weekend/Friday sports, they asked for a volunteer to read ...that's embarrassing even by Fox The Firm standards.
*Which should tell you what they're paying Joe Fonzi.
*Ibanez was so wanting to spend more time with the family, he made inquires to KPIX for work alongside Vern (Glenn). Sure, whatever.
*All this and then some, no wonder Julie Haener is centered on watching her son play QB in Fresno. Julie Has one foot out the door.
*Owens beat Mickey Luckoff (the KGO GM/titan) in arbitration which is why Ronn wasn't all that bad at the end. Because Luckoff, as much a genius and respected guy he was, could be a real major asshole; the kind of mean and terrible people that make up broadcasting; that represent absolute evil and resentment; that was Mickey Luckoff.
Ask Ronn and Jim Dunbar, (if he were alive).
*KGO Radio has been running promos about the deluge that hit the 49ers in Chicago and that on Sunday, the forecast for Santa Clara "was 77 and dry." Actually, KGO, it's rain and 63 but don't confuse some people with the facts.
*An MVP that doesn't get paid like one: Pat Thurston.
*Late night mystery at KPIX: Sara Donchey.
Kpix Sara Donchy has been working as a reporter. Maybe replaced Andria Borba
ReplyDeleteFrank Somerville looks like William Hurt from Broadcast News in that pic.
ReplyDeleteSara Donchey is still reporting in the evenings out in the field. Last week we had Andrea Nakano, this week Kenny Choi, both of which are very good anchors.
ReplyDeleteI’m beginning to think whether the 11PM timeslot is a free-for-all where any anchor can choose to anchor at that time.
At the same time glad I’m still not seeing Donchey at 11PM.
Kenny Choi fan here. Hate to pit him against Ryan Yamamoto but he’s definitely an upgrade. He kinda got the shaft back in the day with their struggling noon newscast. Nice to see him getting another shot.
DeleteSaw young reporter Shawn Chitness once on the streaming platform. While a little green, the kid wasn’t half bad. KPIX just auditioning everybody it seems. Their new tag line should be that old Cars song…Shake It Up!! 😁
Yes, can't forget Shawn Chitnis. He was anchoring a few weekday mornings for Justin Andrews and thought he was pretty good; also good on the field, too, which he is there majority of the time. Maybe won't be surprised if 1 week he takes the 11PM timeslot and another week might be someone like Max Darrow or anyone else. At some point, hopefully they will fix on a more long term 11PM anchor, even if it ain't Donchey.
DeleteReally like Kenny Choi, did an excellent job anchoring the 11PM news, and same at the Live News Desk today (in for Anne this evening). The only other time Choi was anchoring recently was on Father's Day morning when Devin Fehely was out on vacation.
Andrea Nakano and Kenny Choi are really good anchors. I want Nakano to be primary sports anchor because Vern Glenn is a clusterfuck and Charley Walters is not ready for prime time. I get the feeling it is “open mic” for the 11:00 anchor slot.
DeleteJuliette Goodrich is awesome at 6:00 & 7:00. I quit watching NBC Bay Area. Raj Mathai is insufferable.
Agreed with all those points. I feel the shuffling at KPIX anchor-wise really showed some improvement especially during the evening timeslots.
DeleteMan I loved Shawn Chitnis on that old tv show, The Commish.
DeleteWell they did have a shot of Donchey, rocking out with a friend, at a concert in Oakland.
ReplyDeleteI'm looking at that old KTVU photo, and thinking, man, Evan Sernoffsky doesn't age.
ReplyDeleteThe predictable "mvp" still screeches...needs voice coach to learn how to breathe when talking.
ReplyDeleteEspecially when she's whining about the bridge toll she's forced to pay - so quit the radio gig and get a job at the Safeway in San Rafael - probably pays as well as radio...
DeleteMickey Luckoff, Tony Salvatore and especially Bob Agnew were some of the biggest a-holes in Bay Area media. Ask Mike Schumann, Bruce McGowen, John Schrader and USF play-by-play extraordinaire, Pat Olson. The hillarious thing was Bob was afraid of Pete Franklin because Pete saw through Agnew's fake, "little man is a bad ass" attitude and called him on it.
ReplyDeleteWhat up with KPIX 11:00 News? Brian Hackney, Andrea Nakako and now Kenny Choi doing the news, is this a filling in spot with no permanent anchor
ReplyDeleteYeah, thought I was watching KTVU 2021 for a minute.
DeletePut Hackney and Goodrich on all your prime casts, Liz Cook for weekends, Anne Mac for mornings. Fire everyone else. (I mean it.) Start with that blowup doll Amanda Starrantino. Then start hiring again from the ground up.
Sounds like so far. Kenny Choi will likely also be in at 11 tonight if he has been there for the last couple of nights.
DeleteLet’s see what happens next week; won’t be surprised if it’s Anne Makovec (who filled in this past Sunday evening for Brian Hackney) or someone like Max Darrow or Devin Fehely, all of which are relatively good anchors.
I like Fehely. Nice looking guy, good voice, solid work, and I think that he grew up in the (South) Bay Area.
DeleteYes Fehely is a San Jose native even though he has moved around different places before returning back here.
DeleteMy gut feel was right, Choi was indeed there last night at 11. This week let’s see who might be taking care at 11 from Monday-Friday. Sat & Sun is usually a no-brainer as it’s Hackney unless someone else fills in.
Bring back VDLC!
DeleteFehely went to high school at Bellarmine in San Jose.
DeleteYep.
DeleteReed Cowan was in for Brian Hackney, wonder what happened to Hackney? Maybe vacation or something. And you had Darren Peck subbing for Heggen the entire week since Heggen tested positive for covid (and the day before that lost his voice and Peck filled in during the 11pm newscast).
This anchor situation on weekend evenings & weeknights at 11pm is interesting. Is the weekend evening also open mic? Hopefully nothing happens to Hackney.
If Thurston isn’t well-paid, maybe it’s a lack of highly paying sponsors for her show? And if so, maybe ratings aren’t great for her monotonous drumbeat of “Trump is the devil” ? Trump isn’t president anymore. Does she ever talk about the current president?
ReplyDeleteShe has never been interesting
DeleteCouldn't have said it better myself.
DeletePat talks about a lot of different things. Yes, she devotes some time to Trump, while he is not president, he is still very much in the news, and the issues around Trump is important. However, Pat talks about PG&E, the homeless, the virus, consumer news, other subjects as well, I guess you don't really listen to her. You hear an hour of Trump and make an incorrect assumption.
DeleteRich, KGO 810 has terrible ratings. But you praise Pat Thurston as their “MVP”. Isn’t that like talking about the tallest skyscraper in Tulare? Or in sports metaphor, it’s not much of an achievement to be the MVP of a losing team.
ReplyDeleteAmen to that.
DeleteRoberta can do the sports. Seriously. I mean can you do any worse? This coming from a Roberta fan!
ReplyDeleteIf Sexy Steve Moskovitz were to decide suddenly he didnt want to do his overexposed redundancy "interviews" with Thurston and Rotnmann,who have to give their fake interest,wouldn't Kgo almost collapse?..nobody buys more advertising on the station then him,except maybe s and g carpet..
ReplyDeleteKenny Choi is a solid anchor. I don’t think he wanted to do the KPIX am show.
ReplyDeleteHe’d be good as an 11pm anchor at KPIX if he wants the gig. Some reporters want to be in the field. Betty Yu and María Medina when she was around don’t want to be tethered to the anchor desk.
I definitely prefer Choi over Yamamoto.
DeleteGuess then you get paid less and work in less desired area if thats what you wish?
DeleteLet's wait and see. At the same time like most other times now, it's all solo anchoring, so except for meteorologists like Peck/Heggen, Walter/Glen/Nakano for sports, the time slot could work for him. In the AM show he anchored with Griego which according to some long back posts here, both of which didn't like each other (before Griego left in 2021).
DeleteWeekends have completely changed; all times solo anchors (Hackney alone at 5, 6, 11 and Fehely on weekend mornings). One thing I noticed about Hackney is that he doesn't give the "Good evening I'm Brian Hackney" before getting to the story and just gets to the story instead...is it possible he's sad that Goodrich left the weekend spot and no one else is co-anchoring with him?
John Rothmann will be "outraged" to hear you anoint Pat Thurston as the MVP for KGO. So will Nicki's family. So will Merrill's dad and mom. So will Jim Bohanan's callers from Georgia and Kentucky.
ReplyDeleteJim's callers have more common sense than a good majority of Pat or John Rothmann's callers.
DeleteThat is because you agree with him. He is not as bad as some right wing hosts, he can at least admit Trump is not perfect.
DeleteKTVU reaching out to Dennis O'Donnell????
ReplyDeleteI doubt it. They’d rather use someone already on their payroll even if that person doesn’t have a clue about sports, as we see most of the time now that they’re playing musical chairs with sports anchors.
DeleteWhat’s wrong with Jesse Gary? You know, their sports dude extraordinaire who has absolutely no interest in sports thus doesn’t know the first thing about what he reads (which explains his constant mispronunciation of well-known names).
ReplyDeleteBut yeah, I’m pretty sure at this point the only ones who haven’t done sports yet are Tom Vacar and Amber Lee.
I can hear the late, great Rod Roddy now, “Amber Lee, come on down!!! You’re the next contestant on the KTVU Doofus of the Day!”
I’ve noticed the hodge podge of anchors and sports reporters. You never know who’s going to appear and when. I just figured they draw names out of a hat. So them begging and pleading for someone to volunteer to do sports sounds about right.
DeleteToo bad they don't have Mel Sharpe to stop people outside and see if they'd like the job... ....jf
DeleteYou say Haener has one foot out the door, yet she hasn’t missed a single day of work since your explosive revelation about her last month.
ReplyDeleteI’m willing to bet the last time she went this long without missing a day of work is when she first started here and was in the honeymoon phase.
I noticed that last Saturday during mornings on 2, KTVU had Ibanez on (via Zoom) to talk about sports, namely the 49ers chances this season.
ReplyDeleteIt was a big lovefest.
I guess Jessy Gary and LaMoonica Peters, their most recent go-to sports anchors, weren’t available at that time.
Sorry Carolyn on The Breeze is annoying as hell! Her voice is the worst
ReplyDeleteLet Jack do it solo!! Please oh please!!
Why not Jason Applebaum or is he doing only the Sunday 11.30pm show?
ReplyDeleteI enjoy hearing Jack Kulp and Carolyn McArdel on 98.1 am. I listen each morning on terrestrial radio, with no plans to start fishing for other radio on the internet. Yes, I'm over 60, so sue me.
ReplyDeleteThere are very few such live and local radio stations still in the Bay Area.
I just wish 98.1 would expand its songlist.
They play the same 17 songs over and over. At least it feels like only 17 songs.
I enjoy the Breeze morning show. Carolyn is funny and quick. I actually love her voice. She’s a nice person too.
ReplyDeleteSteve Paulson (KTVU morning weather) has been MIA for more than two weeks. No one has said anything on the air, and he has not posted to his Twitter account since August 30. Does anyone know the status of Steve Paulson?
ReplyDeleteMattress business in the dumps the past 6 years.
ReplyDelete