KTVU: The nervous nellies at KTVU speak of an uncontrollable fear that permeates the newsroom, the upper executive offices and most prominently, the sales and marketing dept. Fear of the unknown as Fox takes over sometime in the fall and the inevitable chopping --and no one knows for sure how much of it will take place--is on the ledger. One of the senior back-up sports anchors, Fred Inglis, is out come August, to retirement pasture safe from the Fox chicken hawks. Mark Ibanez is talking to Channel 7 about a gig and you can attribute that to the uncertainty. Adding to the conundrum: Tom Raponi, the GM headed to the Fox station in Boston, hasn't said a word to the troops, (good leadership, Rappy!), and the Boy Wonder, ND, Lee Rosenthal, is rarely around the newsroom--he too is headed to Boston and just waiting to get out.--hence, people at the station view him a complete joke. KPIX: The debut of the new 10 PM newscast on its sister station, KBCW, has drawn early considerable ridicule among staffers --I watched only a few minutes Monday night and switched out of unintended laughter--I expected actually worse but this was pretty bad. A hodgepodge of over-bloated visual minutiae --dumb, irritating, nauseating, really to the eyes and ears--I will hold off an actual review until I see one full show and make sure it's as bad as it is, or worse. VDLC? Don't ask.
KRON: A frequent chant from staff: "We come in, work, and get the hell out." And that's about right. Still waiting for the late move across town to share studios and offices at Channel 7, no one knows the long term future of the independent albatross and no one seems to care either. So sad.
NBC Bay Area, (KNTV): Still grappling with an identity--haven't we been down this road before? "Do we want to be a SF station or a San Jose/Silicon Valley outlet?" The money in Silicon Valley is huge but the city, with its growing tech sector and building en fuego is nothing to sneeze about. KNTV is relatively calm and quiet with a large decision looming: will Jessica Aguirre be signed to a new contract come the end of the year? We'll know soon enough.
ABC7NewsBayArea, (KGO-TV): Key personnel decisions exist in both the news and sports divisions: Ama Daetz, as we've noted here, is all but certain to become the permanent co-anchor alongside Dan Ashley at 6 PM. No formal decision has been made --expect the announcement in September. Meanwhile, Larry Beil is telling people, (again), he'd just as soon return to Hawaii and do sports anchoring, hence, KGO's talks with Mark Ibanez about moving over to Channel 7. The ND and her assistant are increasingly losing trust inside the newsroom, no shocker here.
NOTES...
KPIX has put a multiple gag order on a certain 415 Media blogger which means I'm thrilled because the more they gag, the more info I get...and speaking of PIX, why is their PR person penning potentially irksome posts on her Facebook page? Because she can get away with it--for the time being...
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