You may have noticed that most of our items this past week come from outposts like Cincinnati and Toledo. It’s been a quiet week for Cleveland area media…until now.
Major changes are sweeping the halls at local CBS affiliate WOIO/19, according to Cleveland Plain Dealer TV/radio writer Julie Washington in the PD’s Entertainment blog.
Oh, sure, there are anchors moving around again.
New weekender Paul Joncich barely makes it into his first month at “19 Action News” before being moved to the high-profile 5 PM and 10 PM weekday assignments with WOIO’s Sharon Reed alongside him.
Anchor Jeff Eliasoph, who got glowing praise just a few weeks ago from management for his work on the station’s weekday evening newscasts, gets moved into a co-anchor slot on “19 Action News This Morning” alongside Allison Alexander.
If that sounds like a demotion to you, consider that stations are considering their early morning newscasts as very important outposts these days. It’s certainly the only time slot where TV stations are generally gaining local news viewers overall.
Ah, but we bury the lead, if only for effect.
Yes, it’ll be WTAM afternoon mushmouth Mike Trivisonno showing up with a regular segment on the “19 Action News” 5 PM cast with the aforementioned Ms. Reed, via a camera link from the WTAM studios at Clear Channel’s Oak Tree World Domination Headquarters in Independence.
Triv will be going back and forth with Reed about “whatever’s on his mind,” says WOIO news director Dan Salamone to the PD. (We can see you already typing those comments. No, we don’t know if the menu at Mallorca’s will be the topic most days, at least on those days when Triv isn’t sounding the call for casino gambling in Cleveland, or talking sports.)
Salamone definitely wins our “truth in advertising” award for this quote to Ms. Washington, though:
“He’s somebody who was born to be in a 19 Action News format.”
We’ll let Mr. Salamone’s comment stand by itself.
Triv and Sharon TV will start whenever Clear Channel ensures that Triv’s drool over Ms. Reed doesn’t short out the equipment…or perhaps October 9th, when the WTAM afternoon driver returns from his latest Las Vegas vacation.
The other WOIO change, also listed on the PD’s Entertainment blog, is almost an afterthought. Julie Washington reports that the Raycom CBS affiliate is starting up “Weather Now”, the Cleveland market’s second all-weather digital/cable channel after WKYC’s “NBC Weather Plus”.
The channel is set to launch Monday, and will reportedly be on “all the major” local cable providers…so Ms. Washington reports.
She doesn’t mention that “Weather Now” will (likely) be seen on WOIO’s over-air digital TV channel, likely as the new 19.2 subchannel. Local digital TV viewers have seen WOIO lighting up that secondary digital channel on and off over the past month or so.
Over on sister Raycom MyNetworkTV outlet WUAB/43, 43.2 is already taken up with the music video channel “The Tube”…
Speak Your Mind