We paused long enough to take a breath or two, and then, six things happened in the space of a day.
And we’re sure we missed something…
LEON’S REDUCTION: A veteran TV anchorman in Cleveland is moving around his work schedule.
Scripps ABC affiliate WEWS/5 “NewsChannel 5” anchor Leon Bibb, who has been anchoring the noon and 6 PM editions of the station’s newscasts, is no longer anchoring the 6 PM show as of this week…replaced by Chris Flanagan, the Dallas-Fort Worth anchor the station originally hired to anchor the 11 PM edition of “NewsChannel 5”.
Flanagan will be paired at 6 with his 11 PM anchor, Danita Harris, making it the first time in a while that “NewsChannel 5” has had the same anchor team – like many stations – in both time slots.
But in addition to anchoring the 12 noon show, Bibb will still be doing “Other Things”, reports the Plain Dealer’s Chuck Yarborough…who has apparently picked up the local media beat for the PD from Julie Washington:
Sam Rosenwasser, Channel 5’s vice president and general manager, said Bibb has been reassigned to do two new programs, “Leon Bibb’s Ohio” and “Leon Bibb’s Perspective.” He will continue to anchor the station’s noon newscast as well as its Sunday morning news program, “Kaleidoscope,” Rosenwasser said.
“Leon is still a very vital part of what we have here,” Rosenwasser said. “We want to put a spotlight on what he has.”
OMW hears that these new “programs” are likely to be weekly feature packages that appear on “NewsChannel 5” newscasts. “Kaleidoscope” is a half hour public affairs program.
What Leon Bibb has, in buckets, is the ability to tell a story…and that may be a Grand Canyon-sized understatement. We hope this is behind the decision, and it’s a showcase for Bibb…not the start of nudging him out the door.
We’re not surprised by the addition of Chris Flanagan to the 6 PM edition of “NewsChannel 5”, though…we expected it when he was brought in from the DFW Metroplex…
SHE’S NO LONGER THERE: Readers have been peppering our inbox and social media accounts asking where Clear Channel Akron hot AC WKDD/98.1 morning drive co-host Jenn Ryan has been.
We were told she was on vacation, which apparently was true until Friday…when calls asking for her at Freedom Avenue were answered with the phrase “Jenn is no longer with the company”.
That’s indeed the case, and the remnants of her presence on the WKDD morning show page with co-host/program director/cluster and regional operations director Keith Kennedy have been removed, well, “Soviet-style”, as we call it.
For that matter, her Facebook account has been deleted.
We pressed our ears really hard to the windows at Freedom Avenue, and we still have yet to learn what happened to Jenn Ryan…but she’s definitely no longer there.
We also don’t know who will replace her…
SHE’S BACK THERE: A young woman named Sue Tyler started her radio career in 1991 as an intern for WKDD, back then at Akron-licensed 96.5 (that frequency is today’s Clear Channel Cleveland top 40 outlet WAKS “Kiss FM”).
She even made it on the air at WKDD back in 1991, before ending up at stations like top 40 WDJQ/92.5 “Q92” in the Canton market, and a run at the “Next Generation” rebuild of the rock format at iconic Cleveland rocker WMMS/100.7.
Sue ended up in Buffalo at Entercom’s WKSE/98.5 “Kiss FM” (no relation to the Clear Channel “Kiss” stations) and made quite a name for herself in Western New York, by then under the name Shannon Steele.
She’s back.
Apparently moving to Akron to be with her husband (according to an earlier AllAccess item), Shannon/Sue is coming back to the station where she started…2-7 PM, in an afternoon drive shift formerly occupied by the voice-tracked Tessa Hall out of, if we remember right, St. Louis.
(We don’t know if Shannon will be live or tracked, but she’s definitely in Akron for the reason stated above…)
RIZZO BACK TO TV?: We entirely missed the mid-May tweet of Good Karma sports WKNR/850 “ESPN 850” middayer and former Local TV LLC Fox affiliate WJW/8 “Fox 8 News” sports anchor Tony Rizzo:
Tony Rizzo
@TheRealTRizzoUncle Rizzy will return to Cleveland TV, details coming.
But readers have also been asking about it before we found this tweet…and providing their own guesses, even.
We haven’t heard any final word on this.
Our legendary gut tells us that it’ll probably involve a weekend football-related show at Rizz’s old TV home, “Fox 8 News”. Don’t expect Tony to return to full-time sports anchoring, anywhere, while he’s still at “ESPN Cleveland”…
ONE MOVE: Yes, we are aware that former WEWS/5 “NewsChannel 5” reporter Dan Haggerty is now at 13th and Lakeside, being seen doing reporting work on Gannett NBC affiliate WKYC/3.
OMW hears that is indeed the case for Dan, and it’s a full-time position…as opposed to the freelance work many reporters do when they cross the street with little fanfare.
We hear he’s “just a reporter”, with no anchor work in the mix at least now…
CHAD’S BRUSH WITH THE LAW: New Vision-operated Youngstown ABC affiliate WYTV/33 sports anchor Chad Krispinsky, just recently announced as 33’s regular weekday sports anchor in the combined New Vision (to be LIN) operation with CBS affiliate WKBN/27-Fox affiliate WYFX-LD/19 “Fox Youngstown”, made an ill-advised off-camera move that got him arrested.
The Youngstown Vindicator has more:
A Boardman police officer said he spotted Krispinsky’s car drifting partially into the center of the road on Market Street near McClurg Road. The officer didn’t pull over Krispinsky’s car but noticed him a short time later on foot on Roche Way and spoke with him.
After detecting the smell of alcohol on Krispinsky’s breath, the officer gave him field sobriety tests. Krispinsky refused to take a Breathalyzer test and was arrested and advised that his license would be suspended for one year.
The paper says it was the second such arrest for the 34 year-old WYTV sportscaster, who pleaded guilty to a “failure to maintain physical control” charge in 2010 after a Breathalyzer test came up over twice the legal limit.
Our advice to Chad?
Get on the horn to SportsTime Ohio, where evening talk host Chuck Galeti (“Chuck’s Last Call”), a former Youngstown sportscaster at NBC affiliate WFMJ/21, got his life back together after similar adventures.
Our guess is that among other advice, Chuck would tell Chad to make sure he didn’t look goofy while taking a mug shot…
Jen is no longer on WKDD? I’m glad I stopped listening to that stupid station! She was the female voice counterpart to Keith. Personally I stopped listening a few moths ago because of the station’s extremely repetitive playlist and a few less-than-desired changes to programming and management(which Jenn was probably fired by the greedy bastards at Clear Channel for dissing) and decided to take the dial to Cleveland’s 106.5 The Lake. I started getting had when I was blocked from their Facebook page(and even reported for slandering) for dissing that I Heart Radio Music Fest they were overplaying ads for and over-promoting it on the air. I finally snapped and gave up when they announced that my 90s music(the only thing other than Keith and Jen I listened to) was being removed from their lineup.