Action News Reporters Being Let Go

[Elwood]

WAWS is owned by Cox; WTEV actually owned by Bayshore Television, LLC. They have a shared services agreement, which I would assume means the anchors will be gone from both newscasts. Or not?

[I-10east]

^^Yeah, sounds like the five will be cut from both Fox & CBS, given that both stations falls underneath the 'actionnewsjax' umbrella.

[I-10east]

Is it me, or does Actionnews have too many weather people? They have Mike Buresh, Arielle Nixon, Julie Watkins, and Garrett Bedenbaugh(who you really don't see much).

[fieldafm]

Julie Watkins is leaving

[mtraininjax]

Tom Johnston - Weather - left back in April. Maybe the writing was on the wall then....

[mbwright]

They will most likely hire cute, young faces, just our of college

[coredumped]

Is it me, or does Actionnews have too many weather people? They have Mike Buresh, Arielle Nixon, Julie Watkins, and Garrett Bedenbaugh(who you really don't see much).

It's just you Most stations have 4 weather people:
1 morning, 1 nights, 1 weekend, and 1 backup/floater.

Chan 4 technically has 5 if you count Winterling still:
http://www.news4jax.com/seen-on-4/channel-4-news-team/1947852

[mtraininjax]

They will most likely hire cute, young faces, just our of college

They cost the least and hell, like Watkins always said, "It just may rain here in Jacksonville today", during the summer is really all the forecasting you need to do.

[coredumped]

Looks like they've already got their evening anchor picked out. John Bachman from Atlanta:

Channel 2 Action News anchor John Bachman is leaving for a main evening anchor job at a Jacksonville TV station also operated by Cox Media.

He will work for the combo CBS/Fox Action News operations WTEV and WAWS.

Bachman joined WSB-TV in 2007 working as a reporter as well as the anchor for the weekend early evening newscast. In 2011, he joined Monica Pearson as co-anchor of the 4 p.m. news. He continues to co-anchor with Erin Coleman since Pearson retired in 2012.

With Justin Farmer as the main male evening anchor at WSB, Bachman didn't have much room at the station to move up.

"He's a terrific guy," said Mike Dreaden, WSB's news director. "I'm glad he was able to stay with the company. He gets to flex his muscles and grow."

He'll remain on WSB-TV for several more weeks before his move to Florida, Dreaden added.

http://radiotvtalk.blog.ajc.com/2014/07/16/john-bachman-leaving-channel-2-action-news-for-jacksonville-sister-station/

[spuwho]

Is it me, or does Actionnews have too many weather people? They have Mike Buresh, Arielle Nixon, Julie Watkins, and Garrett Bedenbaugh(who you really don't see much).

It's just you Most stations have 4 weather people:
1 morning, 1 nights, 1 weekend, and 1 backup/floater.

Chan 4 technically has 5 if you count Winterling still:
http://www.news4jax.com/seen-on-4/channel-4-news-team/1947852

There is a difference between true "weather professionals" and weather readers.

David Letterman was a staff "weatherman" in Indianapolis, but he openly admitted he simply read the NWS forecasts off the teletype. Most staff weather persons are the same.

Then there are guys like WGN Chicago's Tom Skilling who is not only a professional, but goes all out to bring the latest in weather technology. And his forecasts aren't just local, they include robust national coverage.

There was a joke back in the mid to late 80's about how they kept having to pull in a retired 40 year weather professional in Oklahoma every year to help them with tornado coverage because most of the stations hired NWS readers and they couldn't translate radar results on the air.

Now a days, most stations will keep at least one professional on staff and retain a stable of readers for the off prime time work.

[coredumped]

Tenikka Smith from Charlotte will be joining us:
http://www.wsoctv.com/news/news/local/tenikka-smith-leaving-wsoc-join-wawswtev-jacksonvi/ngqLx/

This will be their top of the line up:

Jim Zerwekh, vice president and general manager of Cox Media Group (CMG) Jacksonville TV's WAWS/WTEV announced Wednesday that John Bachman and Tenikka Smith-Hughes will be the new evening anchor team for Action News.

Bachman and Smith-Hughes will co-anchor CBS47 Action News at 5 p.m., 5:30 and 6. The new team will also co-anchor FOX30 Action News at 10 p.m. and 10:30 as well as CBS47 Action News at 11.

"John and Tenikka were our first choice," Zerwekh said in a news release. "They have great experience and journalism skills which will benefit our newsroom and community."

Bachman comes to Action News from Channel 2 WSB-TV in Atlanta, where he is the co-anchor of the 4 p.m. weekday newscast.

Smith-Hughes comes to Action News from Channel 9 WSOC in Charlotte, N.C., where she is the weekday morning anchor for Eyewitness News This Morning on TV64.

http://staugustine.com/news/local-news/2014-07-30/cbs47-and-fox30-announce-evening-anchor-team#.U-U4amNx-oM

[coredumped]

They're getting new call letters too:

Cox officials will change WAWS to WFOX and WTEV to WJAX. Zerwekh said the actual dates of the changes haven't been set.

http://members.jacksonville.com/news/metro/2014-08-26/story/more-anchor-changes-planned-action-news-jacksonville

WJAX is already owned by jones college, i guess it's ok if it's radio vs. tv?

[coredumped]

Starting this Sunday

http://members.jacksonville.com/news/metro/2014-09-03/story/jacksonvilles-action-news-stations-waws-and-wtev-change-call-letters

[fsquid]

ummm ok

[peestandingup]

That's quite the housecleaning.

The state of local news is pretty pathetic in this area (not that it's great anywhere I'm sure). FCN, for what I assume is the top dog in town, gets laughably worse with every passing year.

They all suck. Worked in master control for a few years at a local station (not here) & the behind the scenes is comical. They fart these shows out all day long, barely ever changing the content, for 30 mins a time day in day out. The producers literally grab stuff straight off the AP Wire, regurgitate it back through the talking heads with caked on makeup & think they're actually providing a service. And maybe they are, to the old people who can't use a phone or computer. But those people won't live forever. I mean for the love of God, the weather segment gets like six minutes to tell you a frickin' forecast. Six!

So basically, to the local news station industry all around the country: