St. Louis Anchor off the Air After IRS Tax Claims

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FTVLive reported the story that KMOV (St. Louis) Anchor Larry Connors claimed they he was a target of the IRS after he did an interview with President Obama.

It appears that the anchor may have left out a tiny little detail...like the fact that his IRS troubles started well before he did the interview with the President.​

Oops!​

Now, Connors has been taken off the air. The station isn't calling it a suspension but instead he is going “take a few days off”.​

​After his post, Connors went on the air with a brief explanation of his post. He didn't exactly apologize, but he did admit that his troubles with the IRS actually started years prior to his 2012 interview with President Obama.

Connors may or may not have ticked off the President, but he most certainly pissed off BELO, the company that owns his station.​

“Any issue he has with the IRS are personal issues. They have nothing to do with our television station KMOV or him as a journalist,” Mike Valentine, vice president for content at Belo.

So while the station is not saying that Connors has been suspended....he totally has been. 

In this Case a Tie is a Win

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Don't count the Today Show out just yet.​

The NBC morning show tied No. 1 ABC's Good Morning America in the demos.​

For the week of May 6-12, NBC's “Today” posted a 1.8 rating in the key demo A25-54 tying with GMA.

​This was “Today’s” best delivery in the demo since February 13, 2013. Year-to-date, “Today” has narrowed the gap with GMA by 52% (51,000) versus the prior season-to-date average.

If used to be that the Today Show was so solidly at Number 1 that a tie with GMA would be a disaster. But, the time have changed and it this case, NBC is looking as the tie as a win. 

What's up with You Dude? Vol. 5

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FTVLive opens up the email box to answer some of the biggest burning questions in TV News.

Like the Reporter that wants to know what to do about her Photog that keeps hitting on her? 

One person asks if they should apply for an Anchor opening in Pittsburgh?​

Another wants to know why they keep getting rejection letters from News Directors?​

FTVLive is here to help (OK not really) and we do it in another edition of What's up with you Dude? Vol. 5

Read the latest edition in ScottLand ​

Club Operator That Fleeced Philly Wxman is Sentenced

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The South Beach (Miami) club operator who part of the scheme that fleeced former Philly Weatherman John Bolaris out over over $40 grand was sentenced in a Miami courtroom.

​Albert Takhalov cried when the judge sentenced to 12 years in prison for using  a "bar girls" scheme that would separate patrons from their money.

The scheme also separated Bolaris from his job as weather anchor at Fox Philly. Bolaris was fired after he was taken by the ​"bar girls" scheme and then talked about it to Playboy magazine. 

"I feel great, I feel relieved that all that stuff is paid off and they’re behind bars," Bolaris told the Philly Daily News. "If I didn’t [testify], that operation would be still be operating. It was very embarassing ... but I feel good. I’ve had a hardship since then, not working and really feel that I was blackballed from the TV news industry because of it."

​Bolaris claims he is leaving Philly next month for New York City where he claims to have some job opportunities.

Dallas Anchor has Been Served in Lawsuit

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Dallas Anchor has Been Served in Lawsuit

FTVLive has been telling you for years about the ongoing legal trouble for WFAA Anchor Shon Gables.

Twice, Gables did not show up to court to "testify under oath regarding her assets" in connection with a successful $35,000 slander judgment against her. The judgement was ​won by Richard Klamka, he's the brother of Gables' second and now ex-husband, Peter Klamka.

In 2011 a Detroit judge ​issued a bench warrant for Gables for contempt of court.

Now it appears that she is being sued again. This time by her ex-husband Peter ​Klamka.

FTVLive obtained video of where a Dallas area process server taped a copy of the lawsuit to the side of a WFAA live truck. 

The video after the jump.  
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Cincy Sports Guy: Now's the Time

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Cincy Sports Guy: Now's the Time

Yesterday FTVLive told you that WCPO Sports Anchor Dennis Janson announced that he was leaving anchor chair next Wednesday (last day of sweeps).

Janson is headed mainly to the station's website to write columns and will do some on air commentaries with a bit of "an edge."

We also pointed out in the story that Janson said that his leaving the anchor desk was "his call". Of course everyone says that and we questioned the fact if it really was his call?​

Why we now think it really was his call after the jump.  ​

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Want a Free iPad? Switch to DISH

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Want a Free iPad? Switch to DISH

If you want to score a free iPad you can do it by switching over to the DISH network.​

The entire pay TV industry has hit a plateau in subscriber growth, and now these companies are upping the ante to get people to sign up. 

Dish Network is now giving away free Apple iPad 2 (just the 2? Weak)  to new subscribers who take its Hopper multiroom DVR. Alternatively, new customers can opt for monthly discounts of $25 to $35 per month on programming packages for the first year.

Dish had a very weak first quarter in terms of subscriber trends, as did DirecTV, and cable operator video losses mounted in the period. Dish added 36,000 net TV subscribers in Q1, compared with 104,000 a year earlier.

More on the promotion and the term after the jump.  ​

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San Antonio ND Heads to CBS News

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KENS News Director Kurt Davis is moving on up the food chain to CBS News.

Davis has been named Vice President, News Services for CBS News.

Davis will take charge of CBS News’ satellite newsgathering organization, which provides news and information to 200 CBS affiliates.

The appointment is effective immediately, and he will be based in New York.

Davis spent 10 years as the News Director at KENS in San Antonio.

Former KNBC Anchor Lands at CNN

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Former KNBC Weekend Anchor Stephanie Elam is headed to CNN as an LA based Correspondent.

Elam worked at CNN, so this is a return back to the cable network for her. 

Elam joined KNBC in October 2011 after nearly 8 years at CNN. She was the station’s weekend evening anchor and general assignment reporter until November 2012.

“Stephanie is an excellent communicator and tenacious reporter, and we are pleased to have her back as a part of the CNN family,” said Terence Burke, vice president of newsgathering for CNN US today in a statement.

This continues Jeff Zucker's hires of people from either ABC or NBC since he took over as the boss at CNN. ​Zuck has been trying to increase CNN's West Coast presence by increasing its emphasis on the business aspect of the entertainment industry.

Elam is the second LA hire by CNN in as many months.

H/T Deadline ​

Bumped up the Food Chain in LA

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Bumped up the Food Chain in LA

Araksya Karapetyan, who started out during her college years interning at both KFI and KABC-TV, has been promoted to full-time anchor with the KTTV's FOX 11 Morning News.

She joined the station last year as a general assignment reporter and fill-in anchor, where she had been contributing to the 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. weekday newscasts as well as Studio 11 LA.

She will anchor weekday newscasts from 4:30 to 7:00 a.m. and again from 10:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., as well as continue to contribute to Good Day LA.

The obligatory quotes after the bounce.  ​

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Anchor gets Co-Anchor by Messing with the Prompter

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Anchor gets Co-Anchor by Messing with the Prompter

t was like a scene out of Anchorman. 

Karl Stefanovic, the legendary Australian TV presenter and co-host of Nine Network's breakfast show Today, decided to pull the old Anchorman Prank on his colleague Roz Kelly during this morning's broadcast.

While reciting her teleprompter script about a soccer match in Amsterdam, Kelly suddenly came across the line "how good are the [hash] cookies there," which, of course, she had no choice but to read.

"Karl, you've won the battle. The war has just begun, though," Kelly told Stefanovic, suggesting that viewers should expect the shenanigans to escalate quickly.

The anchors cracked up and now it looks like it's on. 

​The video after the jump.  ​​

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DirecTV Figuring a way Around Retrans Fees

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DirecTV Figuring a way Around Retrans Fees

DirecTV is working on a way they won't have to pay your station or company a fee for carrying the station's signal.​

Retransmission fess have become a big part of station's bottom lines and DirecTV wants to get away without paying that money.​

DirecTV is considering testing a new set-top that incorporates an antenna allowing customers to pull over-the-air broadcast signals, which could allow the satellite giant to avoid paying millions of dollars per year in retransmission consent fees.

More after the hop.   ​

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Cincy Sports Anchor Kind of Retiring

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Here's a thought, when some anchor leaves their job and they say "it was entirely my decision" it most likely wasn't.

​WCPO Sports Anchor Dennis Janson told viewers tonight he’s leaving anchor chair next Wednesday. Unbelievably that is also the last day a sweeps. What a coincidence! 

The sports anchor says he is leaving the anchor chair to work primarily for the WCPO.com website writing a column.

Details of his new duties will be revealed later, he said, but “there will be a role for me on the air, with an edge.”

More often than not, stations staffers working on the website are just kids right out of school making next to nothing. ​

So the idea of taking the main sports anchor off air and having him work mainly for the station's website, shows a great commitment by the station and how much they realize that ​the Internet presence is vitally important.... Or they wanted to bump down the sports guy and replace him with someone new.

​Janson claims the idea was all his. “This transition is solely – I say solely – my decision,” he tells Cincy Enquirer. 

Uh-Oh!

That didn't Last Long

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Back in February ​the Chicago Sun Times newspaper came up with and idea to use popular Chicago Anchor Carol Marin to host an online newscast for the Sun-Times website.

The Marin Report appeared at noon Monday through Friday on the home page of suntimes.com. Marin hosted the show from studio in the Sun-Times’ newsroom.  The Marin report was 90-second roundup of headlines and highlights of her colleagues’ work at SunTimes.

It didn't last long. Less than 3 months to be exact.

Today the paper announced that they have pulled the plug on The Marin Report.​

The paper said: Calling it a "proud experiment," Carol Marin announces the demise of her "Marin Report" daily videocast for suntimes.com after three months. "Endless thanks to great subscribers!" she writes.​

Denver Station Posts Video of DA Ripping Reporter

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Denver Station Posts Video of DA Ripping Reporter

KMGH in Denver did something that they admit is not normal for them.

The station was working on a story about Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey and how he refuses to prosecute a higher percentage of felonies and felony sex assaults than many other judicial districts in Colorado and several similar ones around the country.

The station had been working on the story for months, but they were having a problem getting DA ​Morrissey to appear on camera. 
 

Reporter Keli Rabon finally caught up with the DA in public, but he refused to answer he questions on camera.​

A number of times he told Rabon that he would talked to her off camera because ​according to him, Rabon and the station don't "tell the truth" and they distort the story through their editing of the video. 

During the encounter Morrissey repeatedly predicts that none of his criticism being shot would be shown.

So the station showed the entire exchange when they posted the video on the station's website and it made the DA look like a pompous ​ass.

​More plus the video after the hop.  

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