Zimmerman Trial Kicks Off Today

Opening statement in the George Zimmerman trial and expected to start at 9AM this morning and you can bet Nancy Grace is as excited as a school girl.

But, Grace isn't the only one jack up for the Zimmerman trail. 

The Orlando stations will be making major changes to their schedules, so they can go wall to wall with Zimmerman.

Basically all the O-Town stations are moving their regularly scheduled shows over to their secondary channels.  

"We've seen a lot of activity both on our web and our mobile app," hsays WESH GM Jim Carter. "We've had a lot of streams of the jury selection process."

"There is a significant appetite for the case," WKMG news director Steve Hyvonen said. "We're going to keep going with it as long as viewers want to watch it."

He said high interest in the Zimmerman trial was reflected in ratings, web traffic and social media streams. But he added that WKMG will "constantly reassess" its plan and could adjust it.

Nancy Grace will do no readjusting and will be all Zimmerman all the time, until the trail is over or another white woman goes missing. 

Stay tuned.... 

H/T Orlando Sentinel  

Talk About Arachnophobia

Global TV (Canada) Weather Anchor Kristi Gordon freaked out when a spider crawled on the lens of the station's tower cam.

The creepy crawler was nowhere near her, but that didn't stop her from going a bit overboard with her reaction. 

Let's roll the video: 

Finally! O-Town Anchor Gives Birth to 3!

George Zimmerman may be the biggest news in Orlando, but the Martha Sugalski baby watch was a close second. 

Finally after being pregnant with triplets for like 3 years, Sugalski gave birth yesterday.  

To kepp up with Kim Kardashian, Sugalski named the triplets South East, Mid West and Nor Easter. 

Ok maybe we made up that last part.  

The Bad Timing Award Goes to....

Last week the big news story in the Birmingham market had been the disappearance of a 19 year old University of Alabama student after a river rafting accident.

Sadly, on Friday morning around 11AM her body had been found. 

At 11:30AM, WVTM aired their locally produced show "Daytime Alabama."  The show opened with host Wendy Garner standing beneath the covered bridge at the waters edge.

Where Garner was standing was just downstream from where the girl's body was discovered just a half hour before.

Garner made no mention of the searches in the area, still packing up their gear from the 40 plus hour search.

Why? Because the show was pre-taped and Garner's story was a fluff piece about the history of the covered bridges in the area. 

You would have thought someone at the station might have caught that and not aired Garner's report and pull something else from the can.  

Just saying....  

That's Paula Deen?!

I thought her hair was grayer than that. 

The Top 5 Most Read Stories of the Week

It's time to look at the stories you guys found most interesting on FTVLive this past week. 

Here are the Top 5 most read stories the week:

No. 5 -  Sacramento News Director Out

No. 4 -  Scott Pelley: Cable News Doesn't Matter

No. 3 -  Retired BELO CEO to make $300,000 for Doing Nothing

No. 2 -  Whatever Happened to....

And the most read story on FTVLive this past week was:  Here is your Next TV Anchor

They Didn't Fire her they Fried Her

According to WVTM in Alabama, Paula "Dean" was "Fried"  for making racial slurs. 

This happens almost at the exact same time that Paula Deen was Fired for making racial slurs.

I think if I had a choice I would rather be fired than fried. 

Gray Television Boss is Kicked to the Curb

Something happened at Gray Television and now President and Chief Operating Officer Bob Prather out the door.

Prather, which he and partner J. Mack Robinson took over in 1994 and built into a major group through a series of acquisitions.

In a terse announcement, the publicly traded company said that Prather has resigned from "all positions" and that that CEO Hilton Howell will assume the title of president. Howell is Robinson's son-in-law.

Said Howell in a statement: "I want to thank Bob Prather for his service to the company. As we continue to move ahead, I am looking forward to continuing to work closely with our corporate leadership team, as well as all the other members of Gray's outstanding operational leadership team at our television stations.

"This is an exciting and dynamic time in the television broadcasting industry, and after our record year in 2012 we continue to be on track for a very solid year in 2013."

H/T TVNewsCheck

Slowly Being Phased out in the Bugh

WTAE has been slowly phasing out longtime anchor Sally Wiggin and now they have taken another step in that process. 

Wiggin, once the main anchor at the station was busted down to the Noon show and now she's being taken off the anchor desk altogether.

The station announced that she will leave the anchor desk for a new assignment as host of a one-hour ongoing series of news specials called "WTAE Chronicle."

Wiggin did her best to spin the news that she will no longer being on the air each day. "Stations have to think of the future and they want me to be a part of that and that's validating," said Wiggin, 60. "When you get to this age, you want to be challenged because it's good for your brain. This will challenge me in a way reading a TelePrompTer was not."

The station says that Wiggin will continue contributing to WTAE newscasts, though not on a daily basis.

I think we can all agree, It sucks getting old. 

H/T Pittsburgh Post Gazette  

Bounced in Chicago

Yesterday, WLS announced that they were pulling the plug on their 11AM newscast. 

Today, they bounced one of the Anchor's of that same newscast. 

WLS has parted ways news anchor and "Healthbeat" reporter Sylvia Perez after 24 years with the station.

Officially, her contract, which expires in September, is not being renewed. Her last time on the air was yesterday, June 20th. 

It is the general policy of WLS-TV to not comment on personnel matters, so there is no official comment from the station regarding the exit of Sylvia Perez. However, inside sources confirm that she is no longer on the air for ABC 7.

Morning news anchor Judy Hsu filled the 11:00am newscast co-anchor vacancy today, with no mention of the missing Perez.

H/T Chicago Land Radio and Media