Headed to Austin

 KTBC in Austin has hired Amanda Salinas to Anchor the station's morning show.

Salinas broke the news on her Twitter account:

Austin 360 reports that Salinas will join the Fox affiliate on Jan. 20 as co-anchor of “Good Day Austin.” In addition, she’ll also appear on the station’s noon newscast.

Most recently, Salinas worked for KDAF, the CW affiliate serving Dallas/Fort Worth. Previous career stops have included stations in Laredo, Waco and West Palm Beach, Fla.

“As a native Texan who graduated from the University of Texas and has spent most of her career reporting and anchoring here, there is no one better versed on all things Austin than Amanda,” said Fox 7 vice president and news director Pam Vaught. “She is the ideal person to lead our morning newscast and provide our viewers with the information they need to navigate their day."

Mornings, Salinas will work alongside established anchors Dave Froehlich and Keri Bellacosa, while she’ll share the anchor desk with Froehlich at noon.

“Joining KTBC is a dream come true,” Salinas said. “My family and I have been blessed with the opportunity to call Austin home.”

Boston Station Sorry for Sending Stupid News Alert

With the temperatures sinking to deadly lows not seen in years, one Boston station decided it had a better story.

WCVB covered the story straight out of the movie 'A Christmas Story'.

It seems a girl got her tongue stuck to a pole and WCVB thought it was a huge story. 

How big?

They not only put it at the top of the newscast, the station sent out a breaking news alert about it.

After getting mocked to no end....the station sent out this Tweet:

But that didn't stop some of the Twitterverse from piling on. 

Robin Roberts Talks about Amber

FTVLive told you about Robin Roberts officially coming out over the Holidays.

Now she has done so on air.

Roberts talked about her girlfriend Amber on this morning's GMA. 

Signing off in the Big Apple

WNBC Anchor Erika Tarantal signed off from the station this past weekend.

Tarantal joined the station as a Reporter in 2007 and moved up to the anchor desk, finishing as the Anchor of 'Weekend Today in New York'.

Her bio is still posted on the WNBC website until they read FTVLive this morning and take it down. 

Tarantal is headed to Boston.

Her last day on air also turned into a Twitter love fest:

Seattle Photographer Catches Burglar

How does a simple burglary make the newscast?

When it's a News Photographer's house and he has his camera with him.

A KIRO-7 photographer found two men inside his house on Friday.

Joe Orsillo is getting the house he grew up in ready to put on the market.

Friday morning he walked inside the house in the 12500 block of 5th Ave NE in North Seattle and could tell someone was there. He found a man in the bedroom. Orsillo blocked the guy in the bedroom and called 911.

Then the photographer got out a camera and started asking questions. “Why are you inside my house? Why are you inside my house?” asked Orsillo in the video.

“I’m probably not going to have an answer you’ll like,” the suspect responded.

Orsillo said the men stashed stolen property in the house, did drugs in the bathroom, and trashed the house.

Another man locked himself in another room and escaped out a window.

Orsillo kept the first man cornered until police arrived. He said it took more than 21 minutes for police to arrive.

“It was over 21 minutes it took for them to get here. I was begging, I have this guy in my house. I don’t know if he has a weapon or not. I’ve got the door blocked. I don’t know what he’s going to do. He’s high on coke or whatever,” said Orsillo.

They arrested the man Orsillo caught, they’re still looking for the other suspect.

Let's go to the video:

Vegas Station Owner in Second Cancer Battle

KSNV (Las Vegas) owner Jim Rogers says he is another battle against cancer but told station employees “whatever happens, the station will not be put up for sale.”

The Las Vegas Review Journal reports that Rogers declined to comment on the type of cancer he has or his prognosis.

He battled bladder cancer about seven years ago.

“Just say this is my second go-round with cancer,” Rogers told the paper.

“I assume I’ll come out of this all right. I did the last time,” he added.

He revealed the development to his employees at a town hall-like meeting in the KSNV newsroom.

“I think you owe your employees an explanation,” he said. “They needed to know. They needed to know for several reasons — first of all, just as a matter of knowing, and secondly, with what’s going to happen with the station.

“So I went in to say this is what I got but I can assure you that whatever happens, the station will not be put up for sale. That’s never been part of the plan and so they are rest assured that their jobs are intact,” he said.

Several KSNV employees who attended the meeting said Rogers got emotional during the half-hour address.

“He got a little choked up talking about the future of Channel 3,” said Lisa Howfield, vice president and general manager.

“Primarily, he wanted to assure everybody at the station (No. 1), he wanted to tell people what was going on with his health, then assure everyone that the station is not going anywhere, that he’s putting his resources into expanding everything that we’re doing at the station. He was just wanting the employees to feel comfortable knowing the station isn’t going anywhere.

“He’s not stepping away, he’ll work until ... who knows,” she said.

Howfield clarified that it was not a case of his bladder cancer returning.

Rogers said, “It’s debilitating, the treatment is debilitating and it’s scary. All you can do is do this: thank God I have a place to go to work every day and thank God I’m active in my community. Because I really feel sorry for those who really have to sit around and think about it all the time because there’s no fun to that.”

Despite those treatments, he said he’s continued his long tradition of arriving at the station about 6:30 a.m.

More from the Las Vegas Review Journal 

WPVI on Top of Snowstorm Ratings

Nothing brings ratings more than a hyped up storm and that was the case when snowstorm We're all Going to Die (or whatever they Weather Channel is calling it) blasted it's way into Philly. 

The big winner in Philly was WPVI and Weather Anchor Cecily Tynan.

At 5 p.m. with the storm approaching, WPVI Action News and  Tynan won easily over WCAU NBC10 (Sheena Parveen), KYW CBS3  (Kathy Orr) and WTXF Fox 29 (Scott Williams).

Here are the numbers:

At 5 p.m., Action News gets a higher rating than the other three newscasts added together.

6 ABC – 9.8
NBC 10 – 4.9
CBS 3 – 3.0
Fox 29 – 1.4

And at 6 p.m., when Jim Gardner takes the anchor chair, things just get worse for the other stations.

6 ABC – 12.8
NBC 10 – 5.5
CBS 3 – 4.8
Fox 29 – 1.4

WPVI also won the late news as well. 

It's not uncommon for PVI to win the ratings in Philly, the station has been number one for years. But, when a big news event happens, that's when the cream really rises to the top.

H/T Philly Magazine 

The Mystery of the Missing Phoenix Anchor

FTVLive has been reporting for months on how KTVK Anchor Patti Kirkpatrick has been missing from the station for months, her desk cleaned out and yet not a word from the station.

Each night, when the evening news hits the air in Phoenix, thousands of viewers flock to Google and search to find out why Kirkpatrick is not on the air?

While she was missing from the air, her bio remained on the KTVK website. That is no longer the case.

The station has scrubbed her bio from their site, but has still made no mention of her employment status with the station. 

While Kirkpatrick has been of the air, KTVK has been sold twice. First the station was sold to Gannett and then it was sold again to Meredith. 

Maybe Meredith will at least come clean and confirm that Kirkpatrick no longer works at the station.

It would save a lot of Googling for their viewers.

Just saying....  

Anchor Shake Up in O-Town

WFTV in Orlando is shaking up the anchor ranks at the station.

The Orlando Sentinel reports that the station will pair Jorge Estevez (pictured) and Nancy Alvarez and bring back market veteran Ken Tyndall, the station announced Friday.

Estevez and Alvarez will be teamed at 6 and 11 p.m. Sundays on WFTV. They also will anchor at 10 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays on sister station WRDQ-Channel 27. (Martie Salt and Greg Warmoth will anchor at 10 p.m. Fridays on WRDQ.)

Tyndall will anchor on Saturdays, doing the 6 and 11 p.m. telecasts on WFTV and the 10 p.m. newscast on WRDQ.

The changes will happen in early February, news director Matt Parcell said.

Alvarez has earned the promotion from anchoring on weekends, and she will continue to report in addition to her new duties, WFTV General Manager Shawn Bartelt said. The Alvarez-Estevez team has great potential, Bartelt added.

"Both are great anchor-reporters," Bartelt said. "We want two watchable anchors who have great chemistry."

Parcell explained that chemistry. "They're close friends, and it shows on television," he said. "They present the news in a personable way."

Estevez has been anchoring at 10 p.m. on WRDQ with Salt. He won a local "Dancing With the Stars" contest for charity in September.

Alvarez and Estevez could be the first Hispanic anchor team on an English-language newscast in this market, the station noted.

"For us, the priority is to put the best talent in the seats, and we've accomplished that," Bartelt said. "But another priority is to reflect the marketplace."

Tyndall, who works at radio station WDBO, has been reporting for WFTV on Saturdays since 2011. (Both WDBO and WFTV are part of Cox Media Group.) Tyndall left WFTV in 1996 after 14 years.

"Ken and I talked about him getting back on the anchor desk," Parcell said. "He's good."

In other WFTV changes:

***Bianca Castro has resigned, but has not said where she is going. "We're sad to see her go," Parcell said. "She's a great person to have in the newsroom. We're happy for her. We haven't set her end date."

She joined WFTV in October 2010.

***Meteorologist Marina Jurica will join WFTV on Jan. 20. She is coming to the station from KMSP in Minneapolis.

I'm sorry....again

MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry, another unknown at the network, made news last week when she and her guests poked fun at Mitt Romnet's family photo because it included his adopted black grandson.

he panel poked fun at the photo and Harris-Perry caught heat for being so insensitive. 

he MSNBC host took to Twitter to apologize for her show and on Saturday she said she was sorry again when she hit the air.

The crocodile tears wear flowing as she made her apology: 

After the tearful apology, Alec Baldwin tweeted "If I cry, will I be forgiven all of my transgressions?"

Ummmmmm....No Alec you won't.

BTW- Baldwin Deleted the Tweet. 

Meet Jimmy, Forget Jay

Expect to see a lot of Jimmy Fallon the next few weeks.

As NBC prepares to kick Jay Leno to the curb, they getting ready to start a full media blitz for his replacement. 

The NY Daily News says that NBC plans to plaster this image of Jimmy Fallon and his new “Tonight” show logo on billboards, buses and in magazines across the nation over the next few weeks.

The “Saturday Night Live” alum takes over the show from Jay Leno after NBC’s Olympic telecast wraps up on Feb. 17.

NBC has invested millions in Fallon’s new gig, moving the show back to New York City for the first time since Johnny Carson shifted the prodution to Burbank 42 years ago.

The network has built Fallon a massive, high-tech studio at its Rockefeller Center headquarters in the same space where Carson and his predecessor, Jack Paar, hosted their versions of “Tonight.”

Dallas Reporter Leaving for CBS Newspath

KXAS NBC5, which logged the last reporter departure of 2013, now has the first of the New Year.

Omar Villafranca, who joined the station in January 2008, will remain in North Texas, though. He’s moving over to CBS News, Villafranca tweeted, to become the Dallas-based correspondent for the network’s Newspath Villafranca’s turf also will include the Southwest region.

The official announcement from CBS should come this week.

H/T Ed Bark 

Chicago Reporter Arrested on Multiple Charges

The New Year is off to a very bad start for one Chicago Reporter.

Police arrested WBBM investigative reporter Dave Savini.  

Savini is facing charges of hit-and-run, driving under the influence, battery and endangering the life of a child.

The Reporter was busted shortly after midnight on Saturday by police in the Chicago suburb of Naperville after he was reported to have been involved in a traffic accident in the parking lot of a Taco Bell.

The driver of the other vehicle said Savini pushed him when he took a photograph of Savini’s license plate, according to police.

The endangerment charge was filed because Savini, a Naperville resident and father of two, had two children under 18 in the car, the report said.

He was released on $3,000 bond.

WBBM has not made comment nor have they reported the arrest of their Reporter.

Savini has been at the station since 2004.

We're going to go out on a limb here and say that he won't finish 2014 at the CBS O&O.

But that's just a guess. 

H/T Robert Feder 

Former Seattle News Director Gone From Station

A former Seattle News Director has lost his job for the second time at the same station.

Huh?

Jon Brady was hired as the News Director at KCPQ in Seattle in 2010. Back in August, Brady had the News Director title taken away, when the station promoted Erica Hill to the ND job.

Brady was given some BS title like director of content and news programming.

Many figured that he wouldn't last long after losing the ND gig and those people were right.

Brady parted ways with the station yesterday. 

ND is Kicked to the Curb in Palm Beach

WPEC (West Palm Beach) News Director News Director Cathy Younkin was bounced from the station Today

WPEC General Manager Michael Pumo confirmed that Younkin is no longer at the station but declined to comment further, because you know this is the communications business.

WPEC has struggled in the ratings and has been soundly beat by WPTV in the books. 

A search for a replacement has already started.