Ann Curry to The View?

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Now that we all know where LeBron James is going, the latest guessing game is who will wind up on 'The View'?

Another of those (and there are a lot) that is rumored to be coming to the ABC talker is former Today Show Anchor Ann Curry.

Curry is still locked into an NBC contract, but that is not stopping the rumor mill from spinning her name as one of the possible new hosts for The View. 

We're guessing that if Curry does go to The View, Matt Lauer might be a bit nervous about what she might say.

Don't ya think?

The View with a Cupp

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A tipster emailed us late last week (and just about everyone else) top say that ABC's 'The View' is in talks with CNN Crossfire host S.E. Cupp about joining the show.

Crossfire has been shooting blanks for CNN and some feel that the show could be pulled soon from the CNN line-up.

So it appears that Cupp is looking to jump ship before it sinks. 

Someone in the Cupp camp is doing their best to get the rumor that The View is very interested in S.E. to be the "conservative" on the show. 

It appears that The View is also interest in possibly hiring Meghan McCain has the show's right leaner. 

But, McCain's peeps have not contacted FTVLive yet to try and plant that rumor.....yet.

McCain will be guest hosting on The View next week. 

I'm Back Baby!

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After taking time off from my digital life, I am back in the office and going through the 900+ emails and 121 voicemail messages that have arrived in my inbox over the last few days. I'm working hard now to sort through it and get my game plan ready for the morning.

I have a feeling that Monday is going to be a very busy day on the phone and getting back into the groove. 

FTVLive will be publishing early tomorrow morning and giving you the scoop as to what is happening in newsrooms and networks around the country. 

Did you miss me?

Heads Up to News Managers, GM's and Corp. Types

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I want to give a heads up to any News Directors, General Managers and/or Corporate people.

If you want to implement layoffs, or fire anyone, Thursday or Friday will be the best day to do it.

Why?

Because starting Thursday morning, FTVLive's editorial, sales, IT and social media team is taking a couple of days off.

Of course, all those positions are the responsibility of one person.....Me!

I'm taking off a few days from my digital life.

I don't want to do it, but on the advice of others and to help my own sanity, I need to go analog for a bit.

I haven't taken a vacation day in quite a longtime and I'm going to do that on Thursday and Friday. I can assure you that it is going to kill me not to update FTVLive. I know how many of you count on FTVLive for your inside scoop and it will pain me not to provide that for the next few days. 

But, a few days away from my computer, laptop, iPad and iPhone will be a welcome relief.

I really am going to try and not use any of those devices for the next couple of days and recharge my internal battery. 

So, if you need to get ahold of me, go ahead an email and I will get it when I return. Or you could try carrier pigeon as another option. 

This will be a chance for managers to fire people, anchors to get busted for DUI and Reporters and Photographers to screw up. 

You have the heads up....so go crazy.

But be warned, FTVLive will be back to full strength Monday morning.

Recharged, refreshed and ready to muckrake. 

Stay tuned.... 

The News Story of the Summer

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We are well into summer and it does not appear that we have a son of summer yet. Past songs of summer have been 'Party in the USA' and Daft Punk's 'Get Lucky'.

And while we don't have a song of summer just yet, we do have a news story of summer.

Each year, there is one story that TV stations love to harp on over and over again. A few years ago it was the West Nile Virus. Remember how we were all going to die from that one. West Nile is still around, but TV stations have grown bored of the story and you rawly see anymore reports on it.

Then there was the summer of shark attacks. It seemed like anyone that went into the water was attacked by a shark. 

So what is the story this summer?

It's kids left in hot cars. Stations all over the country and doing hot kid car stories and it does not seem to be letting up.

Stations in Georgia have been covering the stories so much that the state is putting up signs on the highway to remind them not to leave Junior baking in the backseat.  Malls and grocery-stores in Georgia have security guards checking backseats of cars in parking lots.

By the way, if you need a sign to remind you not to leave your kid in the car, then maybe you shouldn't be a parent. 

WTLV in Jacksonville stuck a Thermometer in the back seat of a car to show....get this...it gets hot.

KUSA in Denver did one better. They put a block of ice in a car and streamed in melting live on the station's website. 

The news story of summer is definitely the hot kid in the car.

Now, we could just get a good song for summer, we would be all set. 

Injured Motown Weatherman Thanks Viewers

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Earlier this week, FTVLive told you that WXYZ Chief Meteorologist Dave Rexroth was hurt in a fireworks accident over the holiday weekend.

Rexroth is surgery Today after being seriously injured in a fireworks accident in Iowa. The station reported that Rexroth has lost vision in his left eye and will be receiving a prosthetic eye.

Before heading into surgery, Rexroth reached out to say "thank you" to the viewers.

"Although the past few days have been challenging, I have been overwhelmed by the love and kind words from not only those closest to me but every single one of you," says Rexroth. "Over my 14 years in Detroit and southeast Michigan, I've been truly blessed with the most caring and supportive viewers, coworkers and friends ever. Your thoughts, prayers, and encouragement are really helping me get through this. Thank you all so much. I look forward to being back on air and being able to thank you directly."

The station expects him to return to work in the fall. 

Fox News Anchor Not Happy with Rosie Outlook at The View

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If the former hosts on ABC's 'Te View' get to vote on whether or not Rosie O'Donnell should return to the show?

We're guessing that Elisabeth Hasselbeck would vote "No!"

Hasselbeck, now a host on Fox and Friends, tee'd off on the news that O'Donnell may soon return to The View.

Hasselbeck says that she thinks O'Donnell has been planning her return to the show for a "long time."

Hasselbeck, who is on vacation, called into Fox and Friends and left no doubt about where she stood on the news, bringing up her infamous fight with O'Donnell which led to O'Donnell's premature exit from the program.

"What could ruin a vacation more than to hear news like this?" Hasselbeck said. "Here comes to 'The View' the very woman who spit in the face of our military, spit in the face of her own network, and really in the face of a person who stood by her and had civilized debates for the time that she was there."

She also alleged that, when all the former "View" hosts had reunited to celebrate Barbara Walters' retirement, O'Donnell had walked around the show's set "with a lot of control" and had even told her that she'd planned the entire thing.

We're guessing that Hasselbeck will not be invited on The View if O'Donnell returns.

Just saying..... 

H/T HuffPo

Fox Boston Staff Nervous About Cox Takeover

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As FTVLive told you, Fox and Cox decided to trade stations, in which Cox gives Fox KTVU in the San Francisco and Fox is going to give Cox their stations in Boston (WFXT) and throw in Memphis (WHBQ) as well. 

The staff at WFTX Fox Boston thinks that have gotten the short straw on the deal. “No one in the newsroom is happy,” said a Fox Boston insider to Boston Herald. “No one here knows what’s happening.”

The staff thinks that Fox 25 News Director Paul McGonagle is a dead man walking at the station.

Current KTVU GM Tom Raponi is making the move to Boston when Cox takes control. Staffers fear that Raponi will be bringing KTVU News Director Lee Rosenthal with him.

Staffers point out that Rosenthal  was at the helm during his station’s most embarrassing moment: the unintentional airing of an insensitive joke about the identities of the pilots flying the Asiana Airlines jet that crash-landed at San Francisco Airport last year. 

Insiders are also worried about possible talent changes. KTVU has seen an exodus of veteran reporters and anchor talent, prompting some locals to wonder if the same will happen in Bean Town.

“Anyone who is making any money has to be worried,” said another station spy to the Herald.

That would be, most notably, marquee player Maria Stephanos, and possibly morning news commentatorDoug “VB” Goudie.

“Maria is loved and is the heart of the station,” said our spy. “The rest of the talent, who knows?”

Raponi wouldn’t speculate about any on-air changes, saying he hasn’t had time yet to even watch the Fox 25 newscasts.

“The announcement was just made two weeks ago,” he said. “Right now we’re focused, along with the Fox executives, on visiting each other’s properties to introduce ourselves to our respective news staffs. There’s been a lot of great work done there in Boston and I hope to go in and talk with the folks who are doing all that great work and go from there. That’s the way I’ve done it for the past 34 years.”

Raponi, who began his TV career in New York and has spent the past 19 years at KTVU, said he’s eager to return to the East Coast and to “compete in a great market like Boston.”

“Although I’m not a native,” he said, “I’m looking forward to getting out my shovel and Sorel boots.”

The staff might not be looking forward to his move as much as he is.

Stay tuned.... 

Poor Bob....He Has the Worst Luck

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Yesterday, FTVLive told you about Bob Aaron Reporter/Photographer for WCHS (Charleston).

Aaron was covering a story when one man that he was trying to interview attacked him with his own tripod.

Cops busted the guy and Aaron was taken to the hospital, but is expected to be fine.

This isn't the first time Aaron has graced FTVLive.com. You may remember back in February, Aaron was covering a dangerous chemical spill into a creek.

Poor Bob was doing his one man band thing and getting ready to shoot a stand up near the creek. That's when it all went wrong. 

Let's cue up the video:

Anchor Bounced in Lafayette

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KLFY Anchor and Investigative Reporter Chuck Huebne has been fired. 

Huebner’s departure was “a cumulative thing,” citing long-running tensions between the veteran newsman and management as well as between Huebner and fellow news staffers a source tells TheInd.

A savvy investigative reporter — “they never should have put him on the news desk [as an anchor],” one insider says, citing Huebner’s considerable skills as an investigative reporter who drew on well-cultivated sources — Huebner was said to be frustrated with the lack of experience among staffers in the news department and with the station’s general decline in ratings.

General Manager Kenny Lawrence declined comment citing company policy pertaining to personnel issues.

Getting Out While She Still Can

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Newspaper Reporter Toni Konz is getting out of the newspaper business while there still is a newspaper business. 

Konz is leaving the Louisville Courier-Journal and making the move to TV news. She has been hired a Reporter at WDRB in Louisville.

Konz writes "the newspaper world I entered over a decade ago is drastically different from the one that exists today. And the world that exists now is scary for anyone, let alone a single mother whose only backup plan if she were to get laid off is to wait tables for a living."

Konz role at WDRB will be the same that it was at the paper. She will cover the Jefferson County Public Schools and writing about education issues.

On her way out, Knoz seemed to take a not so veiled shot at the Courier-Journal and the newspaper industry as a whole. "Now, something amazing has happened. I was given an opportunity to work in an environment that places a huge value on the happiness of its employees. WDRB has set a course that includes a commitment to covering Louisville and they are doing it by adding staff rather than having seemingly endless waves of layoffs, restructurings or reorganizations," she wrote. 

Oh Toni, you'll soon learn that the grass can just as brown on this side of the fence.

Stay tuned.... 

Tribune Stations Adding 11PM Newscasts

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When the plug got pulled on the Arsenio Hall show, many Tribune stations have decided to fill that hole with news.

On June 30, WXIN Indianapolis debuted NewsPoint, a half-hour 11 p.m. broadcast with nontraditional elements like an anchor standing in front of big screens and weather in the first 15 minutes. The Fox affiliate will also add 7 p.m. news this fall.

KCPQ Seattle will introduce an 11 o'clock newscast on top of its 10 o'clock news on Aug. 17. 

Two others stations will launch 11 p.m. newscasts this quarter, Tribune's SVP of News Katherine Green says. She declinines to identify them prior to the formal announcements. “I think there are other stations that will follow suit in the next six to nine months,” Green says. 

It's not just latenight that is getting newsier at Tribune. Green says there is no group mandate that stations add news, but there “certainly is a request” that they meet viewer demand. “We are seeing audiences coming back to news programming, so we want to deliver in the dayparts when there is an appetite for news,” she says.

H/T TVNewsCheck 

Activist Goes Off on Motown Reporter

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If you're turning on the TV to find intelligent conversation, you might want to skip by MSNBC.

WDIV (Detroit) Reporter Hank Winchester reported on the fact that some people in Detroit have stopped paying their water bills because they feel like “they are always going to get water.”

The Detroit Water and Sewage Department has fired back by shutting off water for more than 12,000 people who haven’t paid their bills,

Winchester was brought on to MSNBC to discuss his story. Also, joint him was welfare activist Maureen Taylor.

If you were hoping for a smart discussion on the issue, we have some bacd news for you.

Let's go to the video: