Columbus News Director Headed to WISH in Indianapolis

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FTVLive FIRST told you back on April 9th that Steve Bray was leaving as News Director of WISH in Indianapolis. 

Now, FTVLive is FIRST to tell you who the new ND at WISH will be.

WBNS News Director Elbert Tucker is headed to Indianapolis to be the station's next News Director.

Tucker has been the ND in Columbus since 2010.

Here is the internal email that Tucker sent to the staff at WBNS:

Everyone,

After five years at 10TV, it is time for me to take the next step in my career. I have accepted an offer to become news director at WISH-TV in Indianapolis.

The decision to leave a newsroom I have admired and respected from day one did not come easily, especially because you are more than co-workers to me. But with our son graduating high school, my wife and I decided we’re ready for our next adventure.

We’ve done some great things together here – the kind of coverage and storytelling you don’t forget. The Knox County tragedy, the Zanesville animal escape, a Christmas vacation snowstorm, the 2012 presidential election and a Buckeyes National Championship, just to name a few. 

I would like to thank John Cardenas and the senior leadership at The Dispatch. I am grateful for the opportunities given to me here and I would like to thank all of you, especially the newsroom managers, for making this such a great experience.

I will always be at your service.
ET

What's in a Name Anyway?

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Those that are currently working at Gannett stations will soon be working for "Tegna."

Huh?

 The company has chosen the name “Tegna” when it spins off its broadcasting and digital company later this year.

“Tegna is a nod to the more than 100 year-old history of Gannett,” said Gracia Martore, Gannett president and CEO. “While always reminding us where we came from, the new name also shows our innovative spirit and commitment to being a forward-looking company that empowers people, businesses and communities to grow and thrive.”

Gannett did not say how it came up with the name, which appears to be "Gannett" just jumbled up.

Romenesko points out that TEGNA, autocorrects to TENGA which is all new masturbation tools” made in Japan.

Seems about right.....

Devlin Design Walks Away with Best Exhibit at NAB

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Our friends at Devlin Design Group have picked up another honor. 

DDG won the ACE award at the NAB Show in Las Vegas, for the best exhibit design.

Devlin says they started planning their exhibit last November and the result was recognized by luminaries in the trade show exhibit design business.

The exhibit was awesome and included lots of hands on interactive displays. It shows we stand by our mantra: Creativity, Knowledge, Innovation

 The company also won NewscastStudio, 2014 Set of the Year Award, for the fourth year in a row! The ground-breaking design created for FOX 5, WAGA Atlanta nabbed the top honor.

Send in the Clowns, Jeff Zucker Likes Don Lemon's Act

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Let's be honest, if CNN's Don Lemon worked at another network it is likely he would have been fired for some of his antics and some of the things he said on air.

But, Don Lemon works at CNN and for Jeff Zucker. The CNN boss likes Lemon's clown act and he tells GQ Magazine that there is a lot of interest in Lemon.

“Let me put it this way,” says Jeff Zucker. “There’s certainly a lot of interest in Don Lemon, and that’s a good thing for Don and for CNN. You know, Don is a little bit of a lightning rod. Frankly, we needed a little bit of lightning.”

There are those inside CNN that think that Lemon has made the one time news network into a laughing stock. But, it seems as long as people are talking, Jeff Zucker is totally cool with that. 

Somewhere, Ted Turner is shaking his head.

Just saying.... 

Quincy Stations Blindsided as it Falls Of DirecTV (Updated)

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Insiders at the Quincy stations tell FTVLive that all the Quincy stations got yanked off DirecTV at midnight.

Staffers say they got no heads-up from management but we hear that management also did not know that it was going to happen either.

One GM says he had no clue that it was happening and was blindsided as well. 

Staff they have been fielding angry Facebook comments and phone calls.  

No statements from either side yet from what I've seen.

Update: Quincy and DirecTV have already reached a new 3 year deal.

GLADD is Glad to Honor MSNBC's Thomas Roberts

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GLAAD, the nation's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) media advocacy organization, today announced it will honor MSNBC's Thomas Roberts at the 26th Annual GLAAD Media Awards in New York on May 9th.

Roberts will receive GLAAD's Vito Russo Award, which is named after one of GLAAD's co-founders and the author of The Celluloid Closet. The award is presented to an out LGBT media professional who has made a significant difference in promoting equality for the LGBT community. Previous Vito Russo Award honorees include George Takei, Anderson Cooper, Ricky Martin, Rosie O'Donnell, Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, Alan Cumming, Tom Ford, and Cynthia Nixon.

GLADD says that through his reporting, Roberts has highlighted stories of LGBT people in the South, LGBT athletes, marriage equality, and discrimination within the Boy Scouts of America. He has given a voice to many transgender advocates and dedicated several segments to the bullying faced by LGBT youth.

The ESPN Reporter That Should Be Getting The Attention

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NFL Network Reporter Alex Flanagan (pictured) gave her take on Britt McHenry's parking garage blow up and how she feels about it.

In a great blog post, Flanagan says the wrong ESPN Reporter is getting all the attention. 

Speaking of McHenry, Flanagan writes, I certainly don’t wish her any ill will. My “mother of two daughters voice” hopes she’ll learn that while she was hired, maybe in part, because she’s in shape, has nice teeth and is well educated, those things don’t make her a better person…neither does having a job on TV. In fact, a tow truck employee who endures the rage of angry rule breakers, pissed their car got towed and whose job requires them to keep their cool even when insults are being hurled at them, probably deserves more accolades and respect than someone like me who attends sporting events for free and regurgitates coach speak.

Flanagan points out that McHenry went from being relatively unknown to being a household name this past week after that video of her degrading the tow company employee went viral. “No publicity is bad publicity” seems truer today than ever before. In our oversaturated TV market, executives want people who stand out, ones that can move the needle.

Flanagan thinks that people should be more focused on another ESPN Reporter and not McHenry. She writes, Shelley Smith has been a reporter for ESPN for more than 20 years. Like Britt, Shelley got into a nasty fight with an enemy. But you might not have heard about it. Shelly is battling breast cancer. She recently finished chemotherapy and before she starts a series of 25 radiation treatments in May, she’ll report for ESPN during the NFL Draft from Hawaii on quarterback Marcus Mariota.

About Smith, Flanagan writes, her hair doesn’t look so good these days. Because of chemo, she doesn’t have any. But instead of being angry and irate, she’s treated her enemy with grace and poise and has become an inspiration for others on how to behave when you have been totally screwed for no good reason at all. I would absolutely have her back if after a bad day she wanted to “go off” and give cancer a piece of her mind. But I doubt she ever will. If you ask me, that’s the kind of story and TV personality who deserves some air time.

NBC Waits for Brian Williams to Say Sorry

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The guessing game of whether NBC will or will not bring back Brian Williams goes on.

But, according to a report on TheStreet.com, in order for BriLie to come back, he must make a public apology.

They write that Williams will need to make a public apology for alleged fabrications in his reporting before the Comcast owned network would consider reinstating him, according to a person with knowledge of the situation. The public apology is one of several "things Brian has to do before we'd let him back on the air," according to this person. 

Williams was suspended in February for six months for exaggerating his reporting during the Iraqi invasion and Hurricane Katrina's 2005 strike on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

NBC News Chairman Andrew Lack is expected to make a decision by August, although if the network decides to jettison Williams a decision could be made as soon as the network's May 11 "upfront" presentation to advertisers, an annual gathering aimed at selling airtime for the upcoming fall and winter season. 

"The best decision for NBC News would be to part ways with Brian Williams," said Bernard Gershon, a former ABC News radio vice-president and former general manager of ABCNews.com. "It helps restore credibility to a tarnished news organization and allows them to rebuild. For the moment, Williams is a punch line."

"They would be better off looking to their bench or poaching talent from elsewhere," said former NBC entertainment chief Garth Ancier. "I can't think of a correspondent of anchor who has fudged the truth about his journalistic experience and returned to the sacred trust of an anchor chair. I interpreted the 6-month hiatus as a goodbye gesture in television time."

David Gregory Lost His Buzz Before Being Kicked to the Curb

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As much as it might pain him to know this, David Gregory's star was falling long before NBC gave him the boot.

In a new documentary about the White House Correspondents’ Dinner called “Nerd Prom: Inside Washington’s Wildest Week” filmmaker Patrick Gavin was shooting as Capitol File magazine editors dismissed a cover feature on Gregory.

“What about David Gregory?” Capitol File associate publisher Meredith Merrill asks her colleagues in footage of an editorial meeting left on the cutting-room floor. “I’d love to get him on a cover.”

“He has no buzz,” publisher Suzy Jacobs shoots back. “I mean, I think he’s great, but his buzz is dead.”

Of course NBC replaced Gregory with Chuck Todd and as you can see there is SO MUCH buzz going on about Todd, you might think he was a bee keeper.

Ok...maybe not. 

H/T Page Six

ABC Releases Another Bruce Jenner Promo

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There is no doubt that ABC News is banking on Bruce Jenner for the May Ratings. 

ABC continues to hype Diane Sawyer's interview with Bruce Jenner which will air Friday night. They released another promo for the interview:

Former Olympian sat down for an exclusive interview with Diane Sawyer that will air on Friday, April 24 at 9pmET on ABC.

Yeah.... I'm still not watching and I don't care. 

It's Not Really Here....

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KNBC debuted some new fancy weather graphics yesterday, but it was a bit confusing to some viewers.

Weather Anchor Anthony Yanez showed off the "Augmented Reality" by saying, "as you can see, it's not really here."

Ummmm.... no...what we see is it is there.

Let's go to the video:

We debuted 'Augmented Reality' today on our noon show at NBCLA. It's another tool we have to share the weather story with you. There is no Chroma key, the graphic simply appears on screen. What do you think?

Scarborough on Comcast, TWC Deal... I'm no Expert

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MSNBC's Joe Scarborough admits that he doesn't know much when it comes to his parent company Comcast and their preposed monopoly takeover of Time Warner Cable. 

“I’m not a real expert on it so I don’t really know how it’s going to go down. I don’t know the issues of it', Scarborough said to the Intercept. "I think at the end of the day it’s going to be up to the regulators to see if that makes a lot of sense. “I do know this, as a guy who’s lived in Manhattan, most of the people in Manhattan aren’t brokenhearted that Time Warner Cable might not be in charge of the Manhattan boxes any more. The service is pretty bad," he added.

We got news for you Joe, Comcast is no bowl of cherries when it comes to service either.

Just saying.... 

 

Tribune Boss Pocketed $23 Million Last Year

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Remember when Tribune filed bankruptcy and couldn't pay its bills?

Wasn't that long ago was it?

So, you might be surprised to learn that Tribune Media CEO Peter Liguori made $23 million bucks total compensation in 2014.

It was a big raise compared to 2013, when he pulled in a measly $8.8 million.

Tribune Media has done well since its split from the dying newspaper-focused Tribune Publishing. 

Liguori's 2014 compensation included a salary of nearly $1.6 million, up from nearly $1.5 million in 2013. He got no regular bonus in 2014 after getting $1.75 million in 2013. But his stock awards rose from $4.2 million to $8.4 million, and his option awards rose from $1.2 million to $11.55 million.

Liguori also received non-equity incentive compensation worth $1.5 million. His "other compensation" of $10,400 compared with $141,822 in 2013.

"Mr. Liguori presided over our business transformation in 2014," the filing said in discussing his compensation. "Through Mr. Liguori's leadership, we achieved strong performance results, even while navigating the complexities of acquisitions, spinoffs and the company's registration on the New York Stock Exchange."

I'm sure the people working in the newsroom pulling down $29,000 a year are very happy for him.

H/T Hollywood Reporter