Len Berman didn't exactly use his farewell from the WNBC 4 sports desk as an opportunity to have his Howard Beale moment, but he did get in a couple of jabs at all of the cutbacks around the station that led them to let him go after almost twenty-five years covering local sports there. When presented with a cake, Berman quipped, "Is this in the budget?" Apparently personalizing it was not.
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Could ongoing cuts to NBC News Channel 4 go so deep as to bring an end to the city's most beloved anchor team? Gawker reports: "A 'pervasive rumor' is making the rounds at NBC News that the network is putting Chuck Scarborough out to pasture." While a spokesman for WNBC denies it, sources tell the site that the network is looking to buyout big salaries it's carrying—Scarborough's is reportedly $3 million a year. NBC News has been trimming its budget for some time now—longtime reporter Asa Aarons was let go in 2007 and just recently a handful of anchors got the axe. If something this dramatic were to happen, a source says, "NBC is essentially getting out of the local news business." The only thing we can imagine worse is the reaction such a move could provoke out of the majestic enigma that is Sue Simmons.
Jimmy Fallon talked with us this afternoon about his foray into Late Night which, believe it or not, is less than two weeks away. We were wondering how he was able to get his show up and running with its premiere coming a mere week after Conan goes off the air (his final Late Night in New York is tomorrow night). Fallon told us that he won't be moving into Conan's digs at Studio 6A inside 30 Rock, but rather into 6B, home until recently of WNBC 4 New York—or as Fallon put it, house of "the great Chuck Scarborough and Sue Simmons" (not to mention Matt Lauer and Ira Joe Fisher).
A new study from Columbia University's Earth Institute says there is a "substantially greater" risk for an earthquake in the NYC area than previously thought. Per LiveScience, "A pattern of subtle but active faults is known to exist in the region, and now new faults have been found. The scientists say that among other things, the Indian Point nuclear power plants, 24 miles north of the city, sit astride the previously unidentified intersection of two active seismic zones. ."
Fans of Chuck Scarborough and Sue Simmons won’t have to stay up to 11 p.m. to see the long time anchor team together. WNBC will also have the team anchoring back at 6 p.m. starting next week. Simmons will also be moving back into her seemingly traditional 5 p.m. slot anchoring with David Ushery who will be displaced from the 6 p.m. newscast. Scarborough will still be the front man for New York Nightly News at 7 p.m. Lynda Baquero and Michael Gargiulo will be out of the anchor chairs, but will remain with the station.
WNBC anchor Sue Simmons's unexpected cursing during a Monday night promo continues to be watercooler gossip. The veteran news anchor appeared on yesterday's broadcasts, surprising some industry insiders who thought she might be suspended.
On the Gothamist Newsmap: A large fight/stabbing at Church and Remsen in Brooklyn, a stabbing on 5th Ave. in Manhattan, and a home invasion robbery on Cruger Ave. in the Bronx. An early morning fire damaged four businesses in Inwood; the FDNY is investigating, but the fire may have started in a business that's been closed for months. Senator Schumer releases a statement about his support for Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey (the senior...
When Asa Aarons was let go last week, we had a gut feeling that WNBC’s 5:30PM consumer news and features based newscast News 4 You was getting a vote of no confidence. Now our gut feeling has been confirmed since the station will be replacing the newscast starting next Monday. It is also part of a late afternoon shuffle with the 4:30PM edition of Merv Griffin’s Crosswords being replaced by Access Hollywood, which also repeats in its current time slot at 7:30PM.
The season really gets underway this week so a lot of old favorites like The Simpsons, Heroes, and Boston Legal (along with some that shouldn’t be like The Batchelor) are back so you do know what to expect with them.
What is the lawsuit about, Kenneth?
Up Chuck, and Free Downloads"
Nightly News 4 New York
A look at some noteworthy television this week:
Starting on September 10th, WNBC will be making a seismic shift on the local television landscape. Live at Five is gone, with infotainment show Extra taking its place at 5 p.m. with News 4 You remaining at 5:30 p.m. However, there will be not net loss of newscasts, since WNBC will be starting a new 7 p.m. newscast, but it is not as new an idea as it would seem, since WNYW aired a 7 p.m. newscast from 1987 to 1993. WNBC’s Station Manager and Senior Vice President of News, Dan Forman, noted: “Our news at 7pm meets the needs of viewers coming home from work and is a perfect compliment to ‘NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams,’ which precedes it.”
WABC’s Bill Evans is the latest local news talent to author a disaster novel about the city with his book “Category 7”, which he co-authored with Marianna Jameson. The book is the story about a man made hurricane heading towards New York. The book shouldn’t be confused with the 2005 made for TV movie Category 7: The End of the World, which was also about a deadly storm. Evans will be doing a book signing Tuesday at 1 p.m. at the Lincoln Center Barnes and Noble, just a couple blocks away from WABC.
Friday will mark the end of an era when Sue Simmons will anchor her final Live at Five in almost twenty-seven years. As we have mentioned before, WNBC has decided to do some shifting of its early evening newscasts with a 30 minute newscast at 5:00 anchored by Lynda Baquero and David Ushery followed by a Perri Peltz anchored a light news and features half hour called News 4 You. Sue will be teamed up with 11:00 “anchor husband” Chuck Scarborough at 6:00.
Richard Huff in Thursday’s Daily News has revealed some major changes for WNBC’s early evening news line up starting next month. Channel 4 hopes that the rejiggering will make the station more competitive with WABC who dominates the 5 p.m. hour on the coattails of Oprah.
Jen made her first high-definition television appearance last night on WNBC's Live at Five. She spoke to Sue Simmons and Lynda Baquero about New York blogs-- besides Gothamist, she also mentioned Brownstoner and Midtown Lunch.
This past Wednesday, the WNBC Live at Five team was joking around with NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams. Live at Five co-anchor Perri Peltz talking about flossing and periodontal disease, and, as you can see from the YouTube video above for the first 2+ minutes, it's important but very boring stuff. So co-anchor Sue Simmons "pretends" to fall asleep during the banter...but ends up falling off her chair! Good times!
News that some sort of aircraft had crashed into an Upper East Side building sent everyone fleeing to TVs and computers to see what was going on. MSNBC broke the news first nationally, while most locals probably tuned into NY1 for coverage. We were most impressed by WNBC's coverage. They had a secret/not-so-secret weapon in Chuck Scarborough.
Toby at Random Observations captured this great moment in local TV news: Sue Simmons doing her best groundhog impression during the Live at Five broadcast, writing, "It is something that I always look forward to every year." When Gothamist caught the 11PM broadcast, Chuck Scarborough created quite a fanfare for Simmons to repeat the impression. And suddenly we realized that while WNBC mentioned Punxsutawny Phil, they neglected to mention another Chuck - Staten Island Chuck who predicts an early spring. At any rate, this is why we love local news.
01:18 - Okay, Gothamist is going to sleep. We need to be fresh when we wake up in a few hours to review the tense yet Waiting-for-G-Train like pre-deadline hours and confusing (and boring) post-deadline hour. Thanks for commenting and keeping us company - see you in the morning!
It's New York magazine's 2005 Salary Survey, and the lesson is clearly: The city is full of rich people who are not you. In our highly unscientific early-morning survey of a few pages of the survey, it seems that well over half of the incomes are over $1 million. According to the U.S. Census, only 3% of New York City households have an income of over $250,000. Overlaying that with the number of households in the city, that's just over 90,000 households. Gothamist expects many people to be obsessing over this survey while at work today.
Today at 5PM, Chuck and Sue will be going down memory lane; Gothamist just hopes they kick it a little old school, the way ESPN did in August, with some 80's fashion and hairstyles. Chuck and Sue's regular broadcast is the 11PM News on WNBC Channel 4.
Growing up in NJ, I would watch the local NY stations for news. So I realize I'm older when I WABC anchor Bill Beutel was retiring. He was always a very sturdy presence. He also had listened to coverage of the Battle of Britain during his childhood (!). There are a few other newscasters that are familiar to me from my childhood: CBS's Ernie Anastos, WNBC's Michele Marsh who used to be on WCBS, and my personal favorite, WNBC's Chuck Scarborough. Currently, I'm predisposed to WNBC's newscasts...I think they are much better than WCBS or WABC, from reporters' personalities and quality of reporting to just the set design. If you live in the New York metro area long enough, you see some newscasters rotate amongst the local networks, especially with the younger WB and UPN newscasts.



