And the winner is. . .Despite having ancient looking graphics that can be seen from across the street, a set that looks like it is from a station in Iowa, and a love of sprinkling kicker stories throughout the newscast, WABC’s Eyewitness News and the station overall is yet again at the top of the ratings among the big three for February. Most notably, WNBC has lost almost half of its viewership in the early......

Two firefighters were pulled from beneath collapsed rubble last night, as a building undergoing demolition burned in Jamaica, Queens. The two men were partially pinned by debris when the landing between the second and third floors of the building on 95th Ave. and Sutphin Blvd. collapsed. Both were taken to a hospital along with a third firefighter, but all three were in stable condition and none suffered life-threatening injuries. ABC's Eyewitness News reports that the......

A bus full of students from Hunter College High School was pursued by a hammer-wielding road rager yesterday afternoon in Queens. It's unclear what made the driver so irate, but bus driver Jose Bautista noticed a man driving crazily in his rear view mirror and pulled over to the left. That is when the angry driver got out of his car and kicked in one of the panes of glass on the school bus's front......

Has WABC Changed for the Worse? We are starting to think that Bill Beutel, Roger Grimsby, or Tom Snyder would not recognize their former station if they came back to life. Sure the station is dominant in the ratings but has the quality of the news product gone down? We think it has, especially given the recent and thankfully reversed (albeit after much public outcry and pressure) decision to relegate the bulk of the 9/11......

Back to the Newsroom Again Since WABC went back to broadcasting Eyewitness News from their newsroom last Friday, there has been much speculation on various television message boards that the station had another problem with the current set or was getting a new set. You might recall that they broadcast from the newsroom after a studio fire in May and given the odd choice of moving on a Friday, it must have made some fear......

Tom Snyder died today, at age 71, after losing a long battle with leukemia. There are many videos with footage of his long career, because just about everyone wanted to talk to him (especially on "The Tomorrow Show" which aired after Johnny Carson in the '70s and '80s). Throughout his career he interviewed Kiss, argued with Howard Stern and Cosell...and if you watch this video you'll see plenty of others who found themselves sitting across......

New Anchor, Same Old Tardiness There must be something about the morning shift at WABC. After just four days on the job as the permanent replacement for Steve Bartelstein, Ken Rosato, overslept and was late for the 5 a.m. edition of Eyewitness News. We think it is pretty safe to assume that he just overslept, since he probably hasn’t adjusted his body clock fully to the new hours, and that he wasn’t spending the night......

The five men who identified themselves as police before bursting into a Cypress Hills, Brooklyn home demanding to know "Where are the drugs?" were actually just thieves. WABC's Eyewitness News is reporting that the five men were dressed in police-type clothing, with one actually wearing a bulletproof vest and wielding a gun. They tied up two female residents and pistol whipped a man as they ransacked the home. An infant lying in a crib was......

Joel Siegel, perhaps best known as Good Morning America's film critic (a program he was on weekly since 1981), died yesterday in New York at the age of 63. Siegel had been battling colon cancer, though many didn't even know he was sick as he stayed positive until the end and kept working until just two weeks ago. In addition to his weekly appearances on GMA he was also seen frequently on ABC News, and......

7 Back on Set Wednesday’s 5 p.m. edition of Eyewitness News marked the return to the station’s normal news studio after a fire forced them out and temporarily off the air on May 28th and their studio mate Live with Regis and Kelly to another studio. The set appears to just be a fix of the one that was damaged, but with a slightly different skyline backdrop. Anchor Bill Ritter writing in his daily “Behind......

If you were watching WABC 7 last night, you noticed that it suddenly went black - and stayed that way until around 1AM. The studio needed to be evacuated after a smoky fire started near the set of Live with Regis & Kelly at its Columbus Avenue and 66th Street location. According to the NY Times, a "light bulb had set a curtain on fire." Here's what WABC 7 said during their segment about......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a body was found at Schenk and Livonia Aves. in Brooklyn that was initially reported as body parts, a shooting on Prospect Ave. in the Bronx, and there was a police car multi-vehicle accident on the Henry Hudson Parkway near 79th St. A daycare cries child abuse as the artists who share their space are attempting to throw the tots out on the street. The head of neuropsychiatry at......

WABC has finally had enough of Steve Bartelstein after on-air spats with his co-anchors, a sexual harassment lawsuit, gossip about him clubbing, arriving late to work and sleeping through a news update last Thursday morning. As unexpected as the firing was, since he is co-anchor of the #1 rated morning and noon newscasts, the station seemed to expect problems since it is reported that in his contract signed last June that there would be......

A look at some noteworthy televison shows this week: Live From the Red Carpet: The 2007 Academy Awards (Sunday, 6:00 p.m. E!) The traditionally absurd Oscar pregame of celebrities arriving at the Oscars. 2007 Joan & Melissa at the Academy Awards (Sunday, 6:00 p.m. TV Guide Channel) Joan Rivers and daughter Melissa do their yearly schtick during the Oscar arrivals. An Evening at the Academy Awards: The Arrivals (Sunday, 6:30 p.m. WABC 7) Channel 7......

One Finger Salute Wednesday night on WNBC’s 11 p.m. newscast, Michael Gargiulo in a live report about a police shooting in the Bronx appeared to give viewers the finger. In actuality he was holding a photo, however the way he was holding it made it appear that he was giving the one finger salute. Such are the perils of live television. Resurfacing Talent Former Fox-5er Naamua Delaney is now one of the ensemble hosts......

Wednesday night, recently installed barriers helped avert a disaster at Teterboro Airport. WABC 7 Eyewitness News reports that a ten ton jet missed a turn while taxiing after landing and "was headed toward the airport fence and busy Route 46." Luckily, it hit an "arrestor bed," which is a "system of collapsible concrete barriers that can stop a plane" yet not damage it. Brilliant! But what's extra lucky: The arrestors were only installed a few......

If you were wondering what caused a bunch of Queens junior high students to stampede during the school day (terror threat? sulfur-smelling science wing? bad selection at the cafeteria?) and cause a bunch of injuries, worry no more. WABC 7 explains it all:The Department of Education tells Eyewitness News the students had just left the cafeteria at JHS 190 in Forest Hills when someone behind them yelled "PUSH!" That sent another group of students surging......

We love investigative reports from the local news, and this one from Eyewtiness News was particularly disturbing. Did you know that the Center for Science in Public Interest is trying to get the word out about how caloriffic Starbucks drinks are? As in, that Venti Banana Coconut Frapuccino with whipped cream is over 700 calories! Now, the layman would say, "Hmm, it has bananas... it has coconut... it has sugar... it has whipped cream... it's......

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Today, there are more obituaries about and tributes to former WABC anchor Bill Beutel, who died yesterday. The NY Times' obituary calls him the "dapper and unruffled anchor"; it also states that he died of a progressive neuological disorder. am New York notes that it was Beutel and Eyewitness News co-anchor Roger Grimsby's "mix of 'happy talk' and hard-charging reporting -- would influence television stations across the nation" and recalls what current WABC anchor......

This morning, at the ungodly hour of 9 A.M. Ferrnando Ferrer and Mike Bloomberg got together for the first official debate in the mayoral election. Asking the questions for this debate were Dave Evans, political reporter for Eyewitness News, Errol Lewis from the Daily News, and Denise Oyea (O'yea?) from Univision. In a post-fake-haloween daze we zoned in and out of the debates this morning, and this is what we can remember: Uptdate: "Professional" coverage......

Following in the footsteps of it's parent company, Channel 7 Eyewitness News launched three video podcasts last week which are now available to you for free through iTunes. Current content runs about three minutes in length and features such news worthy content as What's Bugging You - The Pregnant Belly Rub!, Neighborhood Eats, Ice Cream, and Joe Torre announces his reuturn to the Yankees. Thankfully it seems that they are just using segments from the......

- You know how you weren't worried about the home invasion robberies that seem to happen way too often in Long Island? Well, there might be a Brooklyn crew behind them - The police officer who shot an innoncent man while investigating a possible crime in a Chelsea mini-storage was convicted by a judge - It seems that the city's hurricane plan lists Rudy Giuliani as the mayor - Our current Mayor really wants to......

The MTA and riders will be entering another new era of subway service as token booth clerks start to move outside to help customers and new unmanned token booth kiosks are unveiled. NYC Transit President Lawrence Reuter said that since most riders use unlimited ride cards, token booth clerks have been selling less cards - and now they'll be able to help commuters who swipe swipe swipe to no avail. The booths are a new......

Okay, fine... Gothamist didn't want to equate iPods to colorful leather jackets, because it was more funny in a punchline sort of way, but the many stories of iPod thefts have made it clear: iPods are the new eight-ball jackets, like it or not. Last nightat around 8PM, a group of six to ten teenagers apparently beat up a man walking around 108th Street and East Drive in Central Park, taking his iPod. While Gothamist......

Worried about the outraged and marauding Daily News readers' demands, the Daily News has announced they are offering a special $1 million pot (thinks many prizes totaling the ONE MILLION DOLLARS) after mistakenly publishing the wrong winning numbers to a Scratch'N'Match promotion. This, however, does not sit well with the many people who thought they each won $100,000 and had started to buy themselves gifts and who ended up storming the Daily News' offices, practically......

F Line Bagels, the new Smith Street bagel shop (see the nice exterior shot from Curbed) that has raised the ire of the MTA for using various subway memorabilia in the store, say they will propose a settlement to end the issues. The MTA issued a cease-and-desist to the shop, claiming that the shop used its trademarked items improperly and is infringing on the MTA's intellectual property. Okay, Gothamist gets that, but is making stupid......