I have seen almost nothing of the local news but from the emails I got all things point to an already elevated coverage of hurricane-would-be Ernesto.
One emailer said WPLG started interrupting infomercials at 3:15pm with storm coverage and WFOR also began doing hourly updates.
For the 6pm news WPLG have Laurie Jennings anchoring with Don Noe and Trent Aric together, WSVN has brought in Phil Ferro.
>> 10pm: 7 is also doing the two-weatherman thing with Ferro and Cameron covering the Ernesto forecasts
Even Tampa market has brought in its regulars from the work week.
I’ve also noticed that WPTV has brought Steve Weagle, its Chief Met, joining Glenn Glazer. Also, on WPBF News 25 Chief Met. Mike Lyons is joining Eric Burris.
NBC drops the ball. NBC 6 didn’t bring in their main anchors until 11pm. They had Joel Connable on all night, who by the way did an excellent job of not hyping things up, but it wasn’t until 11pm that we saw Miachel and Jackie. Then Paul Deanno and John Gerad did the weather together. OVERKILL. An insider at NBC tells me the news director totally forgot that the Emmys were on and forgot to get the main anchors in. Hmmm, that could be a problem. I think all the television stations do too much when we only have a tropical storm out there. This is a key’s storm and they are already doing this much coverage????
It’s a SOUTH FLORIDA storm and even if it was a “Keys Storm” – that is our market too. It’s not just about the mainland.
And no the news director at 6 did not forget about the Emmys – it’s been hyped all week on-air and on-line.
There was never a plan to have anchors in for the early show when there is a perfectly competent anchor/weather team in Joel and John
If competence was the concern, Jackie could have stayed home.