Update: Click here to read the IB Exclusive interview with Chrissy Russo and her move to Fox 5!
While there's no formal news release (that we can find), we can confirm that Chrissy Russo will indeed be part of the new Fox 5 morning news show--alongside Arthel Neville--when it debuts on August 1.
In addition, it looks like San Diego 6, the new entity replacing the station formally known as Fox 6 on XETV, will become an independent station, and not pick up The CW affiliation. It'll be interesting to see what they show in prime-time. For now, they're touting their current morning and evening TV teams in their promos, AND they're keeping the "your station for balanced news" as their news tagline. Undoubtedly because it's worked so well for them. (Updated: XETV will indeed become the new home of The CW...Reaper lives in San Diego!)
With familiar faces Kathleen Bade (weeknights at 10:00), Susan Lennon (weekends at 10:00), Arthel Neville (weekdays at--we're guessing--5:30) and now the incredibly popular Chrissy Russo, Fox 5 is building a station with recognized names from the get-go. There's no learning curve here; these are well-liked and respected local TV news stars. While Bade and Lennon have been off the air for a while (Bade for about 9 months, Lennon for about 1 year and 7 months), Russo left Fox last Friday (June 20).
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I've never seen a TV market where people just go from one station to another. I've seen it happen here in San Diego time and time again, and there's some people on air that have been on 3 and 4 local stations. I think it has a lot to do with no one really wanting to leave San Diego--I know I don't!--and just the way TV stations here--and maybe elsewhere--do business these days. The higher cost of non-compete clauses, and maybe even people working without contracts while negotiations go on, are both also part and parcel of it, I'm guessing.
In other local TV news, Stan Miller has taken a month off from CBS 8, but will be back soon (I'm guessing either this coming week, or the Monday after July 4). With Barbara-Lee Edwards off all week, too, KFMB has never seemed weaker when it comes to on-air talent. I'm not a Stan-fan, but--God help me--I miss him. That's not necessarily a compliment. UPDATED: Actually, we're hearing a VERY DIFFERENT story about Stan Miller and CBS 8...more info to come!
Actually San Diego 6's spots have said that they will be the new home of the CW, so it looks like 5 & 6 are just doing the old switcheroo. It'll be interesting to see how this goes...
Posted by: Jasmine | July 08, 2008 at 07:54 AM
I can't help but wonder if XETV 6 will go the way of KRON in San Francisco.
After losing the NBC affiliation after several decades, KRON went all news and has done fairly well.
I remember XETV 6 as the ABC affiliate way back in the day. When it lost it's ABC affiliation to KCST (a UHF station and all the way over at channel 39), channel 6 went to a totally independent format and did fairly well airing repeats of popular, if older, television sitcoms, movies of the week and some interesting local programming.
Eventually KCST became KNSD and the ABC affiliation switched, again, to KGTV so that the teleivion lineup locally was:
XETV 6: Independent
KFMB 8: CBS
KGTV 10: ABC
KNSD 39: NBC
It will be interesting to see where eveyone lands once the dust settles, but with news costing next to nothing to produce, and the huge news facility that XETV was pretty much forced to build under the old Fox Broadcasting mandate, I have a feeling the all news format will work best for them.
Posted by: Dave | June 28, 2008 at 03:00 PM