It used to be KUSI was the go-to station for news people in San Diego. If you left a station here in the city, you would quite possibly end up there. I don't think any TV news organization in San Diego makes their on-air talent sign non-compete clauses (whereby they have to sit out a year or so before working at a competing station in the same city), or if they do, it's only the top anchors. In all my years watching--and with 20+ (blissfully past) years working--in TV news, I've never seen a market where there's so much crosstown cross-pollination from station to station.
This has become much more prevalent in the last few weeks as Fox 5 (KSWB, still stuck with the unfortunate call letters from a previous relationship with the WB, which has moved on with it's life and is now the CW) seems to be holding open auditions for familiar news talent. Don't get me wrong: As a start-up, Fox 5 did a great job of mining the local talent ore for a few gems, notably Kathleen Bade and Susan Lennon. Bade was dropped by KFMB, better known as CBS 8, in a moment of utter lunacy on their part, and Lennon "retired" from the salt mine of morning TV news at KUSI, where she toiled for a good ten years or so. In addition, Fox 5 snatched up the contract-less Chrissy Russo to help jump-start their morning news show. (And Chrissy now has own show on Fox 5, the aptly named Chrissy Russo Live, which debuted the other night, but really, who knew? I have yet to see the station promo the damn thing, although I've been told there are four other shows currently in the can. And Googling that exact phrase gets you ONE whole link about a live taping downtown. Hey, Fox 5? If a show airs without any promotion, does anyone know it exists?)
The other morning I had a giant WTF?! moment when I turned on Fox's morning show to see Paul Bloom sitting at the anchor desk, looking terribly over-dressed for so early in the day. I thought Bloom was glued to the seat over at KUSI and they just wheeled him in every hour or so to do the news, he's been on that station for so long. But there he was, and in HD, too (I get the feeling KUSI thinks HD stands for "Highly Doubtful," which is what I think every time I wonder when they're actually going to start broadcasting in HD, and, you know, fill my whole screen up with aging anchors, like it's supposed to be.) Bloom was the capper to a week that included the debut of Aloha Taylor on Fox's 10pm newscast. Taylor was last seen on the station formerly known as Fox, but now known as the horribly generic San Diego 6 (which sounds like a bunch of local Republicans who were tried for income tax evasion). Before that she was on CBS 8, but I think she went back to Hawaii or somewhere (hence the "Aloha") and then came back here. In addition, Loren Nancarrow, best known for his long stint on Channel 10, the ABC affiliate here in SD, and also known for being one of the few on-air personalities with a soul patch (note to Loren: there's a reason why news people don't have them, bud...they're creepy and reserved for 30-something hipsters who can't grow a real beard) has also been doing triple-duty at Fox, occasionally filling in on weather at night, plus co-anchoring in the morning while regular anchor Raoul Martinez is MIA (on vacation, I imagine). Nancarrow also does some kind of "going green" segment for the station.
But seeing Bloomie away from his most familiar habitat was the biggest shock for me, kind of like he wandered off the reservation. He's been gone from KUSI since mid-December and like when Stan Miller got dumped by CBS 8, a lot of people are pissed off about this. But it looks like Fox 5 is now taking the crown from KUSI for being the "old newscasters home" these days, even if some of those 'casters aren't so old. (And by the way, the station is also KTLA South. I see a lot of that Los Angeles-based station's "talent" on air down here, mainly because the news director at Fox 5 was the executive producer at KTLA. And you know what? Kurt the Cyber-Guy still makes me change the channel every f-ing time.)
I suppose it could be worse at Fox 5 (which, by the way, has one of the s-l-o-w-e-s-t loading websites EVER). The other morning the above-mentioned news director announced some kind of contest (I guess) where you send them an item you would like to see thrown in a wood chipper. Said item should have some kind of sentimental value and the destruction therein should denote the breaking up with a loved one. (I'm sorry...I didn't pay very close attention, because let's face it: There's a reason why news directors aren't on the air every day.) Yes, it's February, the month known for Valentines Day and, oh, yeah...a ratings period. Can Fox 5's version of "The Audition," the KTLA ratings stunt that launched the careers of the Scottish entertainment reporter who did Mick Jagger impressions as often as possible and the helicopter-embedded traffic reporter who sounded like a Disney cartoon character, be far away?
I guess we're lucky they're not throwing unemployed San Diego news people in the wood chipper. Now THAT would be a ratings stunt! But maybe they should have Taylor, Bloom, Nancarrow, Bade, Lennon, Russo, et al, bring in some logo-inscribed item from their past employers and chuck it into the wood chipper, too. Even news anchors need closure sometimes.
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