Let's play musical chairs!

I always watch my local NBC affiliate's station. I always have. When I was a kid I watched WAVY-TV 10 out of Virginia. The staff had low-turnover, and to this day the sports and weather guy are the same that I watched 15 years ago.

So when I moved out for college and had to learn a new channel line-up, it seemed natural that I watch NBC's news broadcasts. The station here in the Raleigh-Durham area is NBC-17 - the lowest rated broadcast out of the top 3 (CBS, ABC, NBC). I've tried watching other stations...I just didn't like the way their anchors looked at me :/.

Over the past several months, NBC-17 has been going through a revolving door of staff. It seems like all of the experienced anchors are either leaving "for personal reasons" or are being booted because of the station's takeover.

It's understandable that an anchor I really liked, Sharon Delaney, left after her daughter died to spend more time with her family. Then last night, I caught the anchor who had been her newscast partner, Bill Gaines, giving his final sign-off. NBC won't comment on why he's been asked to leave, but say that they don't blame him completely for the low ratings. I do suspect that their staff scheduling has something to do with the ratings. On some nights, it seems that they have the least diverse news staff in the area.

I got on the internet this morning to find out why Bill was leaving (his speech seemed heavily rehearsed and like he'd been told to keep his mouth shut), and saw that they've already yanked his profile off the website. Helluva fanfare, huh? It wasn't until this morning that I noticed that the chief meteorologist left last month. I thought that new guy that comes on weekend mornings was just fresh meat. Looks like he'll move up rung of the ladder, too.

I have a itching suspicion that the ex-chief meteorologist's husband who anchors the morning newscast has a bounty on his head, too.

I really hope they get their stuff straight. I'd hate to start relying on the Internet for local news like other people who don't read the newspaper.

Posted by Tiffany at August 26, 2006 12:26 PM | TrackBack