Lesli's Promise

Today was also Lesli Foster's first day as the regular anchor of 9 News Now at 6 and 11pm.

Lesli was welcomed to the anchor chair by Todd and Topper before they talked about the beautiful weather we had today.

During the chit chat, Lesli made a promise to us all.

Listen Up!

Anita's Official Welcome

As noted in an earlier post, today was Anita Brikman's first day on the air at
WUSA 9.

Here is Anita's "official welcome" on the 5pm newscast, and then on the 7pm newscast.

Hulk Hogan To The Rescue ??

Yes, the Hulkster and his American Gladiators may have to save NBC on Sunday evening.

How did this come about?

Simple.

The Golden Globes program has been cancelled for this year. NBC will run a live press conference to announce the winners of the Globes, but that's it.

Luckily for NBC, last Sunday's "American Gladiators" pulled in decent ratings. As a back-up plan, NBC may air another couple of hours of Gladiators to fill Globe time.

It just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it?

Globes In Doubt; Cruise Inks Deal

The Golden Globes looks to be the next casualty in the writers strike. The Screen Actors Guild says none of their actors will cross the picket line

Taken from the Golden Globes website, this is a statement from Jorge Camara, President of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

HOLLYWOOD, CA, JANUARY 4, 2008--"The Hollywood Foreign Press Association has been placed in an extremely difficult position with the ongoing Writers Guild strike. We are making every effort to work out a solution that will permit the Golden Globes to take place with the creative community present to participate. We hope to announce a resolution to this unfortunate predicament on Monday."

As a backup, NBC is working on an hour long NBC News special featuring award winners reacting from parties or a press room at the Beverly Hilton hotel, but even the particulars of that need to be worked out.

The possible cancellation of the Golden Globes could be a turning point in this two month old strike.

Another turning point in the strike is Tom Cruise's deal with the WGA. His studio, United Artists Films, is the first major studio to ink a deal with the WGA. Will others follow suit? That remains to be seen.

Anita's Debut

Today, 9 News welcomes Anita Brikman to the 5pm and 7pm anchor desk.

Here's her first promo with Derek teasing our 5pm newscast!

Strike Back

I was browsing the Internet this morning and was on MSN's site. One of the advertisements on the website had the following:

"Miss Jack? Enjoy a classic episode of 24 now!"

I find this ironic. This advertisement is right in the middle of MSN's main page, right in front of everyone, including the WGA.

This is exactly why the writers are striking...so they can get payment for the shows they wrote that are shown on "new media" such as the Internet...although, the Internet isn't that new anymore!

On another note, CBS is bringing the first season of Showtime's Dexter to broadcast TV on Feb. 17. Obviously, it just another way for them to fill airtime while there is not much new original broadcast programming.

For someone like me who doesn't have Showtime, this program will be new to me too! I'm sure there are many people who are in that position and obviously, that's what CBS is counting on.

Although, I hear CBS will really have to edit the show fit broadcast standards....

More later...

The Great Oz Pays A Visit To 9 News

Celebrity endorsements are hard to come by.

Our Peggy Fox went above and beyond the call of duty to get the endorsement of the great one himself, Ozzy Osbourne!

Watch Ozzy give a "rockin" endorsement of 9News NOW!

Tracey's Farewell

This video speaks for itself.
Good luck Tracey Neale...you will be missed.

More Election Talk

Well, the Iowa caucuses are over. Mike Huckabee took the lead over the other candidates, while Barack Obama came through for the Democrats.

During last night's 11pm newscast, we were fortunate enough to get part of Obama's victory speech live on the air, thanks to the quick work of our technical crew and TD, Adam Theoharis.

The next stop for everyone will be New Hampshire. It's the first primary of the season and who knows what will happen there.

In my last blog, I wrote about how this will be an exciting and maybe even suspenseful campaign.

At the time, I forgot how exciting and suspenseful the 2000 race was. Sitting here in the control room of WUSA, I have witnessed many important and even historic events. The 2000 race was one for the books. I remember being in the director's chair until 3 or 4 am in the morning. The race twisted and turned almost on the hour as Bush was declared the winner and then Gore.

It was such a wild ride here in the control room that when I finally got off the air, I went home and had to jog a few miles just to get all the adrenaline out!

Again, this November will prove very interesting and entertaining.

Speaking of entertaining, guess what was the most watched broadcast last week?

It wasn't anything written by the writers, that's for sure!

Saturday's game between the Giants and Patriots was # 2. The number 1 broadcast of the week was the Tennessee Titans verses the Indianapolis Colts.

Both games were action packed and great to watch!

Scripted shows?? Who needs scripted shows?? Ok, I still do!

More Later...

Ringing In The New Year With Style

Actually, it's a couple of days after New Year's, but my first day back at work was overflowing with all kinds of news.

To start the day off, a prisoner escaped custody at Laurel Regional Hospital. He overpowered several officers, took their weapons and then carjacked at least two vehicles. During the first carjacking, he shot a victim in the head.

The drama ended appropriately enough in a cemetery where the prisoner was shot down in an exchange of gunfire. Wow.

On a financial note, oil hit $100 a barrel during the day before falling back. You can already see the prices at the gas pump rise due to all this. What's really worrisome is that I keep asking myself what's the catalyst for these high prices? There's no hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico headed towards oil rigs. We've had some strife in the Middle East, but we've always had something going on.

I believe the main reason oil is heading up is because of the weakening dollar and the slow economy. The mortgage failures have hit us hard in 2007 and it's only going to get worse in 2008. Foreclosures and mortgage company failures are naturally going to spread to other parts of the economy including the price of oil. From there, high oil prices will eventually trickle down to higher costs at the pump, grocery stores and so on. I can only imagine what the cost of gasoline will be this summer when the demand is higher!

On the weather front, most of the nation is in the grip of a deep freeze. It's kind of funny, but everyone been saying it would be a warm winter and yet parts of the northeast and other parts of the country had the snowiest December on record. In DC, we were even a bit over our average snowfall.

On the political front, Thursday is the "official" start of the presidential race with the Iowa Caucuses. In my view, this year promises to be an "entertaining" presidential race since the democratic nominees are running neck and neck while the Republican race could be just as tight!

In fact, I guess we should consider ourselves lucky that the presidential race will be entertaining and maybe even suspenseful. Hollywood writers are still on strike, so our entertainment choices will be severely limited.

Late night shows have returned to original programs and in a twist to all the union writers, Jay Leno beat David Letterman in the ratings race. Leno wrote his own stuff while Letterman worked out a deal with the union.

Do you think this is a signal that people are getting tired of the Writers Guild of America and their strike?

Personally, I applaud all the late night hosts for returning to air. As stated before, yes, I do support the writers strike. At the same time, I'm also thinking of all the people out of work due to the strike.

In the case of the late night entertainment shows, the number of production crew members far outweighs the number of writers for their respective shows. While the writers have a right to fair compensation, the should also be cognizant of their production comrades and the damage the strike had done to them. So far, I haven't seen that. It's been all about striking against the producers and studios. In reality, the writers are also striking against their fellow non-union workers who have been out of work for two months and probably have families to support and kids to put through college!

Hopefully, the New Year will start with a quick end to this strike with all sides getting what they need!

A Brand New Year--

I hope everyone has had a happy holiday season. I spent my holiday down in Orlando with family. Pictured above are my twin daughters and some of my nieces.

Front and center is Noel, the up and coming movie star and singer extraordinaire.

From left to right is my daughter Kaitlyn and nieces, Elizabeth and Julia.

At the top row is my daughter Laurel and nieces Hailey and Christine.

They all jumped at the chance to be a part of the blog...and why not? They're all extremely photogenic, happy and full of life. They're also my future, both personally and professionally.

The personal aspect is obvious. Professionally "speaking," you're looking at future television/movie viewers. Of course, they're also present television/movie viewers too.

My point in all this is that by the time they reach adulthood, the way they will get their local news will be vastly different than the way we get our news now.

The industry is changing and you're looking at the catalysts for the changes in the picture above. The young people of today will never wait for Katie Couric to come on to receive their national news, they won't wait for WUSA 9's news at 5pm.

Their habits will come from all the emerging technology that's all there now, the technology that's growing, that's allowing us to bring our video, music and more wherever we go.

As professionals, we need to realize that and start targeting our products more aggressively. We can't be content in letting people find us at 6pm. We need to do more on the web, establish partnerships with other media outlets and corporations to bring our product to the people.

They sure won't come to us.