Florida Anchor Shows Up In Several TV Dramas

Amy Wegmann (Courtesy: Twitter)

WFTX anchor Amy Wegmann may have taken a temporary break from the news business due to her husband running for political office, but she’s still showing up occasionally on television sets across the nation.

And no, we’re not talking about campaign ads.

Parent Company of Ft. Myers Station Sees Increase in TV Revenue Partly From Retrans Fees

Media conglomerate Journal Communications reported a 7.5 percent increase in its first quarter revenue from television stations in the period that ended March 25.

That’s a $2 million increase over last year, according to TVNewsCheck.com.

Everything You Wanted To Know About Alabama’s Broadcast Television Markets

It is true: if you’re a sports anchor-wannabe, a job in Alabama could be your goal, and there’s plenty of diversity among media markets to choose from. Where else can you cover the self-proclaimed king of SEC football?

• Birmingham (Anniston/Tuscaloosa) is the state’s biggest market, at #43. Stations include: WBRC (FOX), WVTM (NBC), WTTO (CW), WIAT (CBS), WBMA-LP (ABC) and WABM (MyTV). WBRC claims ratings dominance here, but given it’s a FOX affiliate (and its newscasts are on one hour earlier than the other affiliates), that’s a difficult pill to swallow. No clear winner here. All stations provide their newscasts in high definition.
• Next on the list is a market that is shared with the Florida panhandle: Mobile-Pensacola (Ft. Walton). The hyphenated market ranks 59th among Nielsen markets nationwide. Stations include: WEAR (ABC), WKRG (CBS), WALA (FOX), WPMI (NBC) WFGX (MyTV) and WFNA (CW). All stations air newscasts in high definition.
• The third top-100 station in the state, Huntsville-Decatur (Florence), is another hyphenated market, coming in at No. 79. Stations include: WHDF (CW), WHNT (CBS), WAAY (ABC), WAFF (NBC) and WZDX (FOX). All news-producing stations provide newscasts in high definition.
• Montgomery-Selma is the next station in Alabama, comprising the capital city. It’s ranked #121 among Nielsen media markets. Stations include: WAKA (CBS), WSFA (NBC), WCOV (FOX), WBMM (CW) and WNCF (ABC). WSFA has been the market leader for decades. All stations air newscasts in high definition.
• Another market that straddles state borders is the Columbus, GA (Opelika, AL) DMA, market #126. Interestingly enough, it also straddles the CST and EST time zones. Stations include: WRBL (CBS), WTVM (ABC), WLTZ (NBC) and WXTX (FOX). WTVM is the ratings leader in this market. All stations broadcast newscasts in HD.
• Dothan rounds out the Alabama markets, at #173. Stations include: WTVY (CBS), WDHN (ABC) and WDFX (FOX). WTVY is the ratings leader. Only WDHN does not air newscasts in HD.

(Above was updated February 1, 2015)

That covers another one of several states we’ll be covering. If you work for one of these affiliates and have news about new hires, on-air graphic updates, HD overhauls, or anything that would be of interest to this local news blog, please let us know.. I’m not necessarily talking about station gossip, but that works, too. If someone uttered a profane word on-air, for example, that’d be something. Station sales, downsizing, things like that are also newsworthy. You can do so anonymously, of course, but have to prove you work for the station in question for credibility purposes by sending us an email to southtvnewser@gmail.com.

Local News and Twitter

More than 140 stations across the southeastern United States have Twitter accounts.

On paper, this seems like a good thing, stations trying to bridge this “disconnect” with younger viewers who get most of their news online these days.

However, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend; the vast majority of accounts I’ve decided to follow use services that tweet automatically, whenever a story’s been posted to their page.

Take it from somebody who’s in college and under the age of 25: we like tweets with information and links, but it needs to be a happy marriage of the two, human and automated tweets.

And until I start getting news tips and info from the stations across the region, I’ll be peppering the blog with these types of posts, strictly to give the page some extra content. Feel free to comment/discuss this if you like.

The Site’s First Post: A Resurrection of Sorts

After being something of a nerd in the television news scene (which tends to happen when you’ve lived in three different states by the age of 15), I stumbled onto a site quite by accident, http://www.southtvnews.com. The site had all sorts of information from stations around the southeast; in essence, it was “the news about the local news” (my apologies for any plagiarism, TVNewser).

Sadly, that owner ended the site sometime in 2004.

I intend to bring it back, but I need your help. If you work for a television news station anywhere from Texas to Florida, New Orleans to North Carolina, we want to know what’s happening in your newsrooms! Job changes, format changes, graphical updates…you name it, we’d love to know it. And along the way, we’ll also keep others in the community in the know about their neighboring states.

I’m looking forward to what this site can do.

If you need to contact me anonymously to leave tips (or you can indeed give your name if you so choose), you can do so at southtvnewser@gmail.com or send me a tweet at twitter.com/southtvnewser.

By the way, thanks for stopping by!