CHANGES AT KVOA, KOLD

NBC affiliate KVOA Channel 4 has revamped its Tucson Today anchor team.

The morning-news program, which has suffered from recent ratings woes, will now feature John Overall and Danielle Lerner in the anchor chairs. Overall has been with KVOA on two occasions, and has been one of the more-underutilized anchor talents in the market, perhaps partially due to his versatility in the field. Lerner recently joined KVOA from San Luis Obispo, Calif.

Former morning anchor Brandon Gunnoe is being reassigned to reporter duties during the week and will join Emily Guggenmos on the weekend anchor desk.

Martha Vazquez will anchor KVOA weekday newscasts at noon and 4 p.m., while Kristi Tedesco and Tom McNamara will handle anchor duties at 5, 6 and 10.

Over at KOLD Channel 13: If you happened to be watching over the weekend, you likely noticed a new person in front of the weather charts. That’s ASU grad Troy Barrett filling in while chief meteorologist Chuck George continues his leave. The station has announced George is expected to be away for a total of six weeks.

CUMULUS TAKEOVER

The Cumulus takeover of bankrupt Citadel went into effect last week.

Locally, Cumulus is now responsible for the five-station cluster that includes market leader KIIM FM 99.5.

Atlanta-based Cumulus now ranks as the No. 2 radio conglomerate in the country, with 570 stations under its banner. Only Clear Channel has more.

Citadel’s downfall was due to classic overexpansion. Not content to be a profitable operator of stations in medium-sized markets, it got itself into deep debt by swallowing Disney’s ABC Radio. Shortly thereafter, the economic bubble burst.

Cumulus stock traded around $2.35 on Monday, Sept. 19, near its low for the year.

Obligatory disclosure: I work for Cumulus’ KCUB AM 1290 in a pregame and postgame capacity for UA football and men’s basketball broadcasts.

LEE REFINANCING

Meanwhile, troubled Davenport, Iowa, newspaper publisher Lee Enterprises, which operates the Arizona Daily Star, has bought itself some time.

Lee has successfully pushed back some of its debt—two liens originally due in April 2012—to June 2015 and April 2017. A first-lien term loan of $689.5 million comes due in June 2015. A second loan of $175 million matures in April 2017—and the interest rates aren’t low.

Lee stock, which was threatened with delisting last month due to its inability to maintain the New York Stock Exchange requirement of trading at $1 or more, jumped from 60 to 90 cents on the day of the news, but has since leveled off in the 80-cent range.

Lee laid off 52 Arizona Daily Star employees in July.

This article appears in Sep 22-28, 2011.

7 replies on “Media Watch”

  1. I wonder if the KVOA’s ratings drop has anything to do with Lorraine Rivera. I know a whole mess of people (me included) were reallllllly angry at her treatment.

    Danielle seems nice. A bit stiff perhaps, but it’s her first week. She’s bound to be nervous and cautious at the start. However, I must say one thing–tell the makeup people to tone down the eye shadow! It’s way too heavy–more akin to clubbing than a morning newscast. I find myself staring at it!

  2. More likely that ratings drop was because of Lorraine and Brandon. Numbers don’t reflect those changes (her leaving will likely be reflected in the next ratings perios). But even if you didn’t like the way they treated her, ridiculous since she is under contract and they can do anything they want to, the fact is she wasn’t working and neither was he. Bringing in Overall was brilliant, he has strength and personality.

  3. The only surprise that I see is that Brandon is still employed at KVOA. His delivery is very much “Al Gore” sounding and I don’t care for him at all. I’d prefer to see Lorraine Rivera back at the anchor desk. Gone are the days, it seems, when home grown talent like Rivera or Sally Shamrell, who I understand is now married and living in New Zealand. At KOLD, Chuck George is missed by many of us.

  4. I recently caught KOLD’s new 4pm newscast; KVOA doesn’t even compare to how well formatted KOLD’s is. I used to fall asleep watching poor Martha Vasquez try to fill a whole hour with pointless banter. Get well Chuck!

  5. Kvoa Brandon Gunnoe was and still is a total hot mess. I do not understand why the heck he was hired to replace our beloved Josh Benson who has move on in his news career.

    Brandon is not Tucson Az or Kvoa or any other tv station in big market news anchor or reporter material. He always sound like he has a cold, his sound and style of anchoring is very boring and because of that it is very draining at times to listen to him. With that being said he belongs and a very small tv market cause he is not good at all. I along with other loyal viewers truly miss Dara Demi, Rebecca Taylor who has left Tucson and who knows maybe tv news period, and Lorraine Ravaria from anchoring the morning and weekends shows.

    But at least we all still have our Az native now Kvoa Reporter Lorraine R. still with Kvoa and still on air even if she is just now a reporter and if need be fill in anchor. But as for Brandon G. he has got to go once his contract ends which should be in the next two years or so cause like I said in the beginning of my post he is a total and I mean a total hot mess. Good bye and good day.

  6. LEE is positioning itself to unload the Star….probably at any price. It just bought time to continue to cut costs (which includes gutting the staff). It remains an ugly scene. Bankruptcy is always an option. The paper will then be ripe for the picking. Did I hear someone say, Gannett?

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