"Action News" is still around, but perhaps the definition has changed over the decades. Originally it was meant to mean, "active, live, lots of film, crime" etc. Today, those who use this term tend to use it as "Taking Action For You". But the term still denotes a certain style of journalism that is still alive and well today.
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Which TV News Anchor Has Been With The Same Station The Longest?
- Thread starter Markxxx
- Start date
"Action News" is still around, but perhaps the definition has changed over the decades. Originally it was meant to mean, "active, live, lots of film, crime" etc. Today, those who use this term tend to use it as "Taking Action For You". But the term still denotes a certain style of journalism that is still alive and well today.
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/personality/steve-somers/. Steve Somers he had stints as Sports Anchor at KOVR Sacramento, KPIX San Francisco, and KNBC Los Angeles but he didn't become a TV legend though. However, Steve Somers has become the longest talk radio host on 66 WFAN-AM in New York though.
Frankly I am a bit surprised the name "Eyewitness News" is still with us. Don't stations have to PAY for that name ?? It's also amazing at which markets have Eyewitness News and which do not. Denver for example hasn't had a station with Eyewitness News since the old KOA-TV ( KCNC ) did it in 1974 !! Or how it pops up from station to station like in Phoenix, Cincinnati, or Norfolk and when a station does drop it some like Buffalo's WKBW did some years back claim they were under pressure to bring it back. It's just a stupid name !!
Some skit comedy show - can't remember which, had a fake news skit with an anchor team - and called it "Eyewitless News."
There was a radio station in West Virginia who called their newscasts for a brief time in the 80's.."channel 16 ( they were on AM 1550 ) EARwitness News". Nope didn't last.
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Sadly since this post was published a lot of those names have vanished. Some retired like Peterson and Ryan while others were taken off the air like Bunyan and Hayward. Then you had Roane who is still at WUSA but she was demoted to doing one newscast per day. Jim Vance has cancer but still on WRC though his apperances is quite rare rumored to be retiring soon but Gentzler is still on WRC, Ed Greene was recently let go at Denver's KCNC and was replaced by a younger woman. Kinda of a stink here in Denver over that.
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That had to be a joke...I hope. In the early and mid-60s in LA, a big AM rock station (KFWB) billed itself as "Channel 98 - Color Radio." At the time, color TV was just starting to get popular. Same kind of thing.
Was the parody supposed to be based on Harold Greene, Jerry Dunphy, Hal Fishman, Paul Moyer or Roger Grimsby? Well I heard of these names as most parodied Local TV news anchors though.
I'm thinking the Eyewitless News bit might have been from Steve Allen.
Also George Putnam, who was the inspiration behind Ted Baxter on the Mary Tyler Moore sitcom. Fishman was second banana to Putnam for a number of years. To answer your question, not sure. I do remember that the opening of Eyewitless News had the anchors stumbling around, and into each other on the way to the anchor desk - a parody on the old KABC Eyewitness Opening in which the anchors crossed the floor from the entry, and sat down. I guess that made them look like they were hard-working news reporters just back from a big story, not the news readers they really were.
Looking back now it was but back in 1982 a lot of people ( me included) really thought it wasn't. One of their anchors was a woman named "Auggie Bullwinkle". EARwitness News, Bullwinkle and so forth in mid 1982 the station was about to be sold and the GM/owner thought it would be cool to call their news EARwitness News. Oh their weather was called "copy weather" meaning to get a pencil to copy the weather down while hearing it on the weather radio in reality but to the public at large they really believed there was this machine that did the weather.
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https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xkao19ZMTfo. Susan Blake she had a stint in Sacramento but yes again it was forgotten once she had spent a decade at KRON4 in San Francisco in the 1990's and was co host of KRON4 news along with Pete Wilson, Gary Radnich, Suzanne Shaw,Pam Moore and Steve Raleigh.
In the 70s and 80s, KTXL 40 in Sacramento (now Fox, IIRC) would run super-serious editorials from station manager Cal Bollwinkel (sounded the same as Bullwinkle J. Moose). His deep voice and serious demeanor belied his surname.
Not sure if the "Eyewitness News" name is copyrighted. Seattle's KIRO-TV (CBS) used the term from the late 60's to about 2015. Suddenly dropped it for whatever reason. I still think it is a powerful brand name, but perhaps live internet streams have deemed it unimportant. Not sure.
Late 90s until 1993 to become KIRO News and when it dropped CBS in 1995, it became NewsChannel 7 before the brand and CBS returned to KIRO in 1997.
Yes, you are correct. As you say, as soon as KIRO got the CBS affiliation back they resumed the "Eyewitness News" branding.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...056e768a7e5_story.html?utm_term=.c88311904a4e
Jim Vance one of Washington D.C. TV longest tenured News Anchors is dead at 75.
Jim Vance one of Washington D.C. TV longest tenured News Anchors is dead at 75.
The name Eyewitness News IS a powerful name but only in select markets like New York City or LA. If one of the Denver stations decided to use it I can tell you they well be cussed out by the viewers who believe the station was making Denver into another Los Angeles"!! If a station in Hampton Roads, VA decided to use it like WAVY and WTKR did in the past they would be accused of trying to make the area look "big" or too "metropolitan". Depends on the market.
George Warren, seen in that clip, is still with KXTV, as a field reporter; some of his stories on winter-storm cleanup in the Sierra have been picked up by KGO (since KXTV has been a 'siester station'/ABC O & O for about 20 years).
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