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Jim Gardner leaving 11p newscast tonight; Rick Williams to replace him

In the meantime Gray Hall is now anchoring a 6:30PM streaming only newscast of Action News. I believe Gray Hall will likely take over the 5PM newscast, but there are rumblings that Gray may be the one to take over the 6PM newscast instead of Williams once Jim retires.

Again just rumblings and not likely, but that station has made some strange moves lately.
 
Smart man. There’s another Philly TV board that has fantasies that makes Julius’s old rants & raves look reasonably sane.
 
genius said:
Smart man. There’s another Philly TV board that has fantasies that makes Julius’s old rants & raves look reasonably sane.
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You've got to be kidding. This I have to see... share the link?
 
Holy s—t. They have now changed the long-running Inside Story into an infomercial. Same name, music, set, the whole deal. I get paid segments are part of how stations operate, but this is remarkably sleazy. Give it a new name if you’re now pimping it out.
 
AbrahamJSimpson said:
Holy s—t. They have now changed the long-running Inside Story into an infomercial. Same name, music, set, the whole deal. I get paid segments are part of how stations operate, but this is remarkably sleazy. Give it a new name if you’re now pimping it out.
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Wow, that’s just absurd. I have not watched Inside Story in forever. I occasionally will catch the 12:00 Sunday news and even that’s not as good as it goes once was in my opinion.
 
Maybe because it was never an informercial before? I get the news personalities do FYI, and the murky ground there, but it has always been what it is. Taking a show that, for better or worse dates back to Marc Howard and was (even if sometimes inane) a legit public affairs show…and selling it out to a damn bank?

Absolutely terrible abdication of ethics there.
 
Inside Story use to be a leading public affairs program on WPVI, and is a distant descendant to both AM/ Philly, AM/Live and Philly After Midnight. Shame it’s turned out this way.
PhillyNewsLover said:
They also had traffic reporter Gina Gannon anchoring it. They never have non-news talent do Inside Story.
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I think it was actually the show to morph out of the old Action News Issues and Answers, once ABC stopped using that name nationally.

At the end, the weekday AM Live was absolute garbage television, but at least it wasn’t sold out under its existing name. Sunday Live was significantly better, and Philly After Midnight just was what it was.
 
Does anyone know when his final 6pm show is? What date next month? Also is Rick gonna replace him on 6pm show thereafter?
 
brettfern said:
Does anyone know when his final 6pm show is? What date next month? Also is Rick gonna replace him on 6pm show thereafter?
Click to expand...

I don’t think an official date has been set yet aside from “by the end of December”. Nothing official on if Rick (or wild card Gray) will actually replace Jim at 6 as of yet.
 
Gray could be the wild card…but that seems a real stretch. I’d expect Gray takes Rick’s 5 pm slot, with 5/10 teams being aligned once more. I actually would make Shari a wild card for 6, and some kind of reconfiguration at 5, but still feel like it’s less likely that way.
 
No... they'll make Rick the 6pm anchor on top of the 11pm as Jim's full successor.
 
One competing board mentioned Jillian of course 🤣

In all seriousness Rick would be the natural one to take over the spots completely but given some of WPVI’s odd moves the last few years it would not surprise me if they went with someone younger given Rick’s in his 60‘s.
 
That’s the catch. To say you’re not going to get a Jim Gardner run again is self evident.

They invested in those promos for Rick at 11, and too much too soon might not be the way to go, other odd moves or not. You’ve already got Gray in there doing a webcast, so it seems like he’s biding time to be the “new Rick” once the transition ends. Keep the 6:30 by all means; that’s no biggie to have him doing that if he adds 5.

Spending the money on a co-anchor for just 6 and 11 seems a waste. I get co-anchors are the norm many places but they’ve done fine with the single anchor format, and with costs obviously being cut, what does that gain you? Use Shari as the regular 6/11 sub. Heck, use Jillian as the primary 5 and 10 sub and reporting when not subbing.

They actually have a pretty deep bench of backup anchors now. They get more morning exposure, but no reason not to occasionally give them a 4 or 5 pm shot.

Making an assumption here that the budget cuts come from higher up the chain, but they’ve done the best they probably can with that reality. I’m still baffled by the Boyer/Sowers decisions, but so be it. Losing one sports person stinks but that’s just a luxury that can’t always be afforded. They’re doing ok with two and Walter Perez doing it himself some weekend nights.

Losing a dedicated health reporter also stinks, but when hard decisions come down, I can see that being one that goes in lieu of more general assignment reporters.
 
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