Well, every couple of years for my 15 or so hanging out in this forum, I've done one of these recaps on talent and anchor changes at the national network newscasters. It feels like time for another one:
CBS
*With the passing of Dave Barrett over the summer, 30 year anchor Jim Chenevey has moved off of weekday overnights to anchor afternoons and the World News Roundup Late Edition. The last time I heard him during the days was in 2006, after Christopher Glenn retired, and he did the bottom of the hour updates during AM drive, and Dave Barrett did overnights. That arrangement lasted about nine months, and they switched. Great to see him move up.
*Matt Pieper, a career TV guy, who has been freelancing as a reporter and anchor at CBS News Radio for a couple of years, joined full time over the summer. At first, he was covering Friday evenings (which was an open slot covered typically by Gary Nunn) and weekend overnights, relieving Tom Foty. Foty then went back to doing what he did before Bill Vitka left CBS in 2007 - working as the Washington DC live reporter for any breaking news on weekends. This arrangement lasted about six weeks, and then Chenevey moved into Dave Barrett's slot, Foty returned to weekend overnights, and Pieper has found a home on weekday overnights.
*Pam Coulter moves from a Sun-Thurs evening schedule to a Monday-Friday evening schedule, plugging the open Friday evening anchor slot.
*Peter King and Bill Rehkopf, who had been anchoring the Saturday morning and afternoon shifts for the last year and a half, were moved off those shifts to return to a M-F reporting schedule about six weeks ago.
*Wendy Gillette, a long time freelancer for CBS, mostly for Newspath, has slipped in as a freelance anchor and reporter, starting last summer. She sounds like she's been doing radio for her whole career; really a great voice and delivery. She has settled in as the Sat/Sun afternoon anchor.
*Jim Taylor has settled in doing Sat/Sun mornings at the anchor desk, in addition to his weekday fill in work.
*Gary Nunn is without a regular shift ... I mean, he is like 75 years old. But he still fills in all around the clock and was regularly working Friday evenings until midnight and then flipping to Sunday mornings starting at 0430 for about a year until the middle of this summer. That's a tough turn around for a twenty year old, but he's was doing it for CBS and still has some of the best pipes in the business.
ABC
*Retirements ... since I last did this, some long time anchor voices like Joan Bennett, Deidre Bryant and sports anchor John Cloghessy have retired. With the phase out of the "ABC Sports" brand in 2006, the ABC Sports updates are about the last place that branding was used, and Cloghessy would still intro his reports with "From ABC's World of Sports." With him out the door, the "ABC's World of Sports" branding has taken its last breath.
*Karen Chase - my single favorite female network news anchor, Karen Chase departed ABC after 20 years last year. She had been anchoring AM Drive on the E-net, and would occasionally fill in on the I-Net. She had such a unique delivery, where she could turn her voice into a near whisper to create emphasis. It was very effective.
*Daria Albinger/Richard Cantu/Dave Packer - recently, Daria Albinger has moved to Sunday-Thursday evening on the Information Network, replacing Richard Cantu. He's worked the evening shift on the I-Net since Brad Wheelis was released a few years ago ... he has a nice voice but his newscasts just didn't do it for me. Cantu is now doing overnights during the week, which was formerly Dave Packer's shift. I'm assuming Packer moves to the E-Net afternoon newscasts that Albinger had anchored for the last few years.
*Lynda Lopez - J-Lo's sister joined a year ago, and I believe is mostly covering E-Net newscasts. I hear her occasionally fill in on the I-Net, where she has a nice voice and delivery, however, she deadpans the open to the newscast which is a downer. One of the great things about the I-Net is the classic ABC News Sounder combined with anchor giving an uptempo intro, pushing the urgency of the newscast. With a TV background, she did the national ABC News Special report on TV announcing President Bush's passing two weeks ago.
*E-Net - If anyone knows a station that carries the Entertainment Net newscasts and streams them, please let me know. I had been using KAST to listen in, but they no longer stream. Otherwise, I don't hear those newscasts and their anchors.
FOX
*After the anchor shuffling about a year ago - Lisa Lacerra has settled in as evening anchor, with Jack Callaghan doing overnights on the five minute newscasts.
*The imaging has changed a bit - they are no longer identifying as "Fox News Radio" at the start or end of the newscasts, and reporters have dropped "Radio" from their sign off at the end of their reports. The newscasts now open with headlines then "I'm ... Fox News." Going to the commercial break, the long time "you're listening to Fox News Radio, fair and balanced" has been dropped in favor of "This is Fox News" and the newscasts end with slightly awkward "I'm ... and this is Fox News."
*Weekend afternoons are still a hodge podge of voices. They've stuck with a three anchor shift pattern on Saturdays for the last year, matching the three anchor shift pattern that has been used on Sundays for a couple of years. Saturday afternoons could literally be anyone ... Joe Chiaro, Jane Metzler, Roger Stern, Debbie Hanley, Paul Stevens. Sunday afternoons is often Steve Rappoport, a long time producer who moved up to do some anchoring about a year ago. Weekend overnights are now anchored by Ann Kerick after briefly being covered by Ken Duffy, who is now on the Sirius channel.
AP
*I guess I missed the press release, but it looks like AP Radio News dropped their overnight and weekend newscasts about a year and a half ago. In the process, long time anchors Ross Simpson, Sandy Kozel, Carlotta Bradley, and White House Correspondent Mark Smith were all released. They might be down to five on air staffers ... Rita Foley, Tim Maguire, Ed Donohue, Jackie Quinn and White House Correspondent Sagar Meghani. A shell of their former selves.
NPR
*Long time part time anchor Nora Raum, who took the buy out a few years ago along with Jean Cochrane and Paul Brown, is back doing fill-in freelancing at NPR. Apparently the buy-out stipulated she had to stay gone for a certain period of time, and that time is up, and she's back. Despite NPR having weekend and fill-in anchors on contract (Windsor Johnston, etc) she frequently fills in during high visibility newscasts; often subbing for Korva Coleman during AM drive. And that's fine by me; she is great.
CBS
*With the passing of Dave Barrett over the summer, 30 year anchor Jim Chenevey has moved off of weekday overnights to anchor afternoons and the World News Roundup Late Edition. The last time I heard him during the days was in 2006, after Christopher Glenn retired, and he did the bottom of the hour updates during AM drive, and Dave Barrett did overnights. That arrangement lasted about nine months, and they switched. Great to see him move up.
*Matt Pieper, a career TV guy, who has been freelancing as a reporter and anchor at CBS News Radio for a couple of years, joined full time over the summer. At first, he was covering Friday evenings (which was an open slot covered typically by Gary Nunn) and weekend overnights, relieving Tom Foty. Foty then went back to doing what he did before Bill Vitka left CBS in 2007 - working as the Washington DC live reporter for any breaking news on weekends. This arrangement lasted about six weeks, and then Chenevey moved into Dave Barrett's slot, Foty returned to weekend overnights, and Pieper has found a home on weekday overnights.
*Pam Coulter moves from a Sun-Thurs evening schedule to a Monday-Friday evening schedule, plugging the open Friday evening anchor slot.
*Peter King and Bill Rehkopf, who had been anchoring the Saturday morning and afternoon shifts for the last year and a half, were moved off those shifts to return to a M-F reporting schedule about six weeks ago.
*Wendy Gillette, a long time freelancer for CBS, mostly for Newspath, has slipped in as a freelance anchor and reporter, starting last summer. She sounds like she's been doing radio for her whole career; really a great voice and delivery. She has settled in as the Sat/Sun afternoon anchor.
*Jim Taylor has settled in doing Sat/Sun mornings at the anchor desk, in addition to his weekday fill in work.
*Gary Nunn is without a regular shift ... I mean, he is like 75 years old. But he still fills in all around the clock and was regularly working Friday evenings until midnight and then flipping to Sunday mornings starting at 0430 for about a year until the middle of this summer. That's a tough turn around for a twenty year old, but he's was doing it for CBS and still has some of the best pipes in the business.
ABC
*Retirements ... since I last did this, some long time anchor voices like Joan Bennett, Deidre Bryant and sports anchor John Cloghessy have retired. With the phase out of the "ABC Sports" brand in 2006, the ABC Sports updates are about the last place that branding was used, and Cloghessy would still intro his reports with "From ABC's World of Sports." With him out the door, the "ABC's World of Sports" branding has taken its last breath.
*Karen Chase - my single favorite female network news anchor, Karen Chase departed ABC after 20 years last year. She had been anchoring AM Drive on the E-net, and would occasionally fill in on the I-Net. She had such a unique delivery, where she could turn her voice into a near whisper to create emphasis. It was very effective.
*Daria Albinger/Richard Cantu/Dave Packer - recently, Daria Albinger has moved to Sunday-Thursday evening on the Information Network, replacing Richard Cantu. He's worked the evening shift on the I-Net since Brad Wheelis was released a few years ago ... he has a nice voice but his newscasts just didn't do it for me. Cantu is now doing overnights during the week, which was formerly Dave Packer's shift. I'm assuming Packer moves to the E-Net afternoon newscasts that Albinger had anchored for the last few years.
*Lynda Lopez - J-Lo's sister joined a year ago, and I believe is mostly covering E-Net newscasts. I hear her occasionally fill in on the I-Net, where she has a nice voice and delivery, however, she deadpans the open to the newscast which is a downer. One of the great things about the I-Net is the classic ABC News Sounder combined with anchor giving an uptempo intro, pushing the urgency of the newscast. With a TV background, she did the national ABC News Special report on TV announcing President Bush's passing two weeks ago.
*E-Net - If anyone knows a station that carries the Entertainment Net newscasts and streams them, please let me know. I had been using KAST to listen in, but they no longer stream. Otherwise, I don't hear those newscasts and their anchors.
FOX
*After the anchor shuffling about a year ago - Lisa Lacerra has settled in as evening anchor, with Jack Callaghan doing overnights on the five minute newscasts.
*The imaging has changed a bit - they are no longer identifying as "Fox News Radio" at the start or end of the newscasts, and reporters have dropped "Radio" from their sign off at the end of their reports. The newscasts now open with headlines then "I'm ... Fox News." Going to the commercial break, the long time "you're listening to Fox News Radio, fair and balanced" has been dropped in favor of "This is Fox News" and the newscasts end with slightly awkward "I'm ... and this is Fox News."
*Weekend afternoons are still a hodge podge of voices. They've stuck with a three anchor shift pattern on Saturdays for the last year, matching the three anchor shift pattern that has been used on Sundays for a couple of years. Saturday afternoons could literally be anyone ... Joe Chiaro, Jane Metzler, Roger Stern, Debbie Hanley, Paul Stevens. Sunday afternoons is often Steve Rappoport, a long time producer who moved up to do some anchoring about a year ago. Weekend overnights are now anchored by Ann Kerick after briefly being covered by Ken Duffy, who is now on the Sirius channel.
AP
*I guess I missed the press release, but it looks like AP Radio News dropped their overnight and weekend newscasts about a year and a half ago. In the process, long time anchors Ross Simpson, Sandy Kozel, Carlotta Bradley, and White House Correspondent Mark Smith were all released. They might be down to five on air staffers ... Rita Foley, Tim Maguire, Ed Donohue, Jackie Quinn and White House Correspondent Sagar Meghani. A shell of their former selves.
NPR
*Long time part time anchor Nora Raum, who took the buy out a few years ago along with Jean Cochrane and Paul Brown, is back doing fill-in freelancing at NPR. Apparently the buy-out stipulated she had to stay gone for a certain period of time, and that time is up, and she's back. Despite NPR having weekend and fill-in anchors on contract (Windsor Johnston, etc) she frequently fills in during high visibility newscasts; often subbing for Korva Coleman during AM drive. And that's fine by me; she is great.