Things Are Shakin’ Up at WFMY

WFMY announced today a MAJOR shakeup in their News Programming effective “late April.”

OUT in The Mornings: Rosemary Plybon and Ed Matthews (relegated to the weekends)
IN in The Mornings: Meghan Packer, Patrick Phillippi, Eric Chilton, Tracey McCain, Jackie Fernandez

Eric switches from Prime Weather Anchor to Morning News Host (probably weather as well)
Meghan Packer was already doing at 4:30 AM News (to complete with Fox 8 and WXII News Teams)
Patrick Phillipi (will possibly be handling the obligatory live shots)
Tracy McCain was the Weekend Morning Anchor, now graces the weekdays.
Jackie Fernandez is new to the area, all the way fron Neeeew York City.

Grant Gilmore becomes the Primary Weather Anchor (Week nights)
Leigh Brock locks in the Weekend Weather Anchor Job.

No word on Sports.

7 thoughts on “Things Are Shakin’ Up at WFMY

  1. What difference does it make at the of the day ? The problem with our society is that everyone continues to fight to do the same thing as the last. One of the reasons that WFMY apparently changed its format was to separate its presentation of news from the next guy. They were suppose to be more about the community. They have done a few good stories about a few situations within the communtiy but I cannot tell the difference from them and others. Fox 10 is doing similar programming about the community now that WFMY is doing. So will WXII now start broadcasting from the locate grocery store and McDonalds each morning? If these stations want the community support and the viewership that comes with it, then they should show up in the community more. All they are doing is repeating AP national and regional news. There is very little that is originally in their news cast.

    WFMY seems to only push their website with every news or sports story. They are more concerned with traffic to their website than the actual message. I don’t know who the top stations are but I would think it was #1 Fox 10 because they have more original programming (especially in the morning), #2 WXII because they just seem more unity as a group and they have more fun during their broadcast, and finally #3 WFMY which cannot figure out if they should be standing, sitting down or moving to the next story while telling us a hundred times during the news cast go to their overly promoted website that does not have any original content.

    Here is the final answer – all of these stations are owned by large multi-national companies located from Va (WFMY), California (WXII) or England (Fox 10). All of these stations must bend over backwards to serve their corporate interest instead of the communities that they live in. If you want the community, then get out into the community and fight for and with the community. Stop letting a few congressmen or city council members scare the crap of you doing what is right. Report what happened and ask the tough questions not just what was in an AP story or exactly what was in a police report assuming that it was the whole true. Politics, education, business, entertain, schools, and sports are still the baselines for our community but they are missing the stories behind the first report.

  2. WFMY has never recovered from the loss of Lee Kinard, Charlie Harville, Dave Wright and others from the old days and more recently the losses of Brad Jones and Cindy Farmer…..The have some major catching up to do, but they are least trying…

  3. I like the new format but they don’t get out of the studio enough. I like it when they bring in “experts” in a specific field but they only allow them to say a few words before they cut the session short.

  4. FYI, Fox8 (Cable 10) is owned by “Local TV” – a Tribune (Chicago) spin off. FOX’s Ruppurt Murdoch is from Australia, just like Paul “Crocodile Dundee” Hogan, he became a US Citizen years ago. FOX sold WGHP back a year or so. WFMY is owned by Gannette (the USA Today folks). WXII is own by Hearst (think Lifetime TV)

  5. Andy, WFMY (all local news) haven’t recovered from the period of time when Kinard and Harville worked. It wasn’t Kinard and Harville, it was the period in which they broadcast. Those days are gone and so is local news, print news and 6 pm national news.

    The demand is down and all this is just reaction to cut costs and try to survive.

    Having said all that…..I think local news is a joke. Like when they bring in people from investment firms to tell people at Christmas to have a budget. Or when they bring landscaping people in to tell people that water is important to green grass. If you need this advice……if it’s helpful to you…….you got bigger issues!!

    Cute news stories used to work when we watched cute shows like Andy Griffith. Good or bad…..those days are gone.

  6. To be honest – its great the Rosemary will no longer be on the morning show – i was getting rather bored looking at her pearly white teeth – it always made me feel like i needed to get to the dentist – plus her pesonality was more fake than a politician. The new chic looks smoking HOTT cant wait 🙂

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