Thursday, May 25, 2006

Shakeup at 4

Julio, we hardly knew ye!. After only about a year-and-a-half on the job, Julio Marenghi is gone as chief honcho of the company's New England TV triopoly, including Channel 4 in Boston. Marenghi's being succeeded by a guy from Minneapolis while he moves on to become President of Sales at CBS Television Stations. Here's the skinny from the station:

Ed Piette has been named President and General Manager of CBS’s New England television stations, which include WBZ-TV (CBS) Boston, WSBK-TV (UPN) Boston and WLWC-TV (UPN) Providence, R.I., it was announced today by Tom Kane, President and CEO, CBS Television Stations. Piette who most recently served as Vice President and General Manager of WCCO-TV Minneapolis, will oversee all operations of the three stations. He succeeds Julio Marenghi, who has been appointed President, Sales, CBS Television Stations.

“Ed has done a phenomenal job leading the turnaround of WCCO, which recently resumed its rightful place as Minneapolis’ #1 station,” said Kane. “Under his watch, WCCO has not only grown its ratings and revenues but the quality of the local programming has improved drastically and the morale is sky-high. He is a superb leader and station operator, and I think he has what it takes to lead our New England triopoly.”

Piette was most recently Vice President and General Manager of WCCO. Before that he was Vice President and General Manager of KTSP-TV and KSTC-TV in Minneapolis (he also oversaw the satellite station KSAX, which served the Alexandria, Minn. area), a position he has held since 1998. Previously, he was President/General Manager of WDAF, the Fox-owned station in Kansas City (which was formerly an NBC affiliate owned by New World Television). He also worked for seven years for Multi-Media Inc. as Vice President/ General Manager, Station Manager and Director of Broadcast Operations for NBC affiliate KSDK-TV in St. Louis and as an interim general manager for WZTV-TV, an independent station in Nashville. In addition, Piette led stations for the American Broadcast Group in Sioux City, Iowa (NBC affiliate KTIV) and Waterloo, Iowa (NBC affiliate KWWL).

WBZ, WSBK and WLWC are part of the CBS Television Stations division, one of the largest network-owned station groups, consisting of 21 CBS stations, 15 UPN, one WB and two stations not affiliated with major networks.

Obviously, the big part of Marenghi's job was to try and turn around the fortunes of the ratings-challenged Channel 4, something that hasn't happened yet. (I'm waiting for the new May "sweeps" numbers) So it's no surprise that the press release (second graph) credits Piette with facilitating a major reversal of fortune at WCCO-TV.

5/25/2006 1:34:33 PM by Mark Jurkowitz | Comments [4] |
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Thursday, May 25, 2006 1:54:13 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

After the Dan Rather-Mary Mapes phony document scandal at Blackrock, who can blame channel 4 for dropping the CBS (emphasis on BS) and reverting back to WBZ?

That said, with Channel 4 in a long term ratings slump and once again shaking things up OFF camera, how about dumping some of the tired on-air talent?

I admire Jack Williams and Lisa Hughes' charitable work but the admiration ends there. Williams is tough to take seriously, filling in for the late David Brudnoy on WBZ radio and espousing ultra-liberal views then trying to shift back to neutral on TV. Fine for other libs but moderates and conservatives have tuned out. Jack is ready for God's waiting room over at NECN. I think the original Wednesday's child is now a great grandfather somewhere!

Hughes seems nice and I try to like her but she tries waaay too hard pretending to be an old-time Bostonian. e.g. "We've all lived with this Sox curse forever" or "I haven't seen rain here like this in xx years." Excuse me, aren't you from Idaho?
Her constant nodding, bobbing and weaving of the head while reading the news is also annoying, not to mention the incessant guffawing with overripe Lobel.

Lobel was great--in the 80s. He "jumped the shark" once the entertaining "Sports Spotlight" was canceled around '92. Has he delivered a segment this decade without pausing to insert a lame pun or joke with the accompanying boisterous laughter? Sure, it's funny sometimes but irritating every night. A friend of mine visitng from out of state watching Lobel for the first time seriously thought the station was auditioning an amateur as part of a promotional contest.

Sorry to be so critical, but count me amongst the masses tuning into Fox-25 lately.

o-fish-l

Friday, May 26, 2006 10:42:06 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

What's your problem with the First Amendment, wingnut? Despite all of your Swiftboating, you know damn well that Dan Rather and Mary Mapes told the truth about Chimpy McFlightsuit--but I guess as long as it kept you and Shrub to keep oppressing the working class and lying about Iraq, it doesn't matter to you.

And can you explain to us Chimpy's 29 percent approval rating? Is that "the masses turning to Faux?"

And oh yes--what's your opinion of African-Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans, Jews, women, gays and lesbians--as if we didn't already know?

Mark Jeffries

Friday, May 26, 2006 4:43:46 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Stand up straight, children. If you're not careful, you can drown in the waves of bile around here.

Rick in Duxbury

Saturday, May 27, 2006 11:22:28 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Mark Jeffries

I have no problem with the first amendment and I'm not sure how a critique of the media raises questions about my opinions of your laundry list of minorities. My point is that CBS-4 is now slowly reverting back to WBZ-4 and who could blame them after this embarassing moment, just days before a presidential election?::

Statement of Disgraced C-BS Anchor Dan Rather who resigned in shame shortly after.

"Now, after extensive additional interviews, I no longer have the confidence in these documents that would allow us to continue vouching for them journalistically. I find we have been misled on the key question of how our source for the documents came into possession of these papers. That, combined with some of the questions that have been raised in public and in the press, leads me to a point where-if I knew then what I know now-I would not have gone ahead with the story as it was aired, and I certainly would not have used the documents in question. But we did use the documents. We made a mistake in judgment, and for that I am sorry."

o-fish-l

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