Jennifer Bauer, new Suncoast Chapter member and news reporter at WJXT-TV in Jacksonville won the July membership benefit of a $200.00 gift certificate to Universal Orlando. Congratulations, Jennifer.

Next month, our August membership benefit will be a $200.00 gift certificate to Sea World Adventure Park in Orlando. If you are a member of the Suncoast Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, send an e-mail to emmysuncst@aol.com that says, “I want a free swim with the dolphins”. Send your e-mail before the close of business on Friday, August 15. The winner’s name will be drawn from a hat full of e-mails and announced in the August issue of TUBE TALK.

All of the entries in the 2008 Suncoast Emmy Awards are in and processed, ready to be shipped to other Academy Chapters for judging. They all went to the home office of Administrator Karla MacDonald, where her four and a half year old daughter Aly helped out. And Aly is right! There are more entries this year. 989 this year! 927 last year.

Nominations in the 2008 Suncoast Emmy Awards will be announced on the Chapter web site on Saturday, October 18, 2008. Go to www.suncoastchapter.org.

The Chapter will accept the names of additional entrants on all entries up to two weeks after nominations are announced. The fee for each additional person is $200.00.

The 2008 Suncoast Emmy Awards formal dinner and awards ceremony will be held at the Rosen Shingle Creek Hotel and Convention Center in Orlando, Florida on Saturday night, December 6, 2008.

Each guest room at the Rosen Shingle Creek has two phones and is equipped with the latest innovations in technology, including high-speed internet access, 32-inch flat screen TV’s which include connectivity panels for laptop, iPod and other devices, as well as NXTV connectivity.

NXTV technology offers each guest access to make restaurant reservations or schedule a spa appointment or tee time, as well as access to the internet. The e-mail address allows those without remote e-mail access or a laptop computer the ability to send and receive e-mail through their guest room TV set and its wireless keyboard.

Each luxurious room features a plush Creek Sleeper Bed with Egyptian cotton sheets, designer linens and elegant furnishings in the Spanish revival style. Each guest room also offers an in-room lap top safe, mini refrigerator, plush robe, iron and ironing board, hands-free blow dryer and Shingle Creek branded in-room amenities from the Spa at Shingle Creek, featuring its signature cedar and citrus scents.

The Washington Post Co. is buying a second television station in the Miami market, NBC Universal’s WTVJ, The Post Co. said Friday, July 18, creating a two-station group designed to increase revenue while lowering costs.

Post-Newsweek Stations owns six television stations and has not bought a new one since 1994. NBC Universal, owned by General Electric, was shopping the Miami station as part of a cash-raising plan by the network, which is cutting costs from its broadcast television side to bolster its online efforts.

The Post Co. has owned Miami’s top-rated WPLG, an ABC affiliate, since 1969.

The purchase price was not disclosed. The Post Co. hopes to close the deal by the end of this year.

“We are pleased to be able to reach an agreement to purchase such a historic station as WTVJ, the first TV station to broadcast in Florida,” Alan Frank, president and chief executive of Post-Newsweek Stations, said in a statement.

NBC Universal put WTVJ up for sale in March—to raise cash for other ventures. NBC recently said it will partner with two private equity firms to buy The Weather Channel—for a reported $3.5 billion. And last year, the network bought Oxygen Media for $925 million.

NBC, which also owns Telemundo, has said it plans to keep that network’s flagship station, WSCV-Channel 51 in Miami.

WPLG vice president Dave Boylan did a walk-through of NBC 6 in late May. WSVN-Fox 7’s executive VP/general manager, Bob Leider, did a walk-through, too. WSVN is owned by Ed Ansin’s Sunbeam Television. Other broadcast and private-equity groups did site inspections, sources say.

NBC 6 remains an NBC affiliate. It will eventually move from its Miramar studio-headquarters into WPLG’s new headquarters, under construction on six acres along Hallandale Beach Boulevard in Pembroke Park. That $30 million-plus facility should be ready by March or April.

In a press conference held at its Hato Rey headquarters, and coinciding with the celebration of its fiftieth anniversary, Puerto Rico’s first public television station, TUTV (WIPR-TV), announced the station’s evolution to high definition digital production, with the inauguration of modern, state-of-the-art facilities.

“Our operations have always been at the forefront of innovation,” said Victor J. Montilla, President of the Puerto Rico Public Broadcasting Corporation. “When we opened in 1958, our educational mission and our commitment to content excellence set us apart from other stations. Now, half a century later, we are leading the way, as the first station in Puerto Rico ready to record and broadcast in digital high definition.”

At a cost of 28 million dollars, the new facilities—which include an electronic room, master controls, three studios, studio controls, antennas, and cameras in Hato Rey and Mayaguez—set a new technological standard for production and broadcasting in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean.

At the press conference, which also launched the beginning of Television Week, an annual celebration of television media in the island, Montilla, accompanied by Carlos Rios, President of the Board of Directors, pressed the symbolic button that would launch TUTV into the digital era.

It’s a puzzling question for parents, teachers and students alike. Just how safe is the food inside some of our school cafeterias?

A new state law prompted by a CBS4 News “Cruddy Cafeterias” investigation now guarantees that parents and students have rights to not only see posted school cafeteria health reports, it also requires Florida Schools to post those reports on the school websites. The bill was signed by Florida Governor Charlie Crist on June 30 and went into effect on July 1.

CBS4 I-Team Consumer Investigator Al Sunshine has been on the forefront of this issue for several years. Health inspectors with the Miami-Dade Health Department have routinely found potentially serious sanitation violations that parents didn’t know about. However, thanks to this CBS4 News I-Team investigation, an increase in awareness is a certainty. The disturbing discoveries made inside these “cruddy cafeterias” has not only led to a change in Florida law, but also triggered a full probe into school cafeteria safety nationwide.

Those CBS4 I-Team Investigations have prompted a full national probe by the Government Accountability Office in Washington. “Al Sunshine did an investigation that exposed a tremendous problem with school cafeterias,” Representative Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL) affirmed. Wasserman-Schultz, a South Florida Congresswoman, pushed for a full nationwide investigation of school cafeteria sanitation after the I-Team Investigation found local cafeterias were ignoring federal food safety laws.

CBS4 investigative reporter Laurie Stein has been chosen as a 2008 National Media Awards winner for the Award of Excellence in Broadcast Media, presented by MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving), and has also been awarded the Marin Institute’s Watchdog Award. Stein won the awards for her report, Alcohol Laced Energy Drinks Spell Double Trouble, which revealed that energy drinks containing high levels of alcohol and caffeine are often sold to underage teens.

Stein’s special report was cited for playing a part in raising public awareness about some aspect of MADD’s mission—to stop drunk driving, support victims of this violent crime and to prevent underage drinking.

An award-winning journalist, Laurie has reported a number of hard-hitting
investigative stories for the station which have won her many other prestigious awards. Among these awards are the Association for Women in Communications National Clarion Award, two Silver Telly Awards, two National Health Information Awards and The American Legion Fourth Estate Award. Stein is a three-time Emmy award winner, including an Emmy for investigative reporting, an Emmy for news writing and an Emmy for on-camera talent performance. She is also a breast cancer survivor, committed to educating women and men about the hereditary gene for breast and ovarian cancer.

The 6th Annual MADD National Media Awards Luncheon will take place on Friday, September 5, at the Hilton Anatole Hotel in Dallas, Texas.

The Marin Institute held an open house and awards presentation in San Rafael, California on June 27.

Local TV stations often encourage viewers to provide footage of news they can’t get to—like weather emergencies, fires and things which may happen too quickly for the station to get professionals to capture.

But St. Petersburg CBS affiliate WTSP is taking that concept a step further, soliciting viewers and users of its Web site to apply for one of 20 slots in a new citizen journalism program they are unveiling, training a group of non-journalists to use handheld cameras to capture compelling images they may stumble across on their own.

There’s not much money in the proposition—$20 for every clip used and the right to keep the video camera after a year. But the offer hints an intriguing effort to take WTSP’s cameras deeper into the community it’s trying to cover. In my conversations with two different general managers taking over rival stations recent weeks, the mantra of community involvement was just about the first phrase which escaped their lips.

It will be interesting to see if this citizen journalism project winds up becoming a low-cost way to achieve that laudable goal.

It took a while for Jen Holloway’s workout invention to become enough of a success for her to be able to check out of Bay News 9 as the morning anchor.

Her Workout 180, a variation of those step-aerobic exercise devices, was developed more than a year ago as part of a PBS series about inventors, “Everyday Edisons.” She first auditioned for the show in 2005 at an open casting call held at WEDU, Channel 3.

Holloway, a former beauty queen from Georgia, was selected from hundreds of people who had come up with all sorts of gadgets and ideas. The series, which debuted last summer, took the inventors and their raw ideas through all the development stages from concept to finished product.

The 180 device went on sale in late 2007 and has since become a hit on the fitness market (for information, go to www.workout180.com).

Holloway is one of the original on-air talents at the 24-hour cable news network Bay News 9. She has been there more than a decade.

Former New Orleans television news anchor Ron Hunter, known for his dramatic and often colorful television persona which he developed during a career at several New Orleans TV and radio stations, died late Tuesday in Las Vegas. He was 70.

His broadcasting career also included stints in Miami, Philadelphia and Chicago, where he anchored alongside Jane Pauley and Maury Povich. Hunter returned to New Orleans in the 1980s to work at the ABC television affiliate and host several radio talk shows.

Hunter’s daughter Ali confirmed his death Wednesday, saying her brother had discovered their father’s body in his Las Vegas home. Ali Hunter said her father appeared to die of natural causes. She said her father had moved there about ten years ago.

A native of Bogalusa, Hunter helped establish WWL as the dominant television station in New Orleans, during his stint as anchor and reporter from 1967 to 1972. His style was often controversial and showy, but attracted viewers. Often his penchant for making news while reporting it, earned him attention—both positive and negative.

In Ft.Myers-Naples, Florida, the General Manager of WGCU Public Media has announced that she will retire once Florida Gulf Coast University hires a replacement.

Kathleen Davey started in November 1994, two full years before the region’s public radio and television licenses were transferred to FGCU. WGCU-TV/FM produces a variety of its own radio and television pieces, in addition to national broadcasts. Programming is aired through Charlotte, Collier, DeSoto, Glades, Hendry, Lee and Sarasota counties.

FGCU will conduct a national search for a new general manager.

These days, the news about the news is downright depressing: 130 newsroom jobs cut at the Palm Beach Post; copyediting jobs outsourced to India at the Orange County Register; buyouts and possible layoffs at both the Tampa Tribune and St. Petersburg Times.

But there’s one area of established media where there’s the tiniest bit of growth: online.

The latest example: a local branch of a nationwide network of entertainment-oriented web sites, dubbed Metromix, which debuted Monday from inside the newsroom at WTSP-Ch. 10. Developed as a partnership between WTSP owner Gannett Co. and the Tribune Co. (Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times), Metromix is scheduled to establish about 40 separate web sites across the country focused on their local entertainment scenes—in the process, creating a unique national platform for online advertisements.

“I’ve seen the kind of impact it can have in a town as big as Chicago—it’s prevalent in the culture of the young professionals there,” said Nathalie Voirin, a former WTSP producer who serves as managing editor for Metromix Tampa Bay, directing the work of four full-time staffers and a network of freelancers from the heart of the CBS affiliate’s newsroom in St. Petersburg. “Before you go out there—you check Metromix to see where the restaurants or clubs are.”

Hired in mid-March for the project, Voirin has jumped into a competition with the Times’ own online version of its youth-oriented tabloid, TBT, along with the local alternative weekly, Creative Loafing. Indeed, when Creative Loafing announced the purchase of The Chicago Reader and the Washington City Paper, one of the goals set by publisher Ben Eason was creating the kind of national online ad sales platform Metromix is building.

But while TBT and Loafing present a range of material on their web sites—news reports, investigative stories, political analysis—Metromix is focused on entertainment and leisure, with listings, reviews and other material focused pretty tightly on what 21 to 34-year-olds want to do with their time when not at work or school.

It’s also part of WTSP’s effort to ramp up its web site and leave behind the notion that local TV station Web sites often lag behind the local newspaper’s offerings. The station has streamlined its web design and created an area for mothers dubbed Mom’s Tampa Bay.

All this seems to be another example of how resources, effort, and competition are moving from traditional media to the online world.

As their contract negotiations intensified this week, the newsroom employees at San Francisco’s leading Spanish-language news station—KDTV Channel 14—should have been in a strong bargaining position. Not only is the newsroom full of coveted bilingual journalists, but for the past two ratings periods KDTV has beaten most of its Bay Area English-language competitors in various ratings contests.

But when it comes to Spanish-language television news, high ratings don’t translate into high salaries. Many KDTV reporters and producers, like their counterparts at Spanish-language stations across the country, earn roughly one-fourth less in base pay than their competitors at English-language stations, even if the 6 p.m. newscast they’re producing is attracting more viewers in the coveted 25-54 demographic than every Bay Area station except KGO-TV.

Their plight is echoed across the country. While the foreign-born Hispanic population in the United States grew 25 percent between 2000 and 2006 to 17.6 million, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, analysts say the advertising world has been slow to adapt to the demographic changes in Spanish-language media—and the effects have trickled down through the media food chain.

So while the Spanish-language news audience may be growing, many advertisers don’t perceive Hispanics to be the “right audience,” according to bilingual television advertising expert Roxane Garzon.

“There’s still a perception in the marketing world that most of the Spanish-speaking audience is poor and uneducated,” said Garzon, who is broadcast media director for Casanova Pendrill, which buys time on Spanish-language TV for corporate clients such as Kohl’s, L’Oreal and General Mills. While Spanish-speaking households may have lower incomes, she said they tend to be brand loyal, regardless of price.

Google Inc.’s YouTube is setting up a virtual screening room to bring the work of independent filmmakers to a global audience. Struggling filmmakers already use YouTube to kick-start viral marketing campaigns. The new feature, which debuts Wednesday, gives them an easy-to-find home—and makes them partners in drawing new ad revenue. “Hopefully as they see thousands of people watching their films, it’s going to be a very eye-opening experience,” said Sara Pollack, YouTube”s film and animation manager.

The screening room will highlight four new films a week, picked by a YouTube editorial panel. Submissions are welcomed. The panel also will scour film festivals and work with partners such as the Sundance Channel to identify prospects. Among the first eight titles to be showcased are “Love and War,” a stop-motion puppet movie by a Swedish director; the Oscar-nominated short “I Met The Walrus,” about an interview with John Lennon; and “Are You the Favorite Person of Anybody?” by performance artist Miranda July. Filmmakers can choose to have a “Buy Now” button attached to their work for sales of DVDs or digital copies. They will also collect a majority share of ad revenue generated from views of their work. YouTube said people whose clips regularly attract a million viewers can make several thousand dollars a month. The bigger prize can be exposure. When YouTube featured the nine-minute short “Spider” by Nash Edgerton in February, it became the fifth-best selling short on iTunes, Pollack said. The creators of the full-length feature “Four Eyed Monsters,” Susan Buice and Arin Crumley, got their break when more than a million YouTube views helped land them a TV and DVD distribution deal, she said. “They ended up doing really, really well, ironically by putting their film online for free,” Pollack said.

ABC took home the most Daytime Emmy Awards this year with 14 total, as “General Hospital” and “One Life to Live” bringing home honors in entertainment categories. CBS won the most entertainment Emmys tonight with five. ABC pulled in four entertainment awards tonight at the 35th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards, held at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood. The network had received 10 others at a June 13 event recognizing creative arts categories. The night also debuted several new categories, as Twentieth Television’s “Cristina’s Court” won the first legal/courtroom award and “The Tyra Banks Show” from Warner Bros. walked away with the talk show-informative award. View the full list of winners here: http://www.emmyonline.org/mediacenter/daytime_35th_telecast_winners.html

GENEEN ANDERSON, has joined WPLG in Miami as a weathercaster from WNCN in Raleigh.

SANDY BRELAND, is the new vice president/general manager at Raycom’s WAFB Baton Rouge, shifting from KTVK, where she was executive news director. She’s a Louisiana native who used to be executive news director at WWL New Orleans.

EVROD CASSIMY jumps 66 markets to Central Florida News in Orlando from the NBC affiliate in Madison. Evrod joins Central Florida News as a General Assignment Reporter. Evrod is a graduate of Columbia College in Chicago.

Telemundo has named JOSE DIAZ-BALART, the network’s Managing Director of Community Affairs, in addition to his current on-air duties.

BRIAN NORCROSS, Hurricane Specialist for WFOR/CBS4 in Miami, resigns to start a new business providing technology services to local and state disaster agencies.

Previous WBRZ, Baton Rouge 4pm anchor, TODD ROSS, will now serve as full time Assistant Director of News.

WBRZ, also announces the addition of LORI STEELE as anchor and reporter to WBRZ News 2, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Before coming to Channel 2, Steele worked at KLFY-TV in Lafayette as a morning show co-anchor. Also, during her time at KLFY-TV, she was a general assignments reporter and a weekend anchor. Steele will team up with Chief Forecaster Pat Shingleton on News 2 at 4pm. Lori is married to WBRZ reporter Mike Steele.

LOOKING FOR A JOB? CHECK OUT THE ACADEMY’S FREE, NATIONWIDE JOB BANK WITH OVER 700 HELP WANTED LISTINGS ATwww.suncoastchapter.org.

The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Suncoast Chapter

Officers

Dave Game, President, Executive Producer for Digital Media/CBS Stations South Florida
Chip Richards, 1st Vice President, Production Manager, WLRN-TV,
PBS, Miami
Craig Stevens, 2nd Vice President, News Anchor, WSVN-TV, Miami
Bob Behrens, Executive Director, television producer
Rebecca C. Torres Rivas, Vice President Puerto Rico, Operations and Production Vice President, Public Broadcasting of Puerto Rico
Karla MacDonald, Acting Secretary, Suncoast Chapter Administrator
Betsy Behrens, Treasurer and Trustee, television producer

Board of Governors

Mary Ross Agosta, Director of Communications, Archdiocese of Miami
Teri Arvesu, Executive Producer, Noticias23 Univision
Jeff Barnes, Owner, FinalCutz
Giovani Benitez, Investigative Producer, WFOR/CBS4
Holly Brobst, 11pm News Producer, WSVN-TV/7
Jeff Burnside, Special Projects Producer and Reporter, NBC6/WTVJ
Abel Castillo, News Photojournalist, WFOR/CBS4
Kathleen Corso, Special Projects Producer, WPLG-TV Local 10
Tammy Darling, Director, WSVN-TV, Miami
Mark Drury, Creative Services Director, WSFL-TV
Wendy Feinberg, Managing Editor, Nightly Business Report, PBS/WPBT-TV/2
Steve Greenberg, Independent Producer/Reporter
Freddy Hernandez, Animator, WPLG-TV Local 10, Miami
Joel Kaplan, President, Kaplan Multimedia
Richard S. Maher, Technical Manager, David Brinkley Studios,
Barry University, Miami Shores
Spears Mallis, Mallis Enterprises, Miami
John Mays, Production Supervisor, WFOR/CBS4/UPN33, Miami
Angela Gonzalez Ramos, Programming & Public Affairs Director, Univision 23
Craig Stevens, News Anchor, WSVN-TV, Miami
Jose Suarez, Director of Digital Media, WTVJ/WSCV, Miami
Rodney Ward, Executive Editor of Nightly Business Report and Senior Vice President of NBR Enterprises

Committee Chairs

Art & Design
Stacey Panson, Graphic Artist, Ft. Lauderdale
Emmy Awards
Spears Mallis, Mallis Enterprises, Inc., Miami
John Mays, Production Supervisor, WFOR/CBS4
Emmys On The Road
Craig Stevens, News Anchor, WSVN-TV, Miami
Newsletter
Bob Behrens, Executive Director, Suncoast Chapter
Scholarship
Angela Gonzalez Ramos, Programming & Public Affairs Director, WLTV/Univision23
Web Site
Dave Game, Executive Producer for Digital Media/CBS Stations South Florida

Karla MacDonald, Suncoast Chapter Administrator
Tel. 954-322-3171
e-mail emmysuncst@aol.com

TO SUBSCRIBE TO TUBE TALK: Send mail to: tubetalk@emmyonline.org with the following command as the body of your e-mail message: subscribe tube talk
TO UNSUBSCRIBE TO TUBE TALK: Send mail to:tubetalk@emmyonline.org with the following command as the body of your e-mail message: unsubscribe tube talk

TUBE TALK is written and published by the TUBE TALK committee of the Suncoast Chapter: Terry Adams, Steve Greenberg and Committee Chairman and Editor, Bob Behrens. Submissions related to television in the Suncoast region of Florida, Mobile, Alabama, Louisiana and Puerto Rico are welcome. Send to emmysuncst@aol.com.