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WBZ ND Heading Out
By Michael Page | December 16, 2008
WBZ-TV News Director Jeff Kiernan is leaving his job of about 15 months to join WBBM-TV in Chicago. He leaves WBZ on January 16th and starts at the CBS owned station in Chicago just a few days later on the 19th.
Topics: WBZ (Channel 4) | 13 Comments »
December 16th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
The Axman Cometh and The Axman taketh away…The damage is done…he can leave now. Lobel, Kulhawik and Wahle cut…So So ratings.
“My job is done here….I must leave”
December 16th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
It seems common to ‘blame’ lower ratings on the departure of certain on-air talent. ‘If so-and-so didn’t leave, our ratings would have been higher.’ Decades ago, when TV news was much more ‘personality-driven’ than it is now, I might have agreed. But is that even remotely true today? The ability of ‘talent’ to ‘deliver’ viewers seems to have evaporated.
December 16th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
While I wasn’t thrilled that the trio got canned, you can see his reasoning. ‘BZ was getting beaten by Fox25′s quality lineup of syndicated shows in the ratings, so if the people presenting the news cannot be #1, then nobody’s job is safe.
Kiernan did a great job while he was here, but there’s still quite a bit of work to do, quite a bit of jobs still left to be cut (unfortunately, but with CBS’ fleet of perennial 3rd place stations, it’s almost inevitable), and newscasts to be cut. It’s going to be a tough next couple of months, so we’ll see how Kiernan and his protege perform at their respective assignments.
December 17th, 2008 at 4:49 am
What is Scott Wahle doing these days?
December 17th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Pez Scott Whale was MC at Hingham’s Christmas in the Square on Dec 5th and 6th.
December 17th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
i vote Wendy Mcmahon to replace him!
December 17th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
CBS has a very strong prime time lineup, so there must be something really wrong BZ cannot keep its strong lead-in audience. Would it not be cheaper to hire some young, up and comers?
December 17th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
WBZ actually wins at 11 for that reason…
December 17th, 2008 at 10:50 pm
The Globe has a story about tv cutbacks.
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2008/12/17/local_broadcasters_scale_back_as_advertising_fades/#commentAnchor
December 18th, 2008 at 12:14 am
In other news, WBZ got their HD SET!
I don’t know about other newscasts, but I’m catching the 11pm right now. And, yes, it is only a revamp. Pretty light blue scheme.
December 18th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
>> WBZ was getting beaten by Fox25’s quality lineup of syndicated shows in the ratings. <<
I did a double-take when I saw the words “Fox25″ and “quality lineup” in the same sentence. But joking aside, WBZ-TV’s evening newscasts do rather well in the ratings. In fact, the station is #1 at 11:00 P.M.
That probably explains why Channel 4′s news director is being moved along by CBS. Mr. Kiernan’s successful track record has made him the company’s “fix-it man.”
I don’t think Jeff Kiernan played a significant role in terminating the jobs of Bob Lobel, Joyce Kulhawik and Liz Walker. It’s more likely that these decisions were made at a higher level.
December 18th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
It was meant to be a joke. But then again, so was “CBS4″
January 7th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
[...] month after WBZ announced that former news director Jeff Kiernan is heading off to Chicago, the station appointed John [...]