Television stations put their best foot forward and their top talent front and center during the February ratings sweeps to enhance the image of stability and credibility.
As a result anchors and reporters rarely take time off during this period and stations rarely make personnel moves. Yet this appears to have occurred at CBS affiliate WDJT-TV (Channel 58).
Viewers may have noticed that veteran anchor Paul Piaskoski moved from 10 p.m. weeknights to weekends and that Bill Walsh has been anchoring the weeknight newscast with Michelle McCormack.
Although there is no indication that this is a permanent change, you don’t have to be a math major to put two and two together. A “Save Paul Piaskoski” Facebook page even appeared online Tuesday before being taken down.
Anchors are the public face of a station and personnel shifts at that position are no small thing in an image driven business.
Piaskoski joined WDJT 1996. He started as a reporter – after working at WTMJ-TV (Channel 4) and at stations around the country – before being named anchor in 2000, replacing Mike Strehlow.
While WDJT often ranks last in the ratings the 10 p.m. audience could be put in play once the Journal Broadcast Group station WTMJ is merged with the E. W. Scripps Howard group later this spring.
The WDJT 10 p.m. newscast was ranked fourth and 1.3 rating points behind market leader WITI-TV (Channel 6) in the November sweeps ratings period.
WDJT is owned by the Chicago-based Weigel Broadcast Co. In an email general manager Mark Strachota said: “We recently made an anchor shift change and Bill Walsh is now anchoring the Monday-Friday newscasts while Paul will be anchoring the Weekend newscasts along with doing special reports Monday through Wednesday.”
Strachota was named general manager of the station in March of 2014. He was previously GM of Time Warner Cable’s SportsChannel and a former GM and VP at WTMJ-TV (Channel 4). He spent 28 years working at WTMJ.
News director Genie Garner joined WDJT in August of 2012.
Posted by