TVLifer

As the High School football playoffs start all across the United States we can honestly say that WPDE in Myrtle Beach, SC would receive a one seed from the TVlifer.com staff. Not too many stations have their chief meteorologist and their general managers out shooting on Friday nights.

It goes beyond that, Rich Chrampanis, WPDE Sports director says that coving football in the Myrtle Beach region of South Carolina is more then just shooting football.

“These towns are so passionate about high school football,” said Chrampanis. “They know if you know your teams or not right away.”

Click on Station of the Week to read the rest of the breakdown of high school football coverage in Myrtle Beach.  Just sign up for a FREE account to read the rest.

KCEN reporter Jade Mingus’ phone rang just after 5 p.m. at Ft. Hood last Thursday, she had been the first reporter on the scene and now NBC Nightly News wanted her to go live with Brian Williams to discuss the day’s events.

“I remember standing there, and I'm an NBC affiliate reporter and I heard the Nightly News music in my ear and I wanted to run away,” Mingus recalled. “I just said a quick prayer, ‘ok Lord, help me, this is it’ and then it just happened.”

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TVLifer welcomes NBC News producer Mark Hudspeth for this week's critique of Fox 12 This Morning's Nate Kuester.  He's a man of many talents, doing both news and sports for the Boise, Idaho (#112) FOX affiliate.  Make sure to check out this week's critique to get some ideas for putting your resume together when you go looking for that next job.  If you are interested in having your resume reviewed for free, just sign up and submit your reel at the top of Critic's Corner section.

High School football in Texas is a little different and that's how KIII-TV in Corpus Christi (#129) has to cover it. Instead of cramming tons of games into their "Friday Night Sports Blitz," the station stays focussed on a handful of games and covers the event that is Friday night in the state of Texas.

“It’s not quite a religion, but it sure is close,” said Sports Director Dan McReynolds. “Our show is built around a bunch of small communities that take their football very seriously. It’s a tradition, it’s something that their grandfather did and the kids look forward to playing from the time they can snap a ball."

If you want to read more about South Texas football coverage just sign up to be a TVLifer for FREE.

Indiana is known for basketball, heck that's where Larry Bird got his start.  But on Friday nights in the fall WTWO in Terra Haute, IN spends their time on high school football.

It is all hands on deck accoring to Sports Director Jason Pensky, “if you have two legs, two working arms and you can breath, you’re going to be a part of our Friday night football show."   

To find out more about how this station in market #152 treats their football show, just click on Station of the Week.  If you aren't already a TVLifer, it is free to sign up and join the network.

I’ve made most of my friends while toiling away in the bright, fluorescent lights of a television newsroom. We are a different breed. We understand working weekends is not the end of the world. We understand its okay to sleep until 11:00 every morning when you don’t even have to be at work until 2:30 that afternoon. We understand a day in a courtroom, a day at a burned down house or a day on the side of the interstate during bad weather can pass for a day at the office. We can yell very offensive profanities in the newsroom for no apparent reason at the top of our lungs and it’s perfectly acceptable. Our days are dictated by stupid people, and that doesn’t necessarily mean the assignment desk.

We look at the world a lot different than most. Our jobs are unique and so are we. I think that’s why so many of my friends are from this business. My dad is a sales representative for different manufacturers. He never hangs out with anyone from work. One of my best friends works at a bank and he rarely hangs out with anyone from work. I can’t tell you the last time I had a beer with someone who didn’t at some point work in a newsroom. It is a different kind of bond.

I used to work for an executive producer named Alison until 2004. Alison was fun to work with. She had been a stockbroker in a previous life and decided to try television news. She was good at it and would always take suggestions from those in the field into consideration, which is about all you need to do to get my support.

TVLifer looks at HS Football Coverage: WLBZ & WCSH

Each week TVLifer.com will profile a selected station and its high school football coverage. We all know from our experience in the biz that news sometimes takes a back seat to football on Friday nights.

The Fifth Quarter is the birthplace of Friday night football shows in the state of Maine. WLBZ (NBC) in Bangor came up with the idea to host a show thanks to sportscaster Lee Goldberg. Now, WLBZ and sister station WCSH (NBC) in Portland have the only statewide show on Friday night. Goldberg's vision carries on with colleague John Smist who heads the coverage from the Bangor studios. The entire sports department of Goldberg, Smist, and longtime anchor Bruce Glasier alternate turns at the highlights from both markets.

"We tend to hit up 16 games or so, that's the magic number. We look at our resources between the two stations and figure out a game plan to hit as many games as we can," says Smist.

For TVLifers unfamiliar with Maine - it is "geographically challenged." On some Friday nights a photographer can only get to shoot one game due to long distances.

"Some places like Leavitt and Foxcroft are very out of the way. We send one shooter to these places and it can be tough when teams are having a good season," says Smist.

Perhaps the most bizarre story of the year broke in the backyard of Northern Colorado 5 (NoCo 5) in Fort Collins, CO.

A three person newsroom staff went head-to-head with the cable networks and Denver affiliates and stayed ahead of the story.

NoCo 5 is TVL's Station of the Week. Read about their experience and how all the news crews reacted when the boy was found safe in the attic of his home.

TVLifer is committed to bringing you the "behind the scene" story from local newsrooms across the country. If you think your station should be profiled send us an email at stationoftheweek@tvlifer.com

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News 8 Austin's Ricky Doyle is living out a dream as a Sports Anchor/Reporter in the home of the Texas Longhorns.  Having grown up watching Washington Huskie football, the chance to cover the sport at the highest level is not lost on the Mercer Island, WA native.

Doyle has worked his way up the ladder, starting in production at ESPN in Bristol, CT and then becoming Sports Director at KKCO in Grand Junction, CO, before finally settling at News 8 Austin.

The Medill grad says patience is the key when looking for that first job.  "It was a long and difficult process," Doyle says.  "I felt like I was prepared for the job market coming out of Northwestern, but I had no idea how many tapes I would end up sending out."

To read more about covering major college football and how to get into the small local sports market, simply sign up for a free membership and click on TVLifer Spotlight.

If you have any ideas for tv professionals that have a good story to tell, just drop us an email at tvliferspotlight@tvlifer.com.

In ten years of television news service, I’ve been fortunate enough to have some wonderful days. The kind of days that leave you smiling uncontrollably from the time you load up the truck after the live shot all the way back to the station. This was one of my better days.

After Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans and other states, it kept heading north and turned into a flooding machine in the mountains of North Carolina. The storm got hung up on the mountains and dumped a ton of water into streams and rivers that hadn’t seen that much rain in decades. It was kind of an afterthought in many areas thanks to the problems Louisiana and Mississippi were having, but to the people in those mountains it was kind of a big deal.

Naturally when the next storm passed through Louisiana and was forecast to hit those mountains again, my newsroom based in the Piedmont of North Carolina felt it necessary to head west out of the market to cover the impending floods. Boy was I excited when I drew the straw to take the satellite buggy up there.

Luckily I was with a reporter that didn’t suck(a reporter who still understands to this day what it means to be a photographer’s reporter, more on that in a future column) so that made it a lot easier to stomach the drive. He went up the night before just in case the storm hit early. It didn’t.