KCTV5 RETURNING TO SPORTS; KIETZMAN UNLOADS The changes continue at KCTV5, Kansas City's CBS affiliate, with the announcement of Michael Coleman as its new sports director after a seven-year hiatus from doing its own sports. In 2003, the station began outsourcing its sports to Time Warner Cable's Metro Sports. After five years KCTV ended its contract with Metro. According to sources at KCTV5, Coleman is in town this week and will make his on-air debut on Monday, April 19. The plan is for Coleman to do early evening and late night sports Sunday thru Thursday, with Neal Jones handling those duties on Friday and Saturday and also doing more producing.
Coleman will also anchor a new half-hour sports show called "Off the Bench" that will debut Sunday (4/25) at 10:30 p.m. with extensive coverage of the NFL Draft. A native of Lawrence, KS., and a broadcast communications graduate at Southern Illinois University, Coleman has been the sports director at Cablevision's all-news station, News 12 Long Island the past six years. There have been several changes at KCTV after it brought in Bobby Totsch, 46, as its new VP & General Manager from KMOV in St. Louis in October 2009 (LINK). Totsch promptly canned the station's news director, chief investigative reporter and its investigative producer (LINK). He recently added a new sales manager. Morning anchor Chris Pisano was also given his walking papers (LINK). WHB's sports talk show host Kevin Kietzman was livid about Coleman being hired over veteran Frank Boal, who had been with WDAF-FOX 4 for 29 years until he took the station's buyout last June. "I cannot believe how the station (KCTV) did not hire Frank Boal," said Kietzman in late March when the Coleman announcement was made. "The people who are making decisions at 5 are not from here."
3/26/10 KIETZMAN IS RIGHT "Kevin is right, he (Coleman) has no business getting the gig at KCTV... He's simply not in the same league as any of the regulars on the air in KC right now. This hire really, really surprised me."
03-27-2010 TOO MANY CHEERLEADERS "No offense to Kevin Kietzman, but when I heard that Channel 5 hired a sports anchor that hasn't been in the area for six years or more, I was happy. One of the problems with this town is that we have too many cheerleaders who masquerade as journalists. "Too many people in the media who look at the Chiefs and Royals with rose-colored fan eyes. Carl Peterson and David Glass almost killed both of our respected franchises, but we still had fake journalists as of 2004 in TV, print and radio tell us that without Peterson, the Chiefs would revert back to what they were in the late 1970s and '80s if we got rid of him. "And even though the Royals have become the joke of MLB, some of the the fake journalists still portray Glass as the "White Knight" that saved the Royals from moving to Washington D.C., Charlotte, NC or Northern New Jersey. "Since Coleman has been in the New York area for six years, I hope he brings in the "We don't buy what your selling" attitude that the New York sports market is famous for. Maybe then we might have someone in this town holding David Glass accountable for his horrific action upon this team---instead of the annual "small market team" pity party."
29 YEARS IS ENOUGH...
"I can appreciate Kevin Kietzman's loyalty to Boal, who appears regularly on 810, but, for God's sake, isn't 29 years enough? I agree with the feedbacker who calls for some out-of-area fresh blood." ---- Jim
Copyright 2010 Bottom Line Communications. BLC is a Media News Web site that analyzes media and marketing issues. Please give credit or link to http://www.bottomlinecom.com when using any materials. Click on the FEEDBACK tab to send any media tips/comments/thoughts to us. We honor all off-the-record requests and will correct/clarify any information found not to be 100% accurate.
