Oregon Media Insiders

As Byron Beck at WWire says, who knew? I always liked that show, and I always forget it's on. Now I'm going to have to watch it!

This popped up in the comments and I've confirmed it.

Granted, I don't know much about engineering no TV stations, but does this seem weird to you? New Vision, the owner of KOIN and a bunch of other stations, has fired all its individual station Chief Engineers. That means that veteran KOIN CE Lee Wood is out of a job as of last Friday. From the memo from GM Chris Sehring:

The Chief Engineer’s former duties will be re-assigned to New Vision Television’s new Corporate Chief Engineer. The Corporate Chief Engineer, whose name will be announced shortly, will work closely with all New Vision TV stations but plans to operate out of our KOIN/ Portland location.

All of us at KOIN appreciate Lee’s many efforts on behalf of our station. We thank him for his hard work and wish him well in his future endeavors.

Wood was at KOIN for a long, long time--can someone chime in with just how long? And is this as boneheaded as it seems, or is it an outside-the-box new management initiative keeping pace with the ever-changing relational paradigms blah blah blah where's the cover of that TPS report?

Anyone see Good Morning Northwest today? I didn't know Astoria was a cruise destination. Wow! Good story. I think I will go check Astoria out. It seems like a happening town, instead of the "sleepy" town it once was.

KOIN.COM moved to Inergize overnight, and what a different look. Check it out.

So now that KOIN has a new news director, a new owner and a mandate for improved ratings and revenues - what's changed? The station is currently in fourth place with the only bright spot being the ratings at 11p which come courtesy of a big dose of help from CBS prime time. The demos may be a bit more favorable to KOIN but the overall lack of consistency, promotion, content and aggressiveness have taken a toll on the station's fortunes.

I'm posting this separately because I didn't want to update two already really long posts by others, written from very definite, diverging points of view. I don't know Lynn Huston, I only know what I saw on the air. And that poor guy--I haven't seen such a bad hire in so prominent a position in this market in a while, and it wasn't his fault. He should never have been considered for this market. It was a complete mismatch, not because he was horrible or incompetent, but because his style was too far off from Portland's, for good or ill. Rather like seeing someone in a tuxedo show up at a barbecue by accident.

I was able to confirm that Huston was let go on Friday, though it's a toss-up whether he jumped or was pushed. I think from what I'm hearing it was a little of both.

What I haven't been able to confirm is the desk part of the story--whether the mistake about the First Lady's plane was his or the desk's (were any of the other stations out there that morning? I am so not a morning TV watcher). If the desk sent him out to PDX...well, I would ask what the hell is going on over there, but we already know what the hell is going on over there, or has gone on over there.

If it was the desk, I wouldn't blame Huston for going ballistic. Either way, how humiliating, and what a way to end your stay in a market.

Lynn Huston has a spine, KOIN doesn't. That's why he left. Which is why the controlling and the closed clique at KOIN hated him. He was not about to take any garbage from these people. And he did not want to hang out with them. And he didn't need to be accepted by these people. And could care less what they thought of him. And that was clear to everyone. His very being represented a threat to them from the moment he walked in the door and THAT is the real reason why he didn't fit it (at least to the clique). Good for him!

The First Lady's visit to Portland will not be a pleasant memory for KOIN reporter Lynn Huston. It seems during his Thursday morning live shot he apparently made some mention, on the air, that the President's brother Jed Bush had a daughter in treatment for a drug addiction. Meanwhile at the PCPA, Jeff Gianola was patiently waiting (at 6am) for the First Lady and his one on one interview.

Two days on the job and new KOIN ND Lynn Heider makes her first big public move: She's severed the longstanding videosharing agreement with KPTV.

My source tells me this has already made a huge positive difference in KOIN newsroom morale, where people were getting tired of seeing their video show up first on KPTV. I'm paraphrasing, because I don't have the memo, but apparently Heider says she's not declaring war; she just wants to declare victory when they get the video first.

This does not affect the copter-sharing agreement, according to my source.

Well, there hasn't been an open thread made for this weekend yet so I'll make one.

I just noticed that New Vision is hiring a Webmaster. I don't know if it would be for KOIN or all their stations in general. So, maybe a new/updated site for KOIN coming soon.

KPTV/Internet Broadcasting is also hiring a web news editor.

Talk away...!

[Thanks for doing this. One of my oldest and dearest friends is very ill, and I'm not taking it well.--L]