As expected, Channel 6 has moved quickly to fill the morning co-anchor chair that will be vacated later this month by the departure of Mark Concannon.
The Fox affiliate has hired Shawn Patrick, a Chicago-area native who has been anchoring weekend mornings at KUSA-TV, the NBC station in Denver, Colo.
Concannon has announced that he's leaving Channel 6 after 23 years, with his last day scheduled for March 23.
News director Jim Lemon says Patrick will start, but probably won't join co-anchors Kim Murphy and Nicole Koglin until the week of April 5.
Lemon described Patrick as, "very comfortable, very relaxed ... very Midwest," and a good fit for the newscast that runs Monday through Friday from 4:30 to 9 a.m.
He paraphrases Patrick as saying, "I'm not a serious guy, but I take the news seriously."
There's no word yet on what Concannon plans to do after leaving Channel 6 later this month.
Here's a sample of Patrick's work in Denver:
Meanwhile, over on Channel 58, the new morning co-anchor is Asa George, who joins Shari Dunn.
George was most recently in Dayton, Ohio, where she worked at the ABC and Fox affiliates as an anchor. She was a victim of budget cuts at the Sinclair-owned sister stations.
She takes the spot vacated when Keith Meka moved to the 10 p.m. newscast.
Here's a look at George's work in her previous job:
On TV: Sunday's Canadian victory over the U.S. in Olympic hockey Sunday afternoon pulled in 27.6 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research, making it the biggest hockey game in 30 years. Milwaukee was the fifth highest-rated market among 55 metered markets, with 224,000 area homes, 43 percent of TV households watching TV at the time. Buffalo was first, followed by Detroit and Minneapolis. 9054
- Following the Olympic closing ceremony at 9:30 Sunday night, Jerry Seinfeld's painfully unfunny "Marriage Ref" managed to pull in 14.5 million viewers, according to Nielsen. I would not expect future episodes of the show, which features a panel of celebs ruling on other other folks' marriages, to get anywhere near that audience.
- Milwaukee isn't a stop on this spring's live tour of the cast of Fox's "Glee." But "Glee Live In Concert" has two nights at Chicago's Rosemont Theatre. Tickets will be available at Ticketmaster, with prices ranging from $39.50 to $89.50.
- The cast for the next round of ABC's "Dancing with the Stars" was announced this morning: "Bachelor" Jake Pavelka, Pamela Anderson, Niecy Nash of "Reno 911," Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger, Aiden Turner of "All My Children," moonwalker Buzz Aldrin, Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chad Ochocinco,
ESPN reporter Erin Andrews, "reality" TV star Kate Gosselin, Olympic skater Evan Lysacek, and Shannen Doherty. The show returns March 22. - RadarOnline.com reports that a planned "Brady Bunch" reunion on Wednesday's "Today" show has been canceled, thanks to an ongoing feud between Maureen (Marcia) McCormick and Eve (Jan) Plumb."
- And if you're interested in Monday night's season finale of ABC's "The Bachelor," he picked Vienna Girardi.
Back to the way it was: With Jay Leno back in the 10:35 p.m. slot on NBC, his late-night competitor was having fun at Leno's expense over on CBS, opening his show with the line "my name is Dave Letterman -- same time, same host."
Here's a bit of Jay's first monologue:
Tim Cuprisin is the media columnist for OnMilwaukee.com. He's been a journalist for 30 years, starting in 1979 as a police reporter at the old City News Bureau of Chicago, a legendary wire service that's the reputed source of the journalistic maxim "if your mother says she loves you, check it out." He spent a couple years in the mean streets of his native Chicago, and then moved on to the Green Bay Press-Gazette and USA Today, before coming to the Milwaukee Journal in 1986.
A general assignment reporter, Cuprisin traveled Eastern Europe on several projects, starting with a look at Poland after five years of martial law, and a tour of six countries in the region after the Berlin Wall opened and Communism fell. He spent six weeks traversing the lands of the former Yugoslavia in 1994, linking Milwaukee Serbs, Croats and Bosnians with their war-torn homeland.
In the fall of 1994, a lifetime of serious television viewing earned him a daily column in the Milwaukee Journal (and, later the Journal Sentinel) focusing on TV and radio. For 15 years, he has chronicled the changes rocking broadcasting, both nationally and in Milwaukee, an effort he continues at OnMilwaukee.com.
When he's not watching TV, Cuprisin enjoys tending to his vegetable garden in the backyard of his home in Whitefish Bay, cooking and traveling.
