WTSP Tampa

The Poynter Institute and Google News Initiative are teaming up to help three local newsrooms reach new, young audiences through engaging, shareable social video storytelling. The yearlong program, VidSpark, will […]

She joins Tegna’s Tampa CBS affiliate from WBNS Columbus, Ohio, where she has been director of news and digital content.

Theresa Collington, the former digital director for WTSP, the CBS affiliate in Tampa, Fla., is suing the station and its parent company, Tegna, for sex discrimination. Her complaint alleges Tegna discriminated against her in her compensation and when she was ultimately terminated for violations of the company’s social media policy that male employees violated regularly with impunity.

Tegna’s Tampa, Fla., CBS affiliate debuted a new look Tuesday morning, complete with new on-air personalities, a redesigned set and even a new 10News logo. The new 10News Brightside is part of what the station’s managers are calling a top-to-bottom revamp of its newscasts.

The former Univision and Telemundo executive is the new GM of Tegna’s CBS affiliate in Miami.

The state Senate campaign of Democrat Bob Buesing has sent letters to four Tampa TV stations demanding that they quit running a Republican Party ad attacking him, calling it “false, misleading and deceptive.”

Elliott Wiser is leaving his position as general manager of Tegna’s CBS affiliate in St. Petersburg, Fla. Wiser, 60, announced his departure in a Facebook post late Thursday.

Since October 2014, six anchors across the market have left TV news behind. Between them, they represent more than 140 years on the air in Tampa Bay. They include longtime personalities like Wilson, Gayle Sierens, Denise White and Brendan McLaughlin, who left WFTS earlier this month. Each had been in the Tampa market more than two decades.

In the years since people in the news industry first began talking about “convergence” and the melding of traditional print and video forms online, plenty of newspapers have created video operations. And there are examples of TV stations making big digital investments. Still, there are limits to convergence: You don’t see many local stations turning out longform narratives, for example. That’s what makes a recent year-long investigation by Noah Pransky of Tegna’s WTSP Tampa about the influence a private PR consultant wields in local politics, so unusual.

KPNX Phoenix; WFTS Tampa, Fla.; WLTX Columbia, S.C.; and WTSP Tampa, Fla., as well as WNET New York will be honored at the June 20, 2015, ceremony honoring “accurate and fair reporting about important issues that are powerfully told.”

According to WTSP GM Elliott Wiser, the local news sharing agreement that Tampa, Fla., stations WTSP, WFTS and WTVT have participated in since 2009, “had expired back in 2012.” Since the expiration of the LNS, all three continued to participate in the sharing of video/resources, ad hoc until this past month. Wiser said that the current LNS situation was “just not working” for his station.

The former Bright House Networks executive will succeed the retiring Ken Tonning as head of Gannett’s CBS affiliate.

The head of Gannett’s Tampa CBS affiliate announces he’s leaving the business on July 5, capping a tenure that has seen the station return to its old “10 News” brand while pushing the edge of traditional journalism values.

WFLA, WFTS, WTSP and WTVT began planning a year ago to make sure they would be ready when the Republican National Convention gets underway from Aug. 27 to 30. The preparation includes figuring out how to deal with the heavy security that encases political conventions and devising contingencies plans in case that security is breached or if other emergencies arise. Nobody is saying exactly what the extra effort is costing, although one station said its budget is running “north of six figures.”

The debate over proposed budget cuts to the University of South Florida is one of the regions’s biggest stories. Gannett’s CBS affiliate has been especially, um, forceful in its coverage, deliberately blurring the line dividing reporting from advocacy and station executives are proud of the position their station has taken.

Growing morning commutes and earlier newscasts have given traffic reporting a new importance, not only on-air. And as traffic information from alternative sources grows, TV stations are working to remain the top destination for traffic news. They are developing new ways of tracking traffic in real time and are also delivering the information to commuters through email, social media and mobile devices. This is the third of four articles that will appear this week and that collectively constitute a TVNewsCheck Special Report on Traffic Reporting.

The Gannett CBS affiliate will extend its morning newscast a half hour. The new broadcast follows rival WTVT’s debut of a 9 a.m. newscast some time ago.