Berlamino Tapped For CBS’s Duop NY Station

Having closed on its $55-million purchase of WLNY New York, CBS Television Stations today named veteran broadcaster Betty Ellen Berlamino to run the independent as station manager and announced plans for three hours of news each weekday starting this summer — a two-hour morning show at 7 a.m. and a one-hour 9 p.m. newscast.

CBS also announced that, effective immediately, the station would air its programming in high definition.

The pairing of WLNY with flagship WCBS gives CBS Television Stations a duopoly in the nation’s largest media market. The CBS group, which operates 29 stations, has duopolies in nine other markets.

CBS announced last December that it had agreed to buy the WNLY from Michael Pascucci, of North Palm Beach, Fla., and family.

Licensed to Melville, N.Y., about 30 miles east of the Empire State Building on Long Island, WLNY currently broadcasts a mix of first-run and off-net syndicated programming, including Dr. Phil at 6 p.m., The Ellen DeGeneres Show at 7 p.m. and back-to-back episodes of Law & Order: Criminal Intent and Judge Judy in primetime.

Berlamino has been SVP and director of sales for the CBS stations since June 2011. Prior to that, she spent 17 years with Tribune’s CW affiliate WPIX New York, including nearly 10 years as general manager.

The 9 p.m. newscast will feature WCBS anchors Chris Wragge and Dana Tyler, weathercaster Lonnie Quinn and sports anchor Otis Livingston as well as WLNY’s Richard Rose, who will report nightly from the WLNY news bureau on Long Island.

The on-air team for the station’s morning show will be announced later, CBS said.

In addition to his role on the 9 p.m. newscasts, Rose will host a weekly Sunday morning public affairs show that will begin airing in a few weeks.

“We are excited to welcome WLNY to the CBS Television Stations family and very pleased to place day-to-day responsibility for managing the station in the hands of Betty Ellen, who is one of the most experienced and respected local television executives in the New York market,” said CBS Television Stations President Peter Dunn.

“We are committed to elevating WLNY’s stature in the tri-state area by investing in additional people and resources for the station and look forward to having Betty Ellen play a leading role in making sure that we meet and exceed our goals,” he said.

Anton Guitano, COO, CBS Local Media, noted that CBS now has more than a TV duopoly going for it in New York. “We look forward to utilizing the promotional platforms provided by our CBS Radio stations and CBS Local Digital Media and continuing to work with our partners at CBS Outdoor and CBS Television Distribution, which already provides many of [WCBS’s] and WLNY’s most popular shows, to support the growth of both stations.”

WLNY is widely distributed by cable and satellite and other multichannel  providers in the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut tri-state area. The station appears as either ch. 10 or ch. 55 on most channel lineups and ch. 55 as an over-the-air service.