Wbal

Two anchors from WBAL-TV are leaving their jobs, part of a series of unrelated shifts at the top-rated Baltimore news station. Morning news anchor Marilyn Getas will be replaced by Mindy Basara, a reporter and weekend morning anchor who has been with WBAL-TV since 1998. Absent the opportunity to move into a more prominent anchor slot here, Getas said she would have preferred to stay in her current job. But she could not come to terms with the station on a new contract. Her final day is June 4, and she is pursuing other television news jobs.

Whether it's a Sunday night football game or the third Saturday in May at Pimlico, when NBC Sports floods the zone with members of its A-Team, the telecast is almost always a winner. That was again the case for the 138th Preakness Stakes -- thanks to airtight production, sure-handed direction and enough talent to cover three or four races. Sure, the NBC analysts were wrong in picking Kentucky Derby victor Orb (or, in the case of Michelle Beadle, Mylute) to win the Preakness. But did anyone on the planet have Oxbow?

Sade Baderinwa came into Edie House's life when she was 4. House remembers the little girl's navy blue and red dress with white piping, her saddle shoes and Afro. Sade couldn't pronounce House's name. She called her "Edick." Soon enough, though, the child would ask, "Edick, can I call you Mom?" Today, Baderinwa, a WBAL anchor, is on the threshold of a promising television career. Proudly watching from home is House, former WBAL anchor and public affairs manager. As a child, Baderinwa spent many hours with House in the television newsroom.

Radio host Ron Smith will be honored later this month with a posthumous induction into the Maryland DC Delaware Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame. The Maryland-District of Columbia-Delaware Broadcasters Association decided to present WBAL's longtime “Voice of Reason” with the tribute at their annual convention April 22 in Ellicott City. The organization called him “passionate,” “curious” and “a force on radio and television.” “Ron was thoughtful - never just accepting the word of a spokesperson or a headline,” the organization said in a release, adding that he “relentlessly pursued and sought to tell the truth.” Smith died in 2011 of pancreatic cancer, captivating listeners with his fight against the disease until just weeks before his death.

I CONSIDERED Big Little Joey Peske to be a gift from God. It seemed like he fell from the sky one autumn night in 1989 -- a comic comet who, for the next several years, made me and countless other Baltimoreans laugh. This was back when I moonlighted as host of a weeknight talk show on WBAL Radio. The first time Peske called the show and we spoke on the air, he played me like a cheap ukulele. "Danny," he said, in a voice that crossed Tom Waits with George Burns, "you made a big mistake on the answer to tonight's Baltimore trivia quiz."

A few years ago while working outside Washington, I was attempting to tune in an Orioles' afternoon game on my car radio. This was an FM frequency, the flagship station. Imagine my frustration at not being able to receive the broadcast, a mere 40 miles outside Baltimore. I was elated to hear the news yesterday that Orioles baseball broadcasts are coming back to WBAL-AM in Baltimore ( "Orioles headed back to WBAL after four seasons at 105.7 FM," Feb. 8). It's where the Os belong, having listened to hundreds of games from what will be the flagship station once again.

Shortly after the power went off in my home Friday I located my battery-operated transistor radio and tuned in WBAL to listen for emergency information about the storm. Much to my surprise and dismay, WBAL was broadcasting "the post game show from Camden Yards. " As a native Baltimorean and Oriole fan, I bleed as much orange as the next guy. But given the circumstances, I really needed to hear the storm coverage. I kept my radio tuned to WBAL, hoping to hear about the weather.

Local TV news ratings in Baltimore are rarely news. The market has been dominated for a long time by a back-and-forth battle between WJZ and WBAL. Since the mid-1990s, most years ended in some version of a split decision, with both stations claiming victory. It was all mind-numbingly predictable. Then, last week, came a set of Nielsen numbers for January showing WJZ (Channel 13) scoring a clean sweep over WBAL (Channel 11) - winning every competitive news time period. That defines dominance.

1977: Rudy Miller hired by WBAL to report on the weather.1978: Leaves to become an environmental reporter at KRON-TV in San Francisco.1980: Rejoins WBAL as an anchorwoman.August 1988: Begins negotiations with management for a contract to replace the three-year pact that expires at year's end.Dec. 31, 1988: Contract expires; she agrees to continue working on a month-to-month basis while negotiating a contract.June 26, 1989: Ms. Miller is told by the station to accept the terms of a new contract or be fired.

Channel 11 could have displayed the Maryland Lottery drawing in another fashion that didn't require shrinking Bruce Springsteen during the Super Bowl halftime, and the station's general manager says WBAL apologizes. ( For more, go to baltimoresun.com/mediumwell)

Winter skiing, springtime on the links, summer sailing and autumn leaf-peeping - the weather forecast is the driving force behind the planning of many vacations. But when it comes to predicting the weather, WBAL meteorologist Tony Pann takes it all in stride. Pann grew up in the blustery, changeable climate of Chicago, and has since delivered the weather report for television stations in New York and Washington, as well as Baltimore. "I've seen it all," he says good-naturedly.

Longtime WBAL newscaster Marianne Banister will join WBFF Fox45 as anchor of a weekend morning news program that will launch Jan.19. The station announced that another Baltimore veteran, meteorologist Tony Pagnotti, will also join that station's news team. "We recognize outstanding talent and wanted both Marianne and Tony on our staff," Mike Tomko, station news director, said in an email to The Sun. "Their professionalism and long history in the market made for a perfect match here at Fox45.

The money, politics and passions surrounding Question 6, the ballot referendum on Maryland's same-sex marriage law, are big, hardcore and hot. Just the kind of story that can go beyond the promotional slogans and be used to measure a local TV station's real commitment to news and public affairs. The relationship between advertising money coming in and news coverage going out offers a snapshot of what a station does with its resources -- and, perhaps, how much or how little it cares about balanced coverage and civic life.

After playing a national TV game that seemed like it wouldn't end Sunday night, the Ravens have a very quick turnaround for Thursday night's prime-time game against the Cleveland Browns. The game will be shown nationally on the NFL Network with Brad Nessler on play-by-play, Mike Mayok handling analysis and Alex Flanagan the sideline reporter. The game will also be shown locally on WBAL Ch. 11. Kickoff is scheduled for 8:20 p.m., which means it will likely start closer to 8:35 or so. For the Ravens, it's their second prime-time game in five days, having beaten the New England Patriots 31-30 Sunday night . Ed Reed says the NFL is being greedy by scheduling Thursday night games.

Bryan Nehman, co-host of the "Brian and Bryan Show" on Washington's WMAL radio, has been hired by Baltimore's WBAL to replace Dave Durian during morning drive time. Nehman previously anchored morning news on the politically conservative talk and news station in the nation's capital from 2001 to 2011. He's been at the station 12 years. He started as a street reporter, and "was put in the news anchor chair right after 9/11," Nehman said Thursday. "Bryan is one of the brightest young men that I've met, and he is the guy who's going to lead WBAL into the next 20 years of broadcasting," Dave Hill, program director at the station said.

"Monday Night Football" will open its 43rd season at M&T Bank Stadium with several new wrinkles. There will be a two-man instead of three-man booth with Mike Tirico doing play-by-play and Jon Gruden on analysis. One of the biggest changes will be on the sidelines where Lisa Salters will debut as the new sideline reporter for the storied franchise. Salters, a Penn State graduate, talked about her new job, her goals in that role, her hard-news values and the way she was socialized to journalism at Baltimore's WBAL-TV and ABC News in the Peter Jennings era. Q. Sideline reporter for Monday Night Football is one of the highest visibility jobs in the business.

WBAL Radio's sports talk host, Steve Davis, was laid off yesterday, vice president and station manager Jeff Beauchamp said. "We've done some realigning because of the economy," Beauchamp said. "... This was an economic move" unrelated to Davis' performance. ( For more, go to baltimoresun.com/mediumwell)

WBAL-AM (1090) went off the air for 32 minutes beginning at 7:15 a.m. yesterday because of a rare malfunction in the 50,000-watt station's transmitter.The top-rated area station in the 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. morning drive-time period, WBAL gave away $100 to 22 different listeners when it returned to the air at 7:47 a.m. Vice president/station manager Jeff Beau champ said the impromptu giveaway was a token expression of gratitude for listeners' loyalty. The station "got bombarded with phone calls" during the blackout, he said.

The complaints about NBC not showing marquee events like swimming have not abated, but the network is claiming another night of record viewing Sunday night, based on preliminary overnights. Meanwhile WBAL, the network's Baltimore affiliate, is boasting of its Friday night audience for the opening ceremonies. The Hearst-owned station has been treating tape-delayed events as "spoilers," reporting on them only as a graphic flashed on the screen during the sports portion of its early evening newscasts -- and warning viewers to look away if they don't want to know.

If viewers to WBAL's 6 p.m. news were confused, they had the right to be. Outside of a graphic that appeared onscreen during the sports portion of the news, the only mention of Michael Phelps' failure to win a medal in his first event Saturday came in a graphic shown onscreen during Gerry Sandusky's sports portion of the show. And Sandusky warned viewers to look away before the news of Phelps' fourth-place finish was shown on the screen if they didn't want to know. Sandusky never verbally reported the results, according to WBAL General Manager Dan Joerres.