Exclusive: Major Changes Brewing At Channel 10

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Jeff Derderian, GoLocalProv Media Critic

 

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Don’t breathe a word of this because no one is supposed to know – but GoLocal has learned that some significant changes are being discussed at TV news powerhouse WJAR-Channel 10.

Multiple sources are telling us that the changes revolve around three key players the station and could all be in place by September:

Frank Coletta
Frank Carpano
Barbara Morse Silva

Anchor Shake-Up

One person with intimate knowledge of the discussions says the plan as it stands now is for long-time sports anchor Frank Carpano to move to weekend’s and take over the news anchor duties on Channel 10 at 6pm and 11pm. We’re told these new duties would be in addition to the Patriots show and PC show Carpano hosts. Carpano has a long and good track record at the station. He started back in 1980 and has been the station’s main sports guy since 1984.

Carpano has big name recognition and credibility with the audience so the move should be positive for the station. For Carpano’s sake, I hope the station will add resources to assist with the weekend sports shows duties that Carpano will continue to head up since anchoring weekend news casts is a job all on its own. The reason is that on the weekends, the staff tends to be less experienced and there are just fewer people in general in the building. So Carpano’s experience to make decisions becomes key. What is not clear to us yet is how the weekday sports anchor duties will be split up.

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Moves Affect The Sunrise Show

The second part of this relates to Frank Coletta and Barbara Morse-Silva.

Coletta, who has been with the station since 1978 starting on the Assignment Desk, has been the news anchor of the highly rated Sunrise show since 1985. Coletta has managed to keep the early morning broadcast #1 year after year and certainly deserves credit for that, but now it appears he will have a co-anchor sitting next to him.

Our sources say the plan as of right now is that Barbara Morse Silva will join Coletta as co-anchor of the Sunrise show beginning in September. Morse Silva has been at the station since 1995 and is most widely known as the station’s health reporter but also does a generous amount of anchoring as well and is active with all sorts of charity and volunteer work to her credit. With no disrespect to Morse Silva, if these moves are put in place in the morning, there is a risk viewers might not take to a co-anchor team since viewers are accustomed to just seeking Coletta in the morning. However the station could be looking at audience research that shows the move to a male/female team is the right move.

In Response To WPRI?

The natural question here among TV insiders is that this move related to the Sunrise show is a direct result of gains Channel 12 is seeing in the morning. For the May ratings period—the station says it saw a 60% increase in key demographics for their morning show compared to May 2010. Channel 12 anchors Danielle North and Patrick Little (who used to be the main sports anchor) are a good pair and have made sizeable gains on Channel 10.

WPRI News Director, Joe Abouzeid, would not comment on any potential moves at other stations but he did tell GoLocal “we continue to be pleased with the real results of our morning show and we are committed to making even more gains and delivering the best news content for Southern New England morning news viewers”.

GoLocal checked in with WJAR News Director, Chris Lanni, who would not confirm the anchor shuffle and would only say “no changes are either imminent or confirmed."

So keep an eye to Channel 10 following the dog days of summer. More than the seasons are apparently changing when it comes to local TV news.


 

 

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