Musical Anchor Chairs

KSTP TV shuffles their anchors yet again.

In a dramatic newsroom upheaval, anchor team Kent Ninomiya and Harris Faulkner left KSTP, Channel 5, Thursday night, and were replaced by the newly hired Cyndy Brucato.

It's a good thing they mentioned "Channel 5" - I'd nearly forgotten where KSTP was on the dial.

The big question isn't so much "Why did they do it". The Five's numbers have been horrible, and getting much, much worse. Their ad campaign - capped by the "No Dancing Bears" spots featuring Lou Grant Ed Asner - can't have helped much.

No. The real news is the return of Cyndy "The Barracuda" Brucato.

Brucato was rehired after an 18-year absence from KSTP to help the struggling 6 p.m. newscast and made her first appearance at that time on Thursday night...Brucato then appeared on the news again at 10 p.m. as the solo anchor, and Hubbard said she would continue to anchor both newscasts. He declined to say who would be anchoring the 5 p.m. news.

Brucato was not, shall we say, ratings dynamite in her first tour at the Five.

What are these people thinking?

PERSONAL UPDATE: When I was working for Hubbard Broadcasting, they were famous for firing people. Forget 401Ks - we used to "joke" "Don't pack a lunch - you probably won't need one". Turnover among lower echelons at all Hubbard properties was pretty amazing.

And even in that context, after Cyndy Brucato was fired the first time (in early '86), being "Brucatoed" was a Hubbard employee slang term for a particularly abrupt, suspicious termination.

Ironic then that Faulkner and Ninomiya achieved the bifecta of irony; being Brucatoed, and being replaced by Brucato herself.

I give her a year, by the way. Then, she gets "Faulknored".

Posted by Mitch at July 9, 2004 10:41 AM | TrackBack