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CBS3 cuts its anchors loose in shakeup

The scope and speed of the changes astonished insiders. One warned there could be a backlash.

CBS3 will rotate morning news anchor Ukee Washington into its nighttime newscasts in a sweeping reorganization of on-air talent, the ratings-challenged TV station confirmed Wednesday.

Washington, who will start in the new role July 13, will be joined by Jessica Dean, who is currently a co-anchor. Kate Bilo will do the weather.

CBS3 disclosed the new team a day after the station's general manager, Brien Kennedy, fired three of his top TV news personalities: nighttime anchor Chris May, meteorologist Kathy Orr, and sports anchor Beasley Reece.

Meteorologist Carol Erickson also left the station this week. CBS3 said that it had offered Erickson a contract extension, and that she turned it down to focus on animal-rights advocacy.

CBS3's group firing of May, Orr and Reece on Tuesday appears unprecedented in recent times for a Philadelphia TV station, and occurred only hours before the anchors were to appear on camera.

TV insiders are typically loath to publicly discuss dealings within and between stations in a market because they don't want to jeopardize future employment.

On Wednesday, some industry observers said the firings could backfire if CBS3 viewers think the anchors were treated unfairly or were being used as scapegoats for poor management.

"None of them saw this coming," a source inside CBS3 said Wednesday of the firings.

May had "some time left" on his contract, the source said. The status of the contracts for Orr and Reece was not known.

Kennedy, formerly general manager and vice president of WCCO-TV in Minneapolis-St. Paul, came to CBS3 in April with a mandate to boost news ratings.

Longtime vice president and news director Susan Schiller, who had been at the station for 14 years, announced her departure in May, along with sales director Robert Fein.

Kennedy could have fired the anchors to show that he will not move incrementally to improve CBS3's entrenched No. 3 position, observers said Wednesday. CBS3 spokeswoman Joanne Calabria said Kennedy was not available for comment.

The station's nighttime newscasts substantially trail market-leader 6ABC and seem likely to fall further behind No. 2-rated NBC10, which is owned by Comcast Corp. through NBCUniversal.

NBCUniversal has been investing in its local news stations to boost ratings and news coverage.

"What you see," said a veteran broadcast-news manager in Philadelphia who asked not to be identified, "is this gunfight between 6ABC and NBC10, and CBS3 is left in the dust."

Nor has CBS3 capitalized in recent years on the network's powerhouse slate of prime-time shows, which ought to have propelled viewers into the local Philadelphia newscasts.

Typically, on-air personalities get a sign that their time is up at a station by losing high-profile slots and being reassigned to diminished roles - say, as a reporter or a morning anchor. That option did not seem available to Orr, May and Reece.

A hallmark of 6ABC, observers also noted, has been its consistent anchor teams. Even when NBC10 revamped its on-air talent, it did so methodically and not all at once.

Said an industry insider: "Don't these stations ever learn? The reason [6ABC] is so successful is they don't do this. I'm not sure [CBS3] can recover from this; people remember this stuff."

Local observers said parent company CBS Corp. has not seemed to invest as much in its owned-and-operated Philadelphia station as it has in other cities.

Washington, who was raised in West Philadelphia and attended high school in Delaware, joined CBS3 as a sports anchor in July 1986. He is a cousin of actor Denzel Washington.

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