My first thought when I saw these old, vintage news promo on my Facebook feed was that my dad would have liked them. These are promos from WTAE, Hearst’s ABC affiliate in Pittsburgh, and feature the team of Paul Long, Joe DeNardo, Don Cannon and Ed Conway. When I saw Joe Rovito’s name in the […]
My first thought when I saw these old, vintage news promo on my Facebook feed was that my dad would have liked them.
These are promos from WTAE, Hearst’s ABC affiliate in Pittsburgh, and feature the team of Paul Long, Joe DeNardo, Don Cannon and Ed Conway.
When I saw Joe Rovito’s name in the closing credits, I called him to get some info about these spots.
Rovito is president of Clemensen & Rovitto, a broadcast research consulting company and was WTAE’s news director for almost 14 years through the 1980s and ’90s.
Rovito says at the time these promos were produced, which he estimates was in the early ’70s, he was working at WTAE as an assistant producer while attending school.
“They needed a name to font on the screen to make it appear like the actual closing credits,” said Rovito.
Fred Young, whose name also appears in the credits, was the station’s assistant news director at the time. Young retired from Hearst where he was the Senior VP of News.
Rovito said the promos were a big hit with viewers in Pittsburgh at the time.
“Research verbatims stated over and over that they enjoyed the fact that they liked one another, and probably had dinner together,” said Rovito.
He says WTAE hired both Paul Long and Joe DeNardo from the competition where they were doing the Sunday night news.
Ultimately, according to Rovito, WTAE was able to overtake the leading news operation in the market, and he attributes the chemistry between this all-male anchor team as one of the reasons.
There are a lot of factors that may influence a viewer to watch one newscast over the other.
Sometimes, then as now, it just might come down to the personality of the anchors and the relationship they have with each other both on and off the air.
Got any old, vintage promos you want to share? Contact me at 817-578-6324 or [email protected].
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