WGRZ-TV (Channel 2) has hired Julianne Pelusi’s replacement on its sports team.
Jonathan Acosta has worked for almost two years at a CBS affiliate station, KFSM-TV in Fayetteville, Ark., that has the same owner as Channel 2, Tegna. He will start here Aug. 7.
“Can’t wait to get up to Western New York,” tweeted Acosta. “Any wing recommendations send them my way.”
Thankfully, he didn’t follow two of the recent sports hires at the station who announced their coming here by inappropriately wearing Bills shirts.
Former sports anchor-reporter Ashley Holder and recent hire Lindsey Moppert both announced their hiring on social networks by Channel 2 by wearing Bills shirts.
Acosta's Arkansas station biography illustrates how difficult wearing a Bills jersey might have been for him since it notes he was born in Rhode Island “and is an avid New England sports fan, especially the Patriots.”
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The biography also noted he grew up in Tampa and graduated from the University of Florida in 2015. He worked in Eugene, Ore., for two years and covered the Oregon Ducks and Oregon State Beavers.
Acosta joins a Channel 2 sports staff that includes sports director Adam Benigni and Moppert.
It is the first time in a few years that Channel 2’s sports staff will have two out of three members who are males. The last three sports hires have been Holder, Pelusi and Moppert.
Since Pelusi left in late May and Channel 2’s sports staff has been down to two members, it has used news reporter Andy Paden and meteorologist Carl Lam to fill in. Lam did a nice job over the weekend.
It’s official. Ali Touhey began her new role as permanent co-anchor of WIVB-TV’s (Channel 4) morning program “Wake Up!” on Monday. It wasn’t a surprise. On June 30, it was reported here that Touhey, who has been doing the job since Abby Fridmann left to work in Rochester, was expected to get the job permanently alongside Chris Horvatits.
Touhey, who previously worked at WKBW-TV (Channel 7) and has been in the market for seven years, started at Channel 4 earlier this year as the weekend morning anchor.
“Wake Up!” has had several anchor changes over the years. Touhey replaced Fridmann, who replaced Kelsey Anderson, who replaced Mel Orlins, who replaced Brittni Smallwood, who replaced Teresa Weakley, who replaced Diana Fairbanks.
That sentence illustrates one of the significant problems with “Wake Up”: Its revolving door of female co-anchors on its morning program when audiences in that time period appreciate stability.
“Daybreak” (Channel 2) co-anchor Melissa Holmes has been in that role for more than a decade on the area’s first-place morning program and only has worked alongside two male co-anchors, Pete Gallivan and John Beard.
Ratings Time: The National League’s 3-2 victory over the American League in last Tuesday’s Major League Baseball All-Star Game had a record-low 2.6 Nielsen rating on WUTV, the local Fox affiliate. That was down from the previous record low of 3.4 in 2022. Tuesday's game also reportedly had a record low 3.9 national rating.
It was beaten here by NBC’s reality series “America’s Got Talent” with a 5.0 rating on Channel 2 and a repeat episode of the CBS drama “FBI,” which had a 2.8 rating at 8 p.m.
The ESPYs last Wednesday averaged a 2.3 live rating on ABC affiliate Channel 7. It has aired several times since then on ESPN.
The highlight came when Bills safety Damar Hamlin presented the Pat Tillman Award for Service to the training staff of the Bills. The brief highlights shown on several network news programs didn’t do justice to the full segment.
In a four-minute poignant segment narrated by Hamlin, the Bills safety explained how he got to better know the training staff that saved his life when he was stricken in Cincinnati during a "Monday Night Football" game.
Hamlin concluded his narration by saying, “anybody can be a hero, these are mine” before announcing the award and the training staff coming out to embrace him.
If you only saw the 30-60 seconds highlights, I suggest you go online to find the entire segment of almost 10 minutes devoted to Hamlin and the training staff. You should have some tissues nearby.
The local rating for the ESPYs received a slight ratings bump to 2.5 during the Hamlin segment.
Many prime programs now get Nielsen ratings in the ones and twos so the ratings for the two sports programs really aren’t that bad in comparison. And those shows typically have strong male demographics, which can be harder for network programs to get.
