Channel Surfing
by Laura Nachman
Bucks County Courier Times
April 29, 2003

       As we are in the first week of May sweeps, the big question is whether Tim Lake will be able to maintain the same ratings as Larry Mendte for WCAU at 11 p.m.  In the February sweeps, WPVI beat WCAU by a small margin.  One name being mentioned for Mendte's job is MSNBC anchor Rick Sanchez.  Since WCAU is doing an open casting call for a traffic reporter, how about an open casting call for the news anchor slot?  Also, Mendte has been pulled from his Sunday morning show "Live @ Issue."  On a lighter note, if Mendte ends up at KYW as many believe, he may have to start going to Phillies games with KYW weather anchor Kathy Orr, instead of Glenn "Hurricane" Schwartz, with whom Mendte has a weekend season ticket plan.
        It will be interesting to see how KYW performs in its second sweeps period with Marc Howard and Kathy Orr.  Despite all the maneuvering between 3 and 10, expect front-runner 6 to come out on top as usual.  Something else to watch for will be if WTXF, which is now calling itself Fox-29 instead of Fox-Philadelphia, can get an eight rating again like in February.  "American Idol" continues to be the number one show, so WTXF should do well at 10 p.m.  In case you were wondering, WHYY is the only local station that hasn't branded itself with its network (those stuffy PBS people).  We now have CBS-3, 6-ABC, NBC10, WB17, UPN57, and Fox-29.
       According to a source at WPVI, it is looking like 5 p.m. weekday news anchor Lisa Thomas Laury probably won't return to work until the summer.  Thomas-Laury has been on medical leave since the fall for a nerve disorder in her feet.
       Metro Traffic's Bob Kelly will soon become the first television traffic reporter to do reports from the television studio, as he'll get to hang with the crew on KYW at Fifth and Market.  The other Metro Traffic reporters, John Valerio of WPVI and Dorothy Krysiuk of WTXF do their reports from the Metro Traffic studio in Bala Cynwyd, PA.
       "Jeopardy" will be in Philadelphia in May looking for kids between 10-12 and adult contestants.  Go to www.wpvi.com to register.
       Kevin Walsh, who will anchor the new 1 p.m. newscast on CN8 was a year ahead of WPHL reporter Tina Kim at Abington High School.
       Philadelphia city councilman Frank Rizzo Jr. is expected to do a Saturday talk show on WPEN 950-AM.  His father, former mayor Frank Rizzo did a show on the old WCAU 1210-AM in the 80's.