Florida News Center

(from PalmBeachPost.com) – Paul Cavenaugh, a popular broadcaster who spent decades warning motorists of impeding traffic snarls, has won an undisclosed amount of money from the firm that owned a helicopter that crashed in 2008, leaving him in constant back pain.

“Mr. Cavenaugh is satisfied with the results and glad to put it behind him,” attorney William Williams said Tuesday of the confidential settlement that was hashed out a week before the negligence lawsuit was to go to trial.

Cavenaugh, whose real name is Kasprzyk, was about eight minutes into his weekday above-the-highways broadcast on Nov. 11, 2008, when the engine of the helicopter sputtered and it began spinning to the ground.

Williams credited the skill of pilot Takayuki Tanaka for avoiding power lines and landing the chopper on grass in an industrial park just west of Interstate 95 in Boynton Beach. The tail broke off and the fuel tank ruptured on impact….Cont….

The FL connection: Freedom Communications owns West Palm Beach’s WPEC. Read on below…

(from OCRegister.com) - Freedom Communications Inc. in Irvine has no plans to sell the company, break it up or make major cutbacks after emerging from bankruptcy but expects instead to grow through acquisitions, executives told employees in two town hall meetings today.

“Let me be very clear: the company is not for sale,” said Mark McEachen, chief operating officer and chief financial officer of Freedom, owner of The Orange County Register.  “We’re not going to break up the company. We’re not going to have mass layoffs.”

The Web-streamed town halls with all the company’s properties were the first opportunity for Freedom officials to talk with employees since the company exited bankruptcy April 30.

McEachen said employees should take the investment by hedge funds, which now control a majority of the company’s shares, as a positive sign….Cont….

Our friends at SFLTV.com published a fantastic article today on the history of West Palm Beach’s WPEC….

On January 1, 1955, WEAT-TV signed on at Channel 12 (after a struggle to obtain that frequency) from their brand new studios in West Palm Beach, Florida as South Florida’s ABC affiliate (WPLG had not yet signed on).

Read the full article here…

Our friends at NewsBlues.com report that West Palm Beach’s WPTV and WPEC have brought on some new staff. WPTV has hired Thalia Hayden as a mutli-media journalist. Hayden comes from Rochester, NY’s WHEC NBC 10. WPEC has hired Craig Gold as their new weekend meteorologist. Gold comes from Topeka, KS’s KTKA ABC 49.  Gold has previously worked in Tallahassee and Panama City.

(edited from WSJ.com) -?Freedom Communications Inc., the owner of the Orange County Register, is expected to declare bankruptcy this week, according to people familiar with the situation, the latest in a string of Chapter 11 filings in the battered newspaper business. The company, majority owned for more than 70 years by the Hoiles family, has reached agreements with its lenders to restructure its debts, according to these people. With annual revenue of about $700 million, Freedom owns the Register and more than 30 other daily papers and eight TV stations, including West Palm Beach’s WPEC….Cont…..