Florida News Center

(from TVSpy.com) - Julie Durda (right #1), who signed off in September from Miami’s WSVN, is joining rival WPLG.

Bill Pohovey, the news director of the Miami ABC affiliate, announced the news in an email to WPLG staffers Tuesday morning.

In his note, Pohovey also said Michael Smith (right#2), who is the weekend evening meteorologist, will be leaving the station.

“We want to thank Michael for his dedication and wish him continued success,” Pohovey wrote….Cont….

//hattip to SFLTV.com

(from Sun-Sentinel.com) - Ed Ansin likes to keep things cutting edge when it comes to running his television station.

WSVN-TV Channel 7 recently completed an $8 million conversion to high-definition – this from a man who has yet to put a computer in his office.

But over the past 50 years, Ansin has always managed to forge a unique path for himself and his station.

Whether he was reinventing the way local news is done or standing up to industry titans as recently as his 2012 row over DirecTV fees, the 76-year-old has found continued success in a swiftly evolving industry and earned labels such as “fiesty” and “renegade” in the process….Cont….

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(from GossipExtra.com) – A house owned by WSVN-Channel 7 star anchorwoman Belkys Nerey is about to be sold on the proverbial courthouse steps!

The waifish personality of the Fox affiliate has been struggling for more than two years with mortgage holder GMAC over a property she owns with a former life partner Yvette Rosado.

The Wynwood house owned by Belkys Nerey and an ex-partner ordered sold in foreclosure (Courtesy MLS)

But a Miami-Dade County judge last month ordered that the duo’s six-bedroom house on NE 27th Street in the hip Wynwood section of downtown Miami be auctioned off March 15….Cont….

(from SFLTV.com) – Tipsters SFLTV that WSVN management minutes ago announced to staffers Vivian Gonzalez is officially named the new weekday morning meteorologist for ‘Today in Florida’. She replaces Julie Durda who left in October after 5 years at WSVN.

A Miami native and a graduate of Florida International University, Vivian Gonzalez started at WSVN in 2005 behind the scenes as a weather producer for Phil Ferro and WSVN weather segments….Cont….

(from MediaLife.com) – As one of the largest cities in the swing state of Florida, Miami is seeing a huge amount of political advertising. It is sold out on TV and radio ahead of the Nov. 6 election.

Even after the election the market will remain strong throughout the remainder of 2012 and into next year as advertisers who have been shut out of the cluttered and expensive political landscape return to the market

“This amount of political has caused many advertisers to look at inventory post-election, so demand will continue to be strong afterwards as well,” says Caitlin Zellmann, broadcast buyer at Haworth Marketing + Media…..Cont….

(from WSVN.com) – Police are searching for a crook who is taking advantage of women while they fuel up at gas stations.

“I feel very violated that someone could open my door and take my purse while my baby was sleeping in the back,” said a mother who was victimized and preferred anonymity. She happens to be the wife of WSVN 7News reporter Rosh Lowe.

The brazenness of the crook is fueling concerns of police because, they said, he is targeting women at one particular South Florida gas station, located at 1550 Ives Dairy Rd. The most recent incident happened this past Sunday at around 2:15 p.m. and involved Lowe’s wife. Just an hour earlier, Miami-Dade Police noted, a similar crime occurred at 103rd Street in Northwest Miami-Dade….Cont….

(from GossipExtra.com) – WSNV-Channel 7 morning meteorologist Julie Durda shocked her co-workers Friday by announcing she’d be leaving the station in December!

Newlywed Durda, a former San Francisco 49ers cheerleader who got thousands of men to give a hoot about the weather, was part of the station’s top-rated area morning show for four years!

She did not comment.

But a terse email sent to newsroom staffers says Durda will be “looking for other opportunities” while her “hard work, dedication and positive attitude will be missed….Cont….

(from MiamiHerald.com) – Enrique “Henry’’ Cardenas spent 28 years behind a camera for WSVN-7 — and most of his spare time feeding stray cats.

He carted around huge bags of cat food in “Unit 22’’ — his station-issued, white Ford Crown Victoria — and colleagues knew that between assignments, they could find him doling out kibble to feral felines at Pelican Harbor Park, close to WSVN studios on the 79th Street Causeway.

Cardenas, a Cuban exile, mentored a generation of young colleagues, many of whom posted poignant remembrances on his Facebook page after Cardenas died Tuesday at 71, at his home in North Miami Beach….Cont….

(from TVSpy.com) – When WSVN reporter Kevin Ozebek went to cover the Miami Heat championship parade, he definitely didn’t expect to become part of a viral video from the most awkward man in the world….Cont….

(from MiamiHerald.com) – The biggest change in the TV weathercasting business wrought by Hurricane Andrew when it roared across South Florida 20 years ago this summer? That’s easy to answer, laughs WSVN-Fox 7 meteorologist Phil Ferro: that a newspaper reporter would be calling him up to ask such a question.

“Before Andrew, meteorologists were mostly behind the scenes,” he says. “Now we are definitely right there on page one. If there’s even a little burp in the tropics, we’re up there leading the newscast.”

With another hurricane season about to start, TV meteorologists and their crews are gearing up, devising new graphics, stockpiling historical information, and — their greatest and most eternal challenge — trying to hone in on the fine line between warning their viewers and panicking them….Cont….