Station Break

The story of Andrew Cuomo's withdrawal from the race for his dad's old job as governor of New York was broken via crawl at the bottom of WPIX(TV) New York's airing of Maury Tuesday morning.

Veteran reporter Marvin Scott says he got a call at home from a high-level Democrat operative that, after marathon negotiations between party officials and the former Clinton cabinet member, Cuomo had agreed to bow out and throw his support behind state Comptroller H. Carl McCall. Scott said he called the story in to his newsroom as well as to his station's Webmaster since WPIX had already finished its local morning show and wouldn't have news until 10 that evening.

Other stations reported the story throughout the day, including WNBC(TV), which continued to run ads for the Cuomo campaign in both its 6 and 11 p.m. news because notice of cancellation came too late to pull them.

Tribune-owned WPIX plans to add an hour to its WB11 Morning News beginning Monday, Sept. 23, using the same on-air news team. Executive producer for the new hour will be Lauren Petterson.

The Acme group's 10 TV stations have set Sept. 16 for the debut of the three-hour morning show targeting a younger audience and produced out of WBDT(TV) Dayton, Ohio. The Daily Buzz will be overseen by executive producer Robin Radin, formerly with Fox 11 Morning News at KTTV(TV) Los Angeles. The show will include national and international news from CNN

Newsource and will be anchored by Los Angeles transplants Ron Corning and Andrea Jackson, with Peggy Bunker reporting and Mitch English doing weather.

Acme says The Daily Buzz will roll out in the Acme markets exclusively but other stations and groups have indicated interest and the show could be syndicated.

You give some, you get some. NBC's station group, which has lost considerable talent to the Viacom group, recently hired Mark F. Lund, who was sales manager at Viacom-owned WBZ-TV and WSBK-TV, both Boston, as vice president of sales for flagship WNBC(TV) New York. He replaces Lew Leone, who went over to the Viacom group with former WNBC General Manager Dennis Swanson to become general manager for flagship station WCBS-TV. Lund will also oversee sales at newly acquired Telemundo station WNJU(TV) New York and report to WNBC GM Frank Comerford, who replaced Swanson.

KDKA-TV Pittsburgh reporter Mary Berecky was attacked last week while vacuuming her car at a self-service car wash and beaten with what was believed to be a pipe or a club. The station reported that she was treated at a local hospital and released, suffering from cuts and bruises—including a gash on her head—and badly shaken.

A $5,000 reward—believed to be funded by the station, although KDKA-TV would not confirm that—was offered for the capture of her attacker. According to KDKA-TV, the man had asked Berecky for change and attacked her from behind after she showed him a change machine. She said her attacker continued to beat her after she pleaded and offered her purse. No arrests had been made late last week.

Joining other NBC stations, KNTV(TV) San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose will expand its morning news block next week, adding an hour newscast at 10 a.m. after the Today show and dropping its noon newscast.

Vice President for News Jim Sanders notes that the station is giving up a newscast in a competitive slot for one that has no competition and has a news lead-in. "We have the chance to give a fresh, local update to a news-viewing audience coming out of a network news program." KNTV also plans to add a half-hour 5 p.m. newscast on Saturdays and Sundays.