Tribune TV station in Houston gets early morning 'Eye Opener'
Is the world ready for a knife-wielding anchor?
KIAH-TV in Houston, which became Chicago Tribune parent Tribune Co.'s petri dish for new TV news formats, is announcing plans to launch a morning show Monday that will serve as a bookend to the unconventional newsreel-style 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. newscasts it introduced in March.
Described as a provocative and unpredictable information and entertainment show, "Eye Opener" will combine local news, traffic and weather reports from Houston-based Mia Gradney with other content originating from Tribune Co.'s Chicago headquarters, Tribune Tower.
The primary anchors will be former "WGN Morning News" writer Sean Dowling, voice artist Adam "ALC" Lee Campbell and Kirby O'Connell, who's described in an "Eye Opener" promotional video (above) as "a high school graduate" and "uber-journalist" and shown wielding a knife. (Kirby, in fact, is an Indiana University graduate trained in improvisational acting, according to her bio.)
There also will be a character named Monsignor Jebediah O'Flaherty, whom promotional materials say "was specially appointed by the Vatican to his position on 'Eye Opener'" in which he'll share the "gospel" of celebrities' tweets.
“It is designed to be provocative and unpredictable,” Roger Bare, KIAH’s vice president and general manager, said in the announcement. "We want viewers tuning in to get a quick dose of the news they need, and to come back because they saw something new that they didn’t expect."
Like KIAH's anchorless evening newscasts, the morning-show prototype stems from efforts begun by Lee Abrams, who resigned last fall as chief innovation officer of Tribune Co. after sending a provocative and unpredictable companywide email with a link to a TV newscast parody deemed inappropriate. Abrams sought to counter what he referred to as "the 1970s television playbook" and its laughable cliches.
This echoed what Jerry Kersting had said when named president of Tribune Broadcasting in May 2010. "Every night, people turn on their local news and see the same thing wherever they flip the channel," Kersting said in a statement. "We intend to change that."
"Eye Opener" segments will be available on its Web site, eyeopener.com. Raymond Brune, a well-traveled TV veteran in news and entertainment, will be executive producer.
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