WABC/Channel 7 has appointed Camille Edwards to oversee the more than 40 hours of live news programming. As VP of News, Edwards is also in charge of the station’s content on all platforms, including online and Taxi TV.  She succeeds news director Kenny Plotnik, who left WABC June 1 after 25 years.

Edwards has more than 20 years of journalism and management experience, including major market stops in Washington, Chicago, and Philadelphia.

“Camille Edwards’s proven commitment to excellence in local TV news, along with her innovative work expanding news content to new-media platforms, made her the ideal choice for the top news post at WABC-TV,” Dave Davis, WABC president and general manager, says. “We’re all proud to welcome Camille back to the ABC Owned Television Stations Group and look forward to her continuing success ahead at WABC-TV.”

Gil Noble’s career at WABC/Channel 7 spanned more than four decades. He started as a reporter and weekend anchor in 1967, but it was his signature show, Like It Is, an African American weekly public affairs show that made him a legend. 

The station says Noble died peacefully today at age 80 following a long illness.

“Gil Noble’s life and work had a profound effect on our community and culture,” WABC president and general manager Dave Davis said in a statement. “His contributions are a part of history and will be remembered for years to come. Today, our hearts are with Gil’s family – his wife, Jean and their five children – and we thank them for so lovingly [for] sharing him with the world all these years.”

On Like It Is, Noble interviewed top African-Americans dignitaries and luminaries including Arthur Ashe, Muhammed Ali, Nelson Mandela, and even Malcolm X. There were the entertainment heavyweights, such as Harry Belafonte, Bill Cosby, and Lena Horne.

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Streaming TV startup Aereo launched this week in the New York market, amid lawsuits claiming copyright infringement. A lawsuit by CBS, NBC, and ABC, led to this terse joint statement:

“This service is based on the illegal use of our content. Beyond that, we believe the complaint speaks for itself.”

WABC president and general manager Dave Davis tells FishbowlNY that based on two lawsuits, he wasn’t able to comment.

“It’s in the lawyers hands,” Davis admits.  

After the broadcast networks filed a suit against Aereo, the new company retaliated with a countersuit. Aereo contends that its service does not infringe on broadcasters’ copyrights since it only streams content that viewers are legally entitled to access via satellite.

Aereo works as a Web-based, mobile device TV product, offering over-the-air programs with a 90-day free trial for subscribers, only on New York stations at this point. It’s $12 a month after that.

Despite the fight with broadcasters, initial reviews for Aereo have been favorable.

Technologyreview.com writes, “Overall, despite my limited ability to use the service, and my encounters with a few glitches, using Aereo was an exciting experience.”

It’s been non-existent since television first had a picture in the 1940s. New York City has never had a one-hour 11 p.m. newscast. But, that all changed at the start of 2011 when WABC/Channel 7 expanded its late weekend newscast.

Anchors Sandra Bookman and Joe Torres, meteorologist Jeff Smith, and sports anchor Laura Behnke now give viewers a comprehensive 60 minutes until midnight.

“We thought that another half-hour of news would be better received by the viewers than the repeat, syndicated programming that we have been running there,” Dave Davis, WABC president and general manager, tells FishbowlNY.

It’s rare to consider a newscast counter-programming, but with options like Saturday Night Live on WNBC and recent episodes of Alcatraz and New Girl on WNYW/Channel 5, WABC is providing another choice for the proven commodities.

Davis says the change has already been evident, as numbers indicate more people sticking with WABC’s news during the weekend than prior to the expansion.

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In an unprecedented agreement, the New York Road Runners Club announced yesterday that their signature event–the New York City Marathon will be televised by ESPN and WABC in New York.  WNBC has anchored the race since 1999.

It marks a return home for the most famous race in the Big Apple. ABC was the first broadcast home for the marathon from 1981 until 1993. This new arrangement is the first national coverage since then, shown on ESPN2. Beyond that, using the multiple resources of ESPN, spectators can access through WatchESPN on computers, mobile devices, and XBox Live.

The five-year deal starts with this year’s marathon on November 4. ESPN2 covers the 26.2 mile race from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., while WABC and Website 7online.com provide extended live coverage from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.  

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It’s a new era for WABC/Channel 7, which is set to debut a new public affairs program. As we reported earlier this month, a stroke in late July forced Gil Noble to step down after amassing parts of six decades as host of Like It Is.

Last week, the station aired a farewell tribute to Noble, who remains in serious condition.

WABC was scheduled to start the new black themed program, Here and Now, in the same Sunday at noon timeslot, this weekend. However, Channel 7 general manager Dave Davis tells FishbowlNY that it may be pushed it back a week.

“In the transfer of some of the audio … comments by Councilman Charles Barron were lost in that process,” Davis says. “They’ve located another copy of the tape.”

Activist group, the Committee to Eliminate Media Offensive to African People (CEMOTAP) has been vocal about the direction of the new show.

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Noble, as we reported previously, was hospitalized in July with the medical condition.

WABC general manager Dave Davis confirms to FishbowlNY, the veteran of Channel 7 for more than four decades, is unable to return to his beloved show as he recovers.

“He continues to recuperate, and according to his family, is making progress,” Davis emailed staffers. “We join them in their prayers for a complete recovery.”

Since Noble, 79, took ill, Davis had been airing classic Like It Is episodes. But Davis says that will not continue.

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WABC/Channel 7 is taking over as broadcast home of the 67th annual Columbus Day Parade on Monday, October 10th.

“Channel 7 is proud to partner with the parade’s organizer, the Columbus Citizens Foundation, for the largest celebration of Italian American heritage and culture in the world, said WABC-TV president and general manager Dave Davis. “Viewers choose to watch Channel 7 because they know how well we serve their communities. The Columbus Day Parade is a natural fit for us.” 

Channel 7′s broadcast will reach more than 7.4 million television households throughout New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. In addition, the parade will be seen on the Italian television network, RAI International.

Emmy-Award winning CNBC anchor Maria Bartiromo, and entertainer Joe Piscopo are back as parade hosts. Eyewitness News morning anchor Ken Rosato and reporter Lisa Colagrossi will provide updates along the route.

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Legendary WABC/Channel 7 newsman Gil Noble has been in the hospital since suffering a serious stroke in late July.

WABC general manager Dave Davis tells FishbowlNY that he has been in close contact with the family.

Davis says Noble remains in stable condition and is conscious, but breathing through a tube. Therefore, Davis says it’s premature to know if the longtime anchor suffered any speaking impairment.

Davis says “for the  time being” WABC will air “Best of” episodes of Noble’s Like It Is, which he’s hosted since 1968.

In the short term, Davis says, Noble’s family will likely move him to a facility that is “more trained” in dealing with the therapeutic phase of his convalescence.  

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Charles Perez, who only spent two years at WABC/Channel 7, was believed to be groomed for the main anchor gig.

In his new book, Confessions of a Gay Anchorman, Perez discusses his coming out and how his TV gigs were affected by it.

For the chapter on his stint at WABC, (lasting all of 12 pages), however, Perez’s focus was not on his sexuality, at least not on the surface.

But Perez, hardly a memorable name in the annals of Eyewitness News history, took one jab after another at his former colleagues.

“To me it’s not about any of the people I mentioned,” Perez tells FishbowlNY. “It was about how shocked I was to get to a place that I thought was going to be about professionalism and journalism. In my experience, it was about ego more than anything. It was a culture of inflated egos and inefficiency,”

In the book, Perez calls WABC’s shop “by far the most overstaffed facility I’d ever worked in.”

In response, Perez joked, “How many people does it take to put in a light bulb?”

Faced with breaking news, Perez says he was forced to be at the cameraman’s beck and call.

“I could sit down there waiting for a photographer for a freaking hour and a half before he would actually get in the truck and pull out,” Perez alleges. “Everybody was moving like snails.”

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