Eugene

Today is anchor Jennifer Winters‘ final day at KVAL.

Winters has worked as an anchor and reporter at the Eugene CBS-affiliate since 1994. The station reported this week that Winters is leaving for a marketing job at a local engineering firm.

“Feeling a bit of gratitude overload here as my current and former news colleague[s] bid me goodbye,” Winters tweeted recently. “Thanks guys!!”

Before moving to Eugene, Winters worked as a reporter at KPTV in Portland. Read more

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A round of cuts at Fisher Broadcasting will force KPIC anchor Dan Bain (pictured) and KCBY anchor Tim Novotny to sign off from their respective stations on March 9, according to the Douglas County News-Review.

Both Oregon stations — KPIC in Roseburg and  KCBY in Coos Bay — are satellite stations of KVAL, the CBS-affiliate in Eugene. Bain and Novotny present five-minute local updates each night packaged within the KVAL newscasts. Beginning March 9, staffers at the satellite stations will submit stories to KVAL, which will fold the reports into normal broadcasts using in-house anchors.

Bain, who is also the news director at KPIC, has anchored the evening updates for the station for 20 years. He will receive a severance package that has not been made public, according to the News-Review. Read more

The KCBY evening news will be anchored by David Walker from the KVAL studios, beginning March 12th, as longtime KCBY reporter and anchor Tim Novotny departs the station.

Both KCBY and KVAL are owned by Fisher Communications.  KVAL is a CBS-affiliate based in Eugene, and KCBY operates as a satellite station in Coos Bay.

Walker was the news director at KCBY before becoming an anchor at KVAL in 1999.  Novotny succeeded Walker as KCBY’s news director and has anchored the station’s local news for the past decade. Read more

Bryan Salmond is joining WWL, the CBS-affiliate in New Orleans, as weekend sports anchor.

Salmond joins WWL from Oregon, where he is the regional sports director for KEZI in Eugene and KDRV in Medford. His first day at WWL will be in mid-March.

He will anchor weekend sportscasts at WWL, according to a statement announcing his hire. He will also appear on “Fourth Down on Four” and “Fourth Down Friday,” WWL’s weekly sports shows, as well as contributing to other sports coverage on air and online.

Shelley Kurtz, who ended a 28-year run with KVAL in September, is now speaking out about her unceremonious departure from the Eugene CBS-affiliate.

In a recent interview with The Register-Guard, Kurtz, 56, makes clear that her early retirement was KVAL’s decision.

“They wanted to throw me a party, this big ‘Shelley Kurtz retrospective,’” Kurtz told The Register-Guard. “I said, ‘No. I’m being fired. I don’t want a big party that makes you guys look good. What you’re doing isn’t right.’” Read more

Shelley Kurtz, who has been the primary anchor at Eugene, OR’s KVAL for nearly 30 years, has been cut loose at the CBS affiliate — according to a letter to the editor written by her husband and published in Sunday’s Eugene Register-Guard.

“I’m sorry the KVAL management no longer feels you are an asset to our community and is letting you go,” Ron Jack, Kurtz’s husband, wrote. “But at least on Sept. 15 both of us can sleep in until it’s time to wake our kids for school.”

Jack, who wrote the letter because he wanted “to say thank you to a woman who has provided me with my news for the past 29 years,” named the newscasts Kurtz has been a part of — 5 a.m., 6 a.m., noon, 5 p.m., 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. — and said his wife has “done them all, and was there with that smile and that larger-than-life sense of enthusiasm.” Read more