Linda Danna has been named president and general manager of WHAS, Belo’s ABC affiliate in Louisville.

Danna joins the station from KGPE, the CBS affiliate in Fresno, where she has been president and general manager for four years. In a statement announcing the hire, Belo president of media operations Peter Diaz called Danna “an outstanding leader who is keenly aware of the evolving media landscape and its emerging opportunities.”

Danna has had a long career in local news. Prior to her time at KGPE, she was director of sales and interim general manager for WOAI in San Antonio. She has also served as GM of WWJ-WKBD in Detroit and of WUPA in Atlanta. Read more

Nancy Osborne, anchor for KFSN’s 5 p.m. newscast, has retired after more than three decades at the Fresno ABC affiliate.

Osborne planned to step down on her own terms after 35 years on the anchor desk, but a fall in the station’s hallway forced the issue when she suffered a shoulder injury and a concussion.  She will undergo surgery to fix the shoulder soon, but the brain injury is more of a wild card.

“They tell me with an injury like this some people get a lot better and some don’t get any better,” Osborne told the Fresno Bee.  “I know I will never be the same as I was before I fell. That’s why I decided it wasn’t fair to the station or me to try to go back to work.”

She told the Bee that the injury forced her to re-evaluate her retirement plans.

Read more

Fresno CBS-affiliate KGPE had a representative from a local animal shelter onto its morning show Tuesday and she brought along a cat who did not respond well to anchor Jenny Toste.

Toste was holding the cat in her arms, listening to the shelter representative talk about how friendly it was, when the animal began to swipe at her face. As Toste attempted to regain control of the cat after the warning shot, it launched into a full-blown attack (video after the jump). Read more

The entire season of “Dancing with the Stars” came down to this: two couples remained and host Tom Bergeron promised to announce the winner live after just one more commercial break.

Viewers in Fresno were on the edge of their seats, but then KFSN went and ruined everything.

Seconds after viewers saw finalist Donald Driver nervously awaiting the results, the ABC O&O aired footage of him triumphantly raising the mirror ball trophy during its 11 p.m. newscast tease. Read more

Anchor Alicia Coates (pictured) and reporter Steve McCarron have left Fresno CBS-affiliate KGPE, the Fresno Bee reports.

Coates, the weekend anchor, has left KGPE to join KFMB, the CBS-affiliate in San Diego. Coates, who joined KGPE in 2009, will be a reporter and fill-in anchor at KFMB.

Also gone is McCarron, who has joined KPTV, the Fox-affiliate in Portland. McCarron had been a reporter and producer at KGPE for five years.

The Fresno Bee reports the station is currently searching for replacements. For now, Lemor Abrams will report for KGPE on a freelance basis. Abrams was most recently a freelance reporter at rival KMPH.

A KMPH news crew went to cover an incident in which an eight-month-old baby fell out of a parked car on Monday, and they wound up coming face-to-face with the baby’s father. The resulting confrontation made for “a story you’ll only see on KMPH.”

The baby was flown to an area hospital just hours before KMPH anchor-reporter Nicole Garcia and photographer Matt Romero arrived at the scene so they expected the boy’s parents to be there with him. They didn’t know what the baby’s father looked like but it became apparent who he was after he began shouting at them and pushing the camera lens away from his face. Read more

Michael Carr has been promoted to news director at KFSN, the ABC O&O in Fresno.

Carr, an executive producer at the station, has served as acting news director since Tracey Watkowski left KFSN for KGO last month. He joined KFSN in 1999 as a weekend assignment editor.

In a statement announcing the promotion, KFSN noted Carr has overseen both the launch of a new newscast and a strong February ratings period.

“Michael Carr’s excellent credentials as a newsroom manager, his integrity and proven track record as a journalist at ABC30 make him the best choice for taking over the helm at ABC30 Action News,” KFSN president and general manager Dan Adams said in a statement.

In a story that’s sure to gain national attention, Fresno ABC-affiliate KFSN basically uncovered the real life “21 Jump Street.”

As FishbowlLA reports, KFSN’s Jessica Peres recently sat down with 22-year-old Alex Salinas, a police officer who went undercover at a local high school to help take down a drug ring.

Perhaps the funniest part of the story is how Salinas, a C-student when he was in high school, had to scale back on his homework when he started getting A’s. Video inside… Read more

Bud Elliott, who spent 21 years as an anchor at KSEE before the station let his contract expire in 2007, is rejoining the Fresno NBC-affiliate.

Following a successful guest anchoring stint in February, Elliott is becoming a full-time member of KSEE’s morning team. Elliott’s run as guest anchor was a cross-promotion between KSEE and KJWL, where he has spent the past four years as the radio station’s morning anchor and co-news director.

“As we expected, the viewer feedback was overwhelming,” KSEE president and general manager Matthew Rosenfeld said, referring to Elliott’ guest anchoring stint. “It only made sense that we explore a path that would bring Bud back to the KSEE24 news team that he was an important member of for over 20 years.” Read more

KFSN, the ABC O&O in Fresno, is set to become the latest station to debut a 4 p.m. newscast in the timeslot that used to belong to “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”

The station will air re-runs of “Oprah” until the new broadcast launches on September 12, according to The Fresno Bee. A new set has been built for the program, which will be anchored by Graciela Moreno (pictured, left) and Christine Park alongside meteorologist Kevin Russo.

Dan Adams, who is president and general manager of KFSN, told The Bee that he considered several options for the 4 p.m. hour, but decided on the newscast because the station has been successful in other ratings periods.

Since Oprah’s last broadcast in May, a slew of stations nationwide have launched newscasts to fill her timeslot. One of them, Denver’s KCNC, already eliminated the broadcast for lack of ratings traction, although it was only on the air a few short months.