Last month’s decision by Time Warner Cable to drop WTMJ has prompted three of its customers to seek a class-action lawsuit on behalf of all TWC subscribers who no longer get the Milwaukee NBC affiliate.

Steven Delonge and Paul Scoptur of Wauwatosa, WI, and Stephen Raymonds of Menominee Falls are looking for unspecified damages for breach of contract and a days credit for each customer affected for every day service was interrupted more than four hours. The plaintiffs are represented by Paul Scoptur’s law firm Aiken & Scoptur.

“My contract is with Time Warner, that’s who I pay,” Scoptur told WTMJ. “They promise to give us Channel 4 and they made the decision to remove Channel 4.”

Time Warner pulled WTMJ on July 25 over a dispute with WTMJ’s parent company Journal Broadcast Group over retransmission fees.

According to both WTMJ and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, a TWC spokesperson declined to comment. You can watch WTMJ’s report on the story by clicking here.

Milwaukee ABC affiliate WISN is shuffling its anchor lineup heading into the Fall, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel‘s Duane Dudek reports.

Beginning August 12, Jason Newton (pictured) will move from the 5 p.m. anchor desk to the morning anchor desk. He joins the current morning anchors Patrick Paolantonio and Marianne Lyles on the newscast; the third morning anchor, Portia Young, will shift to weekend mornings and report during the week.

Replacing Newton at 5 p.m. will be Craig McKee, who will continue in his role as 6 and 10 p.m. co-anchor. McKee will anchor alongside Toya Washington, according to Dudek.

WISN has also named Joyce Garbaciak the Sunday evening anchor. She will helm the 10 p.m. newscast alongside Toni Valliere, who joins the station next month, and recently-hired meteorologist Chris Gloninger.

Both their corporate logos include the oculus, but CBS and Time Warner Cable are not seeing eye to eye this morning. In fact, after CBS-owned stations were pulled from TWC systems briefly overnight, CBS Corp. CEO Les Moonves said, “We are now at war” with the cable giant.

But after about 15 minutes, after lobbying by CBS, the stations were back on. In all, seven stations including WCBS and WLNY in New York, KCBS and KCAL in Los Angeles and KTVT and KTXA in Dallas/Ft. Worth, are affected.

The new deadline for a deal is Friday at 5pmET.

Time Warner Cable is also in a dogfight with Journal Broadcast group. Five Journal stations, including WTMJ in Milwaukee, WGBA and WACY in Green Bay, KMTV in Omaha, and KMIR and KPSE in Palm Springs have been off Time Warner Cable since last Thursday.

The president of the Wisconsin State Senate, Michael Ellis has sent a letter to, calling on Time Warner CEO Glenn Britt demanding the stations be put back.

Time Warner customers “are no longer receiving the product they are paying for through your service,” Ellis wrote to Britt.

Meteorologist Chris Gloninger is joining WISN, the ABC affiliate in Milwaukee, OnMilwaukee.com reports.

Gloninger will be the weekend evening meteorologist at WISN. He moves to Milwaukee from Albany, where he was a meteorologist at CBS affiliate WRGB.

“Chris is a highly-skilled meteorologist who will be a great addition to the Weather Watch 12 Team,” WISN news director Chris Gegg told OnMilwaukee.com. “He has extensive experience reporting live in extreme weather conditions, including covering Hurricane Sandy and Hurricane Irene.”

Gloninger replaces Luke Sampe, who is leaving WISN to be the chief meteorologist at WFRV in Green Bay.

A Milwaukee police officer is suing WTMJ and Journal Broadcast Group saying the station promoted and aired a story that put him in a bad light even though the station knew he had done nothing wrong.

The lawsuit, filed by Officer Matthew Knight, says the Milwaukee NBC affiliate promoted and aired a story using surveillance footage showing Knight and what Milwaukee police say was a drunk Marine walking into a bank. The video shows the officer taking the man’s ATM card, punching in the man’s pin, withdrawing money, then counting the money out and leaving with the man.

The promo copy for the May sweeps story said, “It’s the video that has everyone talking. A Milwaukee police officer taking a man’s cash out of an ATM. Then walking off with that cash in hand. What’s really going on? The Milwaukee police department has some explaining to do.”

What the promo didn’t say was that police were called when a man broke a taxicab’s window.  The cabdriver said he would not press charges against the man if he paid $300 to repair the damage. The man and officer Knight went to the ATM where Knight helped the man withdraw the money and pay the cabbie. Read more

Jessob Reisbeck has joined Milwaukee FOX affiliate WITI as morning anchor. Reisbeck replaces Shawn Patrick who left the Milwaukee FOX affiliate Friday, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.

Reisbeck, who worked at Fresno, CA, FOX affiliate KMPH, gained fame as the reporter whose interview with Kai, the hatchet wielding hitchhiker, went viral. Kai is now facing murder charges in New Jersey.

The Journal Sentinel reports Reisbeck’s first broadcast on WITI will be Wednesday. Reisbeck signed off from KMPH June 2, telling viewers he was returning to his roots in Wisconsin. You can watch the video of his goodbye after the jump. Read more

Meteorologist Luke Sampe and anchor-reporter Shelby Croft are leaving Milwaukee ABC affiliate WISN, TVSpy has confirmed.

Sampe, the station’s weekend evening meteorologist, is leaving Milwaukee for Green Bay, where he has accepted a chief meteorologist position. Croft, who anchors the weekend evening newscast and reports during the week, is leaving for a station in Columbus.

“We wish both Luke and Shelby well,” WISN general manager Jan Wade told TVSpy in an email.

Abe Lubetkin is leaving Milwaukee ABC affiliate WISN, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel‘s Duane Dudek reports.

Lubetkin, who is a weekend morning anchor and general assignment reporter at WISN, will join the power solutions division of Johnson Control. He joined the station in 2010 from KVIA in El Paso, where he was an anchor and reporter.

“Leaving television news was a difficult decision for me,” Lubetkin told the Journal Sentinel. “But having worked in the news business since graduating from college, I decided it was time for a new challenge. … I deeply appreciate all the viewers who made me feel right at home here.”

A story Milwaukee NBC affiliate WTMJ promoted for sweeps as “an explosive I-Team investigation months in the making” about a Milwaukee police officer taking money from a man at an ATM has landed the station in hot water with the Milwaukee police chief.

“People deserve to know the truth,” said Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn in a press conference the morning before the story aired. “And I have no confidence that that truth will be known watching this TV story’s coverage of its own sweeps story.”

The promo (above) shows surveillance video of a Milwaukee police officer at an ATM with a man in February.  The promo copy says, “It’s the video that has everyone talking. A Milwaukee police officer taking a man’s cash out of an ATM. Then walking off with that cash in hand. What’s really going on? The Milwaukee police department has some explaining to do.” Read more

After three years at WITI in Milwaukee, Henry Rosoff is joining KIRO in Seattle, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel‘s Duane Dudek.

“I don’t want this to be seen as me fleeing Milwaukee,” Rosoff told Dudek. “I would have been happy to stay. Since the beginning, (WITI) put me on out front . . . in so many big stories. I would have had no fears about staying. It would have been the safe move.”

Rosoff starts today at CBS-affiliated KIRO, where he will be a general assignment reporter.