WGNO reporter Kenny Lopez says his favorite part of the holidays is “12 Days of Giving,” a series of reports that follow him as he performs random acts of kindness around the New Orleans community.

“My producers joke with me that this can be my schtick,” Lopez told TVSpy. “They say this is my thing now. I would love to do it every single Christmas.”

WGNO’s “12 Days of Giving” is one of many examples of local stations increasing charitable efforts around the holidays. There are toy drives and coat drives, telethons, visits to local hospitals. And there are more unique initiatives: KELO, the CBS affiliate in Sioux Falls, teamed up with a local radio station to sponsor “Drive Thru Difference Day,” encouraging people stopping at local drive-thrus to buy coffee or a meal for the person in line behind them.

WJAR kicked off its “Season of Giving” campaign to benefit the Make-a-Wish foundation with a telethon earlier this month. The Providence NBC affiliate raised $12,000 — which included a $5,000 donation from the station (pictured)  — and more than one million unused airline miles for children with life-threatening medical conditions.

“It felt like it was a perfect fit for the Christmas holiday season,” WJAR news director Chris Lanni told TVSpy. “It worked really well for us as a station to give back during this time to a cause that specifically helps children.” Read more

Mark Antonitis has been named vice president and general manager of KTXD, London Broadcasting’s Me-TV affiliate in Dallas.

Antontitis joins the station from KRON in San Francisco, where he has been president and general manager since 2004. In a statement, Antontitis called his new position “the kind of challenge I’ve been preparing for my entire career.”

Before joining KRON, Antontitis was vice president and general manager of KELO in Sioux Falls. He has also worked as vice president and news director of WMAQ in Chicago.

“All of us at London Broadcasting feel that Mark is uniquely qualified for the Dallas leadership position and we feel fortunate to employ Mark with his years of experience in large market television,” London Broadcasting EVP and COO Philip Hurley said in a a statement.

KELO, the CBS affiliate for Sioux Falls, SD has named Sammi Bjelland (pictured on the left) anchor for its 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. newscast.  Bjelland replaces Angela Kennecke (pictured on the right) who had been the evening anchor for the last 21 years.

The station explained Kennecke’s move in a statement posted to their website saying, “KELO-TV is growing its Back to Business web page and business and consumer reporting. We feel the best way to do that is for Angela to take on a new role as Business editor.”

Bjelland comes to KELO from KEYC the Mankato, MN FOX and CBS affiliate where she was a multimedia journalist.

You can watch a story KELO put together about Kennecke’s switch from working nightside to days by clicking here.

[TVNewsCheck]

There are two new hires at Buffalo CBS-affiliate WIVB: Lou Raguse and Emily Guggenmos (pictured).

Raguse joins the station from KMSB in Tuscon, where news operations were shut down earlier this month. Guggenmos also joins WIVB from Tucson, where she was the weekend co-anchor at KVOA.

The pair met while working in Sioux Falls — Guggenmos at KDLT and Raguse at KELO. They were married in 2010.

“Emily and Lou are both strong journalists who will fit in perfectly with our winning team here,” news director Joseph Schlaerth tells TVSpy via email.

Today’s Wall Street Journal has an interesting look at the challenging task of accurately predicting the weather, which local meteorologists are tasked with every day. The article reports 9 out of 10 Americans seek out the forecast — usually more than three times a day — and even the most experienced weathercasters are held accountable if the weather is reported incorrectly:

Weatherman Jay Trobec has been giving the forecast to 90,000 viewers of his Sioux Falls, S.D., TV station for 14 years, and he is usually right. But “if I blow a forecast, I hear about it,” he says.

When he predicted six inches of snow in Sioux Falls that never arrived, “people were coming up to me in the coffee shop and berating me,” says Dr. Trobec, chief meteorologist at KELO-TV. “People who lay concrete for a living, people who put roofs on houses, don’t like it when the forecast isn’t correct.”

Read the full article here, and check out a few reporting tips from seasoned meteorologists here.

KELO, the CBS-affiliate in Sioux Falls, is getting ready to debut a slew of upgrades to their newscasts.

As part of their conversion to high-definition — which the KELO website says is just “days away” — the station will switch from paper scripts to iPads, as well as broadcast from a new set, edit footage with new editing systems and debut a new graphics package.

The station is even changing the way anchors, who will be under the focus of the new HD cameras, apply their makeup. The station has arranged for the on-air talent to be trained using airbrushes ahead of the conversion.

“It’s a long process in changing all the different pieces of a newscast and look of the station that most viewers don’t pay too much attention to because they see it everyday,” KELO director of marketing and creative services Paul Farmer said.

Examining the recent evolution of the TV weathercaster, a front page story in today’s New York Times describes local meteorologists as community heroes that regularly save lives through accurate reporting and severe weather warnings.

Profiling WSB‘s Glenn Burns, who has worked in Atlanta TV for 30 years, the Times article states:

In the old days, he used to have to wait for his turn in the newscast, slap a magnetic sun on a map and hope it didn’t rain.

Now he presides over a new $1.7 million radar system and has more real estate on the set than the newscasters have. As that kind of technology offers the ability to predict with great precision how a severe storm will move, the weather forecast has become about saving lives.

Read more