Jonathan Martinez has signed on as evening anchor at KNWA, the NBC-affiliate in Fort Smith.

Martinez joins KNWA from KNIN, the Fox-affiliate in Boise, where he was the morning anchor. “Jonathan’s talent, experience and positive energy made this an easy decision,” KNWA general manager Lisa Kelsey said in a statement. “He will make a wonderful addition to our team.”

Martinez co-anchors the 5, 6 and 10 p.m. newscasts on weekdays alongside Neile Jones (pictured). He replaces Matt Turner, who left the station last month.

KTRV, an independent station in Boise,  shut down news operations on Monday and announced plans to shrink production staff this week.

The Block Communications-owned station, formerly a Fox-affiliate, became independent earlier this fall after Fox gave its affiliation to KNIN. As recently as this summer, KTRV planned to add six staffers to its newsgathering operations, as well as expanding morning and evening newscast.

Just six months later, the station is reversing course, releasing a statement today saying the station will function under a new business model that “does not include news.”

“A network affiliate requires a different business model than does an independent station,” said Bill Lamb, vice president of Block Communications. “As a result, a reduction in staff is taking place this week.” Read more

Viewers in Boise are seeing more of Michelle Edmonds.  In addition to anchoring KIVI‘s 5, 6, and 10 p.m. newscasts, the veteran journalist is now manning sister station KNIN‘s hour-long 9 p.m. program.

“I am excited to have the opportunity to anchor a different type of newscast–one that goes in-depth on the big stories and offers a wider variety of news,” Edmonds told TVSpy recently.  “Plus with an hour-long newscast, there’s time for me to share more of my personality with the viewers.”

Edmonds has been anchoring KIVI’s evening newscasts since she joined the Journal Broadcast Group-owned station in 2004.

Fox is welcoming two new affiliates: Journal Broadcast Group’s KNIN in Boise and Communications Corporation of America’s WEVV in Evansville, IN.

Currently a CW-affiliate, KNIN will transfer to Fox once its CW agreement expires this summer, replacing KTRV as the market’s Fox-affiliate.

WEVV, which was a Fox-affiliate in the late 80s and 90s, is currently a CBS-affiliate and has been airing MyNetworkTV programming on a digital subchannel. Beginning in July, WEVV’s .2 channel will be a Fox-MyNetworkTV hybrid.

The new affiliation agreements come at a time when the relationship between Fox and its affiliates is especially tense. In an effort to capitalize on the carriage deals that stations have struck with cable and satellite operators, Fox has recently drawn a hard line on what it expects its affiliates to pay per subscriber. Read more