As Miami stations worked hard over the weekend to find answers in the bizarre cannibal attack that occurred on Saturday, ABC-affiliate WPLG landed an interview with the former wife of Rudy Eugene, the man who was killed by a police officer while he ate the face of another man.

Although she refused to appear on-camera, Eugene’s ex-wife told WPLG that the two filed for divorce in 2007 during a violent point in their relationship.

“I wouldn’t say he had mental problem but he always felt like people was against him type of attitude.  No one was for him, everyone was against him,” Eugene’s ex-wife told the station, adding that she hasn’t spoken to him in three or four years. Read more

During a morning newscast over the holiday weekend, WPLG‘s Sasha Andrade was talking about who the hometown Heat would face next in the NBA playoffs, when she mistakenly referred to the Philadelphia 76ers as “the 69ers.” [Deadspin]

Emily Barr, who has been president and general manager of WLS since 1997, is leaving the Chicago ABC O&O to lead Post-Newsweek Stations, the television broadcasting division of the Washington Post Company.

Barr will join Post-Newsweek in July, replacing Alan Frank, who is retiring as president and CEO at the end of the year. Her last day at WLS is today.

“We are so fortunate to have Emily Barr join us,” Donald Graham, chairman and CEO of the Washington Post Company, said in a statement. “She’s been an outstanding manager in one of the greatest companies in the industry and a force for innovation everywhere she’s been.” Read more

Mark Joyella has been hired as the weekend morning anchor at WFTV in Orlando, news director Bob Jordan told TVSpy today.

Joyella joins WFTV from CNN, where he is a digital producer for “Erin Burnett OutFront.” He has previously worked as a reporter for WNYW and WPIX in New York City, WPLG in Miami and WFTS in Tampa.

Joyella, who will also be a weekday reporter at WFTV, begins at the station in June. He replaces Jamie Holmes, who will be taking over as WFTV’s weekday morning anchor.

The move reunites Joyella with his former boss. Jordan was the news director of WFTS in 1994 when Joyella was hired as a reporter.

Reporter Christina Boomer Vazquez isn’t set to begin her new job at WPLG until October but Miami viewers are getting a chance to know her well before then.

The Post-Newsweek station recently launched a blog for Boomer Vazquez on its website, in which she is currently writing about her cross-country move from Phoenix, where she worked as a reporter and MMJ for KNXV, to South Florida.  Accompanying her on the trip are her husband, Mark, and their three-month-old daughter. Read more

Miami ABC-affiliate WPLG is returning local news to its 5 p.m. time slot.

After scrapping its 5 o’clock newscast in favor of “Dr. Phil” a few years ago, the Post-Newsweek station is set to debut a new 5 p.m. show on August 22nd.

Calvin Hughes and Laurie Jennings (right), WPLG’s team at 6 and 11, will be behind the anchor desk from 5:00 to 5:30, with Jen Herrerra subbing for Jennings during the last half-hour.

In a recent phone conversation with TVSpy, WPLG vice president and general manager Dave Boylan said the programming shift comes down to dollars and cents.

“5 p.m. newscasts make sense given today’s economy,” Boylan said. Read more

WSVN, the Fox affiliate in Miami, will expand the morning news broadcast into the 9 a.m. hour beginning at the end of this month.

WSVN’s current morning show begins at 5 a.m. and leads in to “Regis & Kelly,” which airs in the 9 a.m. timeslot. “Regis & Kelly,” which is syndicated nationally, is moving to ABC affiliate WPLG beginning this fall, leaving the 9 a.m. timeslot on WSVN open for the extra hour of news.

The extra hour brings the total weekly news time on WSVN to more than 63 hours a week, which is more than any other station in the country, according to the Sunbeam-owned station. “The extra hour in the morning reaffirms our commitment to local news and our viewers,” EVP-GM Robert Leider said in a statement.

The additional hour will be anchored by Christine Cruz and Diana Diaz, with meteorologist Julie Durda contributing. Their first broadcast will be August 22.

WOFL anchor Jacquie Sosa, who has been a fixture on TV screens in central and south Florida for the past decade, is walking away from the business.

Sosa joined Orlando’s WOFL in October 2008 and has been anchoring the Fox-affiliate’s morning newscast. According to the Orlando Sentinel, Sosa’s last day is Friday.

“I need to tend to my girls,” Sosa, who has two young daughters, told the Sentinel in explaining her motivation for leaving the anchor desk. “They’re my priority. They’re all that really matters. I need to give them 100 percent. People don’t realize I was at the station at 2:30 in the morning and going to bed at 6 at night. I couldn’t spend enough quality time with the girls.”

Before joining WOFL, Sosa worked at WKMG, a CBS-affiliate in Orlando, and WPLG, an ABC-affiliate in Miami. WOFL is currently searching for her replacement.

What was once the Sky 10 news helicopter has been rechristened Sky 20 as WTVJ (channel 6) joins WFOR (4) in sharing what was originally WPLG‘s (10) chopper.

CBS O&O WFOR and ABC-affiliate WPLG entered into a pool agreement at the start of 2010 and now NBC O&O WTVJ has joined as well, according to SFLTV. WTVJ had been operating without its own news chopper.

The move now leaves Fox-affiliate WSVN as the only Miami station to have its own eye in the sky.

Details of the WTVJ deal are scarce but one can assume that the revised pool agreement will stick to the existing rule of 60 hours of flight time per month, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. It remains to be seen how those hours will be partitioned, though. Under the WFOR-WPLG deal, the stations were allowed up to 5 hours of private flight time per month and they took turns every month dispatching the helicopter.

Unable to speak about his time with Miami’s WPLG due to an ongoing legal battle, Charles Perez is going after another former employer: WABC.

In his new book, “Confessions of a Gay Anchorman,” Perez doesn’t mince words when it comes to his former colleagues at WABC, including Liz Cho, Diana Williams, Bill Ritter, and Sam Champion.

And while his criticism of the ABC flagship only makes up a small portion of the book, Perez continues to rip the station in a new interview with TVSpy sister site FishbowlNY.

“To me it’s not about any of the people I mentioned,” Perez tells FishbowlNY. “It was about how shocked I was to get to a place that I thought was going to be about professionalism and journalism. In my experience, it was about ego more than anything. It was a culture of inflated egos and inefficiency.” Read more at FishbowlNY