Not everybody works for peanuts, but as we've learned time and time again, being a local TV broadcaster ain't all it's cracked up to be.
Minneapolis is a major market, and it employs a lot of people. Some of those people are paid obscene amounts of money. Some aren't paid nearly as handsomely as you might think. (More on that soon.)
Without fact checking the story: Kelsey Soby came to KMSP-TV years ago. She babbled about the morning traffic. It's not a prestigious gig. She had worked at smaller stations, and moving to Minneapolis, even in a menial capacity, was a foot in the door.
During her years at Ch. 9 she did fluffy news features occasionally, pinch hit whenever she was needed throughout the morning and co-anchored a nightly radio show disguised as a TV show. When Soby was anointed co-host of "On the Fly," it seemed like her ticket had finally been punched.
After approximately 18 months of co-hosting she left the show. That was this spring. It was claimed that her departure from the weeknight fluff was so that she could focus upon her news duties. Presumably she was going to have an increased role during the morning newscasts.
And within a few months she hastily announced her departure from Ch. 9.
After a great cloak of secrecy, we learned recently that she has a new gig. She is the director of marketing and business development at Periscope. Periscope is "a fiercely independent impact agency." Seriously, that's what they call themselves. Feel free to stop reading for a minute and grab a barf bag.
The Periscope website cites all of Soby's professional experiences as the reason why she's a director of marketing and business development. Yeah, reading traffic tweets on morning television is an essential qualification for a marketing gig.
There's little doubt that after all her time at Ch. 9 Soby was still earning relative peanuts. She traded in her fun, early morning TV persona for a desk job in marketing and business development with some pompous p.r. firm. Yeah, that's why she took a job at Ch. 9, to parlay it into a marketing and business development gig.
Did she need the presumably fatter paychecks her new gig offered? She's married, evidently, so perhaps not. But perhaps being a pretty face on morning TV wasn't fulfilling enough. Maybe she was tired of the weekly circus peanuts Ch. 9 filled her purse with.
You don't hop from one TV gig to the next in order to land a marketing and business development job in Minneapolis.
As prestigious as it is to be a local TV broadcaster, it's not a get-rich-quick profession, as has been proven many times. (Again, more on that soon.)
There's no chance Soby is the most qualified person for the job. Somebody at Periscope either took pity on her and gave her the gig or somebody at Periscope wanted a TV babe on the payroll.
Nobody said life was fair, we all know that. If you can parlay a modest career in local broadcasting into a gig like Soby did, shake what God gave you and cash those checks!
Showing posts with label KMSP-TV. Show all posts
Showing posts with label KMSP-TV. Show all posts
Thursday, September 10, 2015
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Lacey Crisp, you're no Kelsey Soby
While all the world has decided that an Eden Prairie lion hunter is more despicable than Jeffrey Dahmer, I confirmed something much more important in the local news business.
Lacey Crisp is no Kelsey Soby.
Soby was the KMSP-TV (Fox 9) morning traffic reporter for about four years. She inherited the job when her predecessor had difficulty keeping her own vehicle on the road, apparently as a result of uncorking her bottle.
Soby had that certain greenness about her when she started. Sure, she worked in small town television somewhere, but her on-air presence didn't command the airwaves like the best of the best do here in the Twin Cities.
Occasionally Soby did some sort of fluff piece for the morning news show, or she'd pinch hit in some small capacity. If they needed somebody to sit on the couch and chat about infotainment at 9 a.m., she'd be there.
Her big score was when she was hired as the sidekick for the one-hour "On the Fly" gab fest that started about two years ago on KMSP's sister station. After about 18 months of that gig Soby left the show, citing an increased focus upon her duties to the intrepid news team at the Fox 9 morning show. A few months later she hastily announced her exit from the airwaves, with no word on where she was going.
Within days the brain trust at Fox 9 had a new traffic reporter to read the morning maps for us. Her name was Lacey Crisp. She had done the small town news bit, and had reported in Milwaukee, evidently. The job seemed like a step down for somebody who had been a news reporter in a major market, but que sera sera.
I swear it wasn't more than two weeks when Crisp disappeared. A random day off didn't seem like a big deal, but that random day off didn't feature a replacement traffic reporter. Perhaps Crisp's absence was due to emergency circumstances and prevented the station from wrangling its usual pinch hitter, Meisha Johnson.
But then another day went by without Crisp. And another. And another. And with each passing day, the traffic reports were left to Alix Kendall and Tom Butler, both of whom stumble through a brief rundown of traffic conditions. It's painful, yet amusing, to watch.
After bugging the fine folks at Fox 9 via Twitter for a few days, with no response, the mystery is partially solved. Morning reporter Dawn Stevens was eager to welcome Crisp, via Twitter, to the Fox 9 family a month ago, and when questioned recently about Crisp's absence from the airwaves, Stevens did confirm that Crisp is toast. Stevens tweeted in reply to the inquiry that management decided to move in a different direction.
So let me get this straight. Soby quickly disappears from a job that she was going to be more focused upon after her departure from "On the Fly," within a few days a new traffic reporter is welcomed into the Fox 9 morning show family, two weeks later that new family member is given the boot, and two weeks later the anchors are left to flail in the wind every time there's a traffic map to post.
Coincidence? Perhaps, but something smells rotten in Eden Prairie.
Morning traffic reporters are overrated, as far as I'm concerned, especially in this day and age. But it seems that the devaluing of Fox 9 traffic reports is less about my belief and more the result of a three-ring circus they're hosting at the KMSP-TV studios.
Exactly how dysfunctional the Fox 9 morning program is these day, we'll probably never know.
Lacey Crisp is no Kelsey Soby.
Soby was the KMSP-TV (Fox 9) morning traffic reporter for about four years. She inherited the job when her predecessor had difficulty keeping her own vehicle on the road, apparently as a result of uncorking her bottle.
Soby had that certain greenness about her when she started. Sure, she worked in small town television somewhere, but her on-air presence didn't command the airwaves like the best of the best do here in the Twin Cities.
Occasionally Soby did some sort of fluff piece for the morning news show, or she'd pinch hit in some small capacity. If they needed somebody to sit on the couch and chat about infotainment at 9 a.m., she'd be there.
Her big score was when she was hired as the sidekick for the one-hour "On the Fly" gab fest that started about two years ago on KMSP's sister station. After about 18 months of that gig Soby left the show, citing an increased focus upon her duties to the intrepid news team at the Fox 9 morning show. A few months later she hastily announced her exit from the airwaves, with no word on where she was going.
Within days the brain trust at Fox 9 had a new traffic reporter to read the morning maps for us. Her name was Lacey Crisp. She had done the small town news bit, and had reported in Milwaukee, evidently. The job seemed like a step down for somebody who had been a news reporter in a major market, but que sera sera.
I swear it wasn't more than two weeks when Crisp disappeared. A random day off didn't seem like a big deal, but that random day off didn't feature a replacement traffic reporter. Perhaps Crisp's absence was due to emergency circumstances and prevented the station from wrangling its usual pinch hitter, Meisha Johnson.
But then another day went by without Crisp. And another. And another. And with each passing day, the traffic reports were left to Alix Kendall and Tom Butler, both of whom stumble through a brief rundown of traffic conditions. It's painful, yet amusing, to watch.
After bugging the fine folks at Fox 9 via Twitter for a few days, with no response, the mystery is partially solved. Morning reporter Dawn Stevens was eager to welcome Crisp, via Twitter, to the Fox 9 family a month ago, and when questioned recently about Crisp's absence from the airwaves, Stevens did confirm that Crisp is toast. Stevens tweeted in reply to the inquiry that management decided to move in a different direction.
So let me get this straight. Soby quickly disappears from a job that she was going to be more focused upon after her departure from "On the Fly," within a few days a new traffic reporter is welcomed into the Fox 9 morning show family, two weeks later that new family member is given the boot, and two weeks later the anchors are left to flail in the wind every time there's a traffic map to post.
Coincidence? Perhaps, but something smells rotten in Eden Prairie.
Morning traffic reporters are overrated, as far as I'm concerned, especially in this day and age. But it seems that the devaluing of Fox 9 traffic reports is less about my belief and more the result of a three-ring circus they're hosting at the KMSP-TV studios.
Exactly how dysfunctional the Fox 9 morning program is these day, we'll probably never know.
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