WEVU Newscenter Tour of Bonita Bay facility - October 16, 1987

WEVU Newscenter at 5PM
Tour of the new Bonita Bay facility
October 16, 1987

Reporter: Randy Rauch

Studio cameras are NEC SP-3A field camera on top of the old RCA pedestals. Those Pedestals were previously home to some RCA TK-44 or 45 cameras. (I can find out exactly if desired)

I commented that the NEC cameras were bad for Chromakey. I'll explain why. The NEC SP-3A's were 3 chip cameras, but they were not your usual Red, green and blue configuration. The canera had two chips for the Green channel, offset to increase the detail. The third chip had a striped filter and provided the Red and Blue information. The big problem here was that WEVU used a blue chromakey wall, and the edge around the weather talent was very chunky. Kind of like when you try to chromakey footage acquired on a DV camera.

WEVU's facility was shut down after being acquired by Ellis Communications who then turned around and entered into a Leased Management Agreement with Waterman Broadcasting. All operations were moved into the WBBH studio facilities on Central Avenue in 1994.

The building was later home to the WB network affiliate, WTVK when it was owned by ACME Broadcasting.

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• Newscenter
• Kate
• Bruington
• Joe
• Larkins
• Jack
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• Mike
• Cannington

[ASKconard]

I've always wondered what WEVU looked like. I heard it was a low-budget operation, but this newscast seems pretty decent. I understand that Harry Horn anchored for many years there.

[scottgfx]

@ASKconard No, it really was a low budget operation. The building *was* nice, but the equipment was sub-par. The building was leased and apparently very expensive to run a TV station out of.

Harry Horne was News Director in the 1970's at WINK. He later was an anchor on a Phoenix, AZ TV station. (At least I think it was Phoenix) He came back to Fort Myers in the very early 1990's to WBBH and was the morning anchor for many years.

[scottgfx]

@ASKconard Harry was probably most famous for co-anchoring mornings with Rhonda Bentley.

After Waterman Broadcasting took over WEVU, they moved Harry over to the ABC side to be a co-anchor with Emily Norman (Circa 1994) where they sat behind a Styrofoam news desk.

Harry was famous for being kind of gruff at work, but underneath that exterior, he was really a very nice guy.

[scottgfx]

@ASKconard I also did some post-processing to the video. The cameras, which were terrible for chromakey, (I can explain) were not shaded well. I really brightened the video so you could see the anchors better.

[scottgfx]

@ASKconard Oh, and one last thing... It's kind of hard to see in the YouTube video, but the camera that was used to shoot the story had a really bad registration problem, you might notice magenta or green fringing.

WEVU was underfunded and a distant 3rd place station, but I've met a lot of great people who worked there and were proud of their work. You play the cards you're dealt.

[news4ddt]

Oh, and WEVU started out in a metal "Shed" -like building adjacent to the dog track in Bonita. Jack Church is great, but for several years they had an awesome weatherman in Phil Whitelaw.

[news4ddt]

I worked with Harry Horn for, like 5 minutes in Miami. Your assessment seems accurate.

[news4ddt]

Wow... Joe Larkins needs to see this! :)