WESH Orlando is opting for coverage of the Casey Anthony trial over the U.S. Open golf tourney today, reports the Orlando Sentinel. Hearst TV owns WESH and WKCF, and will slot the golf over to WKCF, a CW affiliate, today and tomorrow, 3 to 5 p.m.
The Anthony trial, for which Casey Anthony stands accused of killing her young daughter Caylee, is of titanic interest in central Florida. Today is Day 20 of the proceedings. One news vet there told me it is in every way the O.J. Simpson trial for the region, and stations bumping network coverage, and Bright House’s News 13 going wall to wall. He called it the trial of the decade.
WKMG announced last week it was pushing network programming to its subchannel. WFTV has live video on its website from the pool camera inside the courtroom (though I had to sit through three commercials before I saw it), as does WOFL, while MyFoxOrlando.com has the feed from one camera trained on the defendent the entire time.
All are of course tweeting in real time from the courthouse, and using Facebook as well. News13 has a live chat on cfnews13.com, where users can interact with reporters on the scene.
Reports the Sentinel’s Hal Boedeker:
Jim Carter, general manager of WESH and WKCF, said he opted for this approach because WKCF has 100 percent reach in the market and will be in HD. WESH is committed to carrying the trial because it’s an important news story, Carter said.
Boedeker says the trial should wrap up on Saturday.
[Photo: Orlando Sentinel]
