WTEN 11pm Newscast (January 11, 1999; Complete)

Описание: Continuing our January time travel with the 11pm news 27 years ago today. I did a WRGB newscast, followed by WNYT, so here's WTEN!

This show aired following the American Music Awards. I posted the 2001 edition a few days ago, and now I have the 1999 edition, featuring news and commercials from Nightline. WTEN (channel 10) is the ABC affiliate for Albany, New York.

Steve Ammerman does the newscast solo, Steve Caporizzo does weather, and Dan Murphy does sports. Ron Flanders does a news report. Never heard of him. Was he a freelancer or did he only last a few months? Also interesting to see Steve Ammerman do the evening shift this early in his career - in the 15 years he worked at News 10 he worked every shift, starting as a reporter, followed by the weekend newscasts in 2000, morning and noon in 2005 (and again from 2011 to 2012), and from 2007 to 2011 he worked the 6 and 11pm shows.

It's a WTEN newscast so a boatload of stories are breezed through. The top story is a bombshell on Bob Barr, the first congressman to ask President Clinton to resign. Barr was exposed by Larry Flynt, publisher of the Hustler who had previously exposed Bob Livingston (and thus provoked his resignation from Congress). Flynt held a press conference while the newscast was running, and a good portion of it is aired live. At one point WTEN misspells his name, takes the L3 off and brings it back up with the correct spelling!

Other stories include Schenectady's new City Council head Joe Allen, who takes the reign after a chaotic year for the city (which included a sex scandal), new bus signs imprinted to discourage drinking and driving, the investigation on Princess Diana's car accident continues, Dolly Madison is unveiled on a new silver dollar, some Russian orangutans are instructed via US television on how to parent their babies, then-AG Eliot Spitzer backs the Clinic Access Bill, the city of Buffalo is plagued by over 3 feet of snow and the National Guard is deployed over there, Boston Globe columnist Mike Barnicle returns to television (he was also a fixture on the news at WCVB in Boston), and the live lottery drawing.

The spotlight story is one for the ages. Did you know you could now hook up your Internet, music, CDs, pretty much everything to your car? Yes you can! Thanks to Microsoft Windows, you can use your voice to turn on the "Auto PC," which (thanks to its Stephen Hawking-like voice) keeps the burden of using your cell phone and driving at bay. Remember, you can't text people yet, that's another story.

In weather it's looking like January in the Capital Region. Thursday is the coldest, with a high of 12, and the day before, a low of -4! A light snowstorm drizzles Albany but plagues the Catskills and Mohawk Valley. Dan Murphy jokes he is the "odd man out" because he is surrounded by two Steve's, to which Ammerman replies "I'll get the paperwork done" to change Murph's name to "Steve."

Speaking of Murph, he's got UAlbany men's basketball vs. Bridgeport. The Great Danes are bound to go Division 1 the following year, but they didn't seem to have much potential that season. The Siena Saints, however, do have the guts, and their next game would be against Fairfield (the Saints won 96-82, their first road win against a conference school). Also Guilderland basketball welcomes Shaker (that gym has NOT been renovated aside from the floor in its 28 years), and Ron Artest (you know, Malice at the Palace?) and St. John's fight Georgetown in a close battle.

The news theme is Primetime News by Non-Stop Music, which WTEN used for a decade. The graphics were done in 1997 and emulated the short-lived tabloid look KMGH in Denver used. Because Jim Brennan and Elisa Streeter had the night off, there is no talent bump.

(C) 1999 Young Broadcasting; WTEN is now owned by Nexstar Media Group. No copyright infringement intended. For educational and historical purposes only. We don't profit off this video.