CHANNEL SURFING
Real people, real shake-up

As expected, there will be a major reshuffling of the KYW-3 anchor desk by vice president and general manager Marcellus Alexander

By LAURA NACHMAN
Courier Times
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As expected, there will be a major reshuffling of the KYW-3 anchor desk by vice president and general manager Marcellus Alexander starting Sept. 10. Dave Frankel gets discarded from the 6 p.m. newscast, replaced by Larry Kane, who joins Siani Lee. This means Frankel's days are numbered at KYW. His contract is up in March, but he is in negotiations with management for a mutual end date, which will probably come sooner than March. After a long and successful run at WPVI, things never really worked out for Frankel at 3, lasting only three-plus years.

At 11 p.m., Kane will be joined by "wild card" Denise Saunders, promoted from the weekends. Pat Ciarrocchi, who has spent 15 of her 19 years at KYW on the Dawn Patrol, gets dealt a new hand - moving from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m., while continuing the noon broadcast with Ukee Washington.

That means it's no longer the Dawn Patrol for Dawn Stensland at 5 p.m., as she becomes strictly a reporter for now. A newsroom source said most of the station was in shock over the promotion of relative newcomer Saunders and demotion of the popular four-year station veteran Stensland, who is married to NBC10's Larry Mendte. Besides her high profile role at the station and in town, Stensland is highly regarded in the eyes of CBS network management, coming "this close'' to getting the co-host position that went to Jane Clayson on "The CBS Early Show.'' She also anchored the network's "CBS Saturday Morning News.''

It was inevitable that changes would be made at KYW-3 after a horrendous May ratings period, especially at 5 p.m., when it finished fourth in its time slot behind the news on 6 and 10 and "Judge Judy'' on 29.

Incoming news director Sue Schiller, who was part of the decision-making process, starts fulltime this week.

On a bright note, KYW's "Best of Philly'' special, co-hosted by Stensland and Washington, had a 5.1 rating/9 share for KYW-3 on July 30, besting "Hollywood Squares'' normal 4.6 rating. It tied for third place with "Seinfeld'' on Fox, behind "Wheel of Fortune'' on 6ABC and "Access Hollywood'' on NBC10. Each rating point represents around 26,000 households.