Donya Archer of "Good Day Philadelphia" is leaving town to be with her fiance, Hedgefund manager, Scott Bommer, 35, in New York City.

By LAURA NACHMAN
Courier Times
E-mail

Donya Archer is saying "Good Day" to "Good Day Philadelphia" and hello to marriage. The popular Fox-Philadelphia news anchor is leaving town to be with her fiance, Hedgefund manager, Scott Bommer, 35, in New York City.

Archer, 34, who once dated former "Good Day Philadelphia" co-anchor Don Tollefson, is getting married in Santa Monica, Calif., near her hometown of Los Angeles on Aug. 24. Her last day on the morning show will be Feb. 27. Archer said after taking a couple of months off, she'll look for broadcasting opportunities in New York.

Archer was with Fox-Philadelphia since 1996 and co-hosted "Good Day" since 1999. The show placed third in the ratings in November; behind "Good Day America" on 6ABC and "The Today Show" on NBC 10, but ahead of "The Early Show" on KYW-3.

A Fox spokesperson said a nationwide search has begun to find a co-anchor to join Mike Jerrick. Sue Serio and Janet Zappala would be the most likely candidates if Fox-Philadelphia chose to stay in-house. This is the second major personnel change announced by Fox-Philadelphia within the last week. "Ten O'clock News" anchor Rich Noonan was told his contract won't be renewed at the end of February.

TIM LAKE IS MISSING

"Three's company, but four's a crowd" for NBC 10, as Tim Lake gets bumped off the weekday afternoon/early evening news shows. Larry Mendte, Renee Chenault-Fattah and Tracy Davidson remain anchors from 4-6:30 p.m. Lake hits the streets as a full-time reporter. Meanwhile, former weekend evening news anchor John Alston has bolted from the station to seek his fortune as a weekday anchor elsewhere. Since many of the NBC 10 weekend newscasts will be pre-empted for the Olympics in February, a replacement won't be named for a while.

SWEEPS REFOCUS

News directors representing most of the local stations said that because of September 11, "sweeps" would be different in February.

"There will be more substantial stories. Many stories that we would have done in the past would be considered trivial today," said WB17's Rich Scott at the NATAS (National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences) Philadelphia chapter's Meet the News Directors event.

Scott, along with the news directors of NBC 10 (Chris Blackman), WHYY 12 (Marie Krips), KYW-3 (Susan Schiller), Fox-29 (Scott Matthews), and CN8 (Margie Walsh) discussed how their jobs have changed since the terrorist attacks and other issues of the television news business.

Margie Walsh, news director of CN8 denounced the tickers that have become commonplace the past few months. "If I was a reporter or photographer, I wouldn't like a ticker taking attention away from the story I worked on. There is too much information being thrown at people at one time," she said.

With the average tenure of a news director being two years (true to form, only Rich Scott was on the panel at the last event two-and-a-half years ago), the panel was asked what their futures held. Scott Matthews, the news director of Fox-29 joked, "would you like that supersized?"

SCHILLER DEALS

KYW-3 news director Susan Schiller has made some behind-the-scenes changes as Mike Archer gets promoted to managing editor and Rich Edwards gets the dreaded "special projects" assignment. Also, Cara Grimm of Baltimore takes over the executive producer slot from Barbara Grant who is now the planning editor.

E-mail your questions or comments to bradyresident@aol.com. Laura appears on WBCB 1490-AM Monday and Friday at 8:45 a.m.

Thursday, January 31, 2002