THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 5, 1996 TAG: 9601050075
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: LARRY BONKO
LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines
LOCAL TV BITS and pieces to nibble on while you adjust to writing ``1996'' on your checks:
By gosh, she was right here all the time - After advertising nationally for a weekend co-anchor to replace Chicago-bound Lisa Parker, the WAVY bosses decided on Christy Carlo, who already was on the payroll.
Twentysomething Carlo, a reporter with the NBC affiliate less than six months, begins co-anchoring on the weekends this Saturday. She's a native of Tarrytown, N.Y., and a Tufts U. grad (English and history) who worked as a weekend anchor in Fort Smith, Ark., before joining WAVY.
Do I have permission from the feminists to say she's cute? Don't be surprised if WAVY again stays home when selecting a news director to replace Gary Stokes, now in Buffalo.
Also in the new faces department, WVEC has elevated 22-year-old Evan Stewart from behind-the-scenes producer in the weather center to reporting on camera when Jeff Lawson and Karen Jones are away. He's a Portsmouth native and a recent graduate of North Carolina State University who worked his way up from intern.
And coming in off the bench is an actress from Virginia Beach - Producers of soap operas really hate it when an actor suddenly ups and quits a series, leaving viewers to wonder why that character departed so abruptly. It happened recently on NBC's ``Days of Our Lives'' when Melissa Reeves departed - or ``ankled,'' if you prefer the term they use in Variety.
When Reeves yielded the role of Jennifer Horton Deveraux she has played for 10 years, the producers selected Cox High grad Stephanie Cameron, also a model, as her replacement.
Less than two weeks after she tested for the Deveraux role, Cameron was working on the series in which Deidre Hall is the big name. They have something in common - Virginia Beach, which Hall visits often to see her twin sister and other kinfolk.
Another ``Days'' star, Jason Brooks, will be at the Virginia Beach Pavilion Jan. 13-14 for the ``World of Wheels Custom Auto Show.'' He'll start signing autographs at 1 p.m. each day. Small world.
Look at it as a late Christmas gift - Cox Cable, which used to charge the full price for every outlet with premium services HBO, Cinemax and Showtime, is advertising free additional hook-ups in 1996.
There is one hitch. You have to subscribe to at least two of the pricey services (HBO and HBO2 cost $11.50) to qualify for the ``free'' additional outlets. I spring for HBO, but can't find another pay service worth $10 or $11 a month.
It certainly took long enough - Here it is, almost a year since Martin Lawrence of the Fox sitcom ``Martin'' married the former Pat Southall of Chesapeake, and their wedding pictures are just now showing up in the Star tabloid.
What took so long, I wonder? Their baby is due any day now. The same issue of Star reports that a private plane in which the Latin Sinatra, Julio Iglesias, was being flown to Miami was forced to make an emergency landing at Norfolk International Airport.
The readers write - From Barbara McCuen in Virginia Beach: ``In your column about the new talk show co-starring Tammy Faye Bakker Messner, you suggested that WYAH in Portsmouth (now WGNT) and the Bakkers' puppet show was the rock on which the Christian Broadcasting Network is built. The rock is Jesus Christ and not a puppet show. If the Bakkers had listened to Godly counsel, their lives would not have become the evangelical puppet show of the 1980s.''
(I still say: The Bakkers were instrumental in making WYAH successful, and on that success and others, the CBN teleministry was established). by CNB