November 30, 2007 – 12:01 am
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Posted in Montreal, TV
According to Coolopolis, CTV weatherman Frank Cavallaro’s days are numbered, thanks to a decision by management not to renew his contract.
One can guess at why this decision was made: hair not blond enough, boobs not perky enough, insufficient ratings boost from teenage boy masturbation (though I dispute that last one, see below).
But no matter his meteorological credentials or his mad witty-banter skills that he displays with other hosts, Frank has always been a polarizing figure, as evidenced by two Facebook groups: one praising his giant zucchini, another recommending his lynching, that are fiercely competing for membership (28 members in the former, 26 in the latter as of this writing).
Of course, with looks like these, the World’s Top Weather Presenter probably won’t be out of a job long:

The news also has a funny timing to it. Tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of the departure of Bill Haugland.
So who’s next off the island?

Here’s a quick cheat sheet of CTV News’s big personalities (hey, where’s Rob Lurie?), assuming of course that looks is your only criteria. It’s ordered by seniority, with the newest members on the left. I’m discounting lead anchors Mutsumi Takahashi and Brian Britt (lower left), since I’m pretty sure they’re set for as long as they want the jobs.
UPDATE (Dec. 21): The Suburban’s Mike Cohen has some career suggestions for Frank: either radio or a job at CBC.
Speaking of old YouTube clips from CFCF, here’s some more fond memories of Montreal’s 1/2 Watch:
And as a special bonus, a pair of clips of Tarah Schwartz (Tarah Black back then) doing a light-hearted Halloween-themed anchoring on the Weather Network in 1996.

Remember Howard Schwartz? Yeah, neither did I at first, until investigative reporter J. D. Gravenor (who’s a great guy by the way) pointed out this video he posted interviewing Luciano Pavarotti at the airport in November 1982.
Schwartz was a reporter for Pulse News (which has since been de-branded into the pathetically generic CTV News Montreal) from 1982 to 1995. He left the station to enter the evil world of public relations (for, among other things, giant pharmaceutical companies), and now lives in the U.S.
He’s also a prolific YouTube user, having posted a couple of dozen videos. Perhaps the most interesting one is this video of him anchoring Pulse News in 1994:
September 10, 2007 – 6:44 pm
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Posted in TV
CTV News Montreal has flashy new titles super-imposed at the bottom of news reports. In addition to the standard text-over-blue-bar, there’s now clip art or stock photos that are relevant to the story. A map of Iraq for a story about the war. The logo of the city for a municipal affairs story. Flames for a story about a fire.
What gets me is that there are people paid to do this. People spend time during their day finding stock photos and photoshopping them into graphics. People who could otherwise be performing acts of real journalism.
Sadly, it appears CTV is more interested in flashy gimmicks like uninformative graphics and pointless live standups to introduce pre-packaged news reports than it is in hiring more journalists to tell us what’s happening in our city.