Ms. Meade was a local cutie on channel 8 Cleveland - and Miss Ohio before that - before going to local TV in Chicago and CNN/HLN afterwards.
Kelly O’Donnell was also on TV 8 in Cleveland before going to NBC news.
I’d long heard that Oprah Winfrey once worked as the weather girl on the television station in Greenwood, MS, but her bio doesn’t mention it. Instead, her first broadcasting job was in radio on WVOL in Nashville at the tender age of 17. Two years later she moved to TV on WTVF, also in Nashville.
J.D. Hayworth was a TV sports person in Phoenix before he was elected to congress. He is now running against John McCain.
A few DC-area newscasters did national-level work. Ron Canada, a Channel 7 newsman, was a semi-regular on The West Wing. Maury Povitch started out on Channel 5 news. Warner Wolf was a local sportscaster. Tony Kornheiser started as a sports columnist at The Washington Post and went up the TV food chain. Gwen Ifill, the woman who moderated the presidential debates in 2008, is a well-known DC TV personality. Her local PBS show, Washington Week, went national.
I live in Seattle now. A local sketch comedy show, Almost Live, launched the career of Bill Nye, the Science Guy.
Same with Sean Hannity, who did morning radio at AM 670(?), the “News Monster”.
I couldn’t believe it when he went national - I was glad he was off the air, but I couldn’t believe that he had the chops to go national.
Susan Hay, the weather anchor for Global Toronto, once worked for CICI, the CTV affiliate in Sudbury, Ontario.
Ernie Anderson was the late-night-picture-show host Ghoulardi in Cleveland before leaving for LA to become a very successful announcer/voice guy. You’ve heard his voice.
You also know his son, Paul Thomas Anderson.
One of the regular QVC salespeople, David Venable, was doing local news in Altoona, PA, for years before he moved over to West Chester. He’s not actually FROM here, though…I think he’s from one of the Carolinas, and you can kind of hear remnants of the accent if you listen long enough.
I was born in San Diego in 1950, lived there until 5 years ago. In the early 60’s our local TV Channel 10 had an on-air personality named Regis Philbin.
Edit- As already noted many posts earlier.
He actually predates television, but CBS football announcer Ray Scott got his start in radio in my native Johnstown, PA in 1937. He started doing NFL games on TV for the Dumont network in 1953. He moved to CBS and was assigned specifically to announce Green Bay Packers games for them. He called four Super Bowls and nine NFL title games including the “Ice Bowl” NFL championship game in 1967 (the NFL and AFL were still run as two separate leagues, the schedules weren’t merged until 1970). He also was the announcer for virtually every major college bowl game.
In addition, he broadcast NCAA and NIT college basketball championships, as well as the Masters and PGA Championship golf tournaments.
Tom Bergeron used to host a high-school quiz show in New Hampshire that I watch occasionally, Granite State Challenge. He left the show before I started watching it though.
From the area I was born in, there first ones I think of are Denise Van Outen (I never met her but know many people who did), Joe Pasquale and Russell Brand (was in the year above me at the same school and I’m pretty sure he was the Russell I knew when I was 11).
I now live in Bethnal Green, East London. Abutting Hoxton. There are thousands of TV types within twenty minutes’ walk of my flat. The last couple of celeb obits I’ve read were about people I’d met several times.
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Stuart Scott of ESPN also started in local TV in Raleigh.
Also known as the guy who gave Tim Conway his start.
Drew Carey, of course.
Phil Donahue.
Comedian Jack Riley (“Elliot” from The Bob Newhart Show) got his start on Cleveland radio.
Back in the late 80s, WPXI, the NBC affiliate in Pittsburgh, was the first major market news anchor job for a young woman named Edye Tarbox, who prior to that had been a VJ on VH-1 (when it was the adult contemporary clone of MTV). She bumped up markets quickly to Boston then NYC, then disappeared for a few years, then re-emerged on Fox News, now calling herself by her new married name “E.D. Donehey” rather than Edye, then E.D. Hill. Yes, she of the “terrorist fist jab” nonsense. She sucked as an anchor when she was here, it doesn’t surprise me where she’s ended up.
Growing up in central PA, I used to watch WNEP’s Newswatch 16, where some guy named Bill O’Reilly used to work as a reporter. Whatever happened to him, anyway?
Cliff Arquette, famous comedian, TV and Radio personality who was big in the heyday of Chicago radio and later famous for his TV Character "Charley Weaver, the wild old man from Mount Idy."was born in Toledo. He is perhaps most well known in contemporary times as the grandfather of Patricia Arquette, Rosanna Arquette, David Arquette, and Alexis Arquette. According to this Biography he had his first gig in Toledo as Cliff Arquette and His Purple Derbies.
Craig Sager, the NBA sideline reporter for TNT, got his start in Kansas City TV back in the 80’s.
I don’t remember him wearing crazy suits like this back then!! It’s always interesting to see the crazy combinations he comes up with.
