NEW YORK and WASHINGTON -- We've heard and watched the seemingly never-ending parade of political spots on radio and TV stations everywhere over the past few weeks. Tonight, we'll finally learn all the winners and losers in the 2010 elections... and two broadcasters who honed their craft in Syracuse will be heard across the country as they report for ABC News Radio.
Aaron Katersky, a 1997 grad of SU and a former reporter for WSYR, will be anchoring the network's coverage alongside longtime ABC News fixture Sam Donaldson. ABC News Radio says its wall-to-wall election night coverage will begin at 7:00pm Eastern, "and will continue through at least" approximately 1:00am, leaving open the possibility for extended coverage in the event of any key races that might not be resolved by that time.
ABC says a long list of correspondents will be joining in the coverage from sites across the country. Among them will be Steven Portnoy, who will be in position to gather reaction from Republican party leaders in Washington, DC. In addition to graduating from SU, Portnoy worked as a reporter at WSYR radio, and as a news producer at WSTM-TV and the former WIXT-TV.
ABC News Radio's top-of-hour updates are carried by 105.9 The Big Talker (WXTL) and CNY Talk Radio (WFBL/WMCR/WUTI), but it's not clear if local listeners will have the chance to hear any of Katersky's or Portnoy's reporting tonight.
Tom Mitchell, Operations Manager for the Citadel cluster that includes WXTL, says his station will be sticking to its regular lineup of talk shows, rather than going with ABC's wall-to-wall election coverage.
We received no response to our inquiries to management at CNY Talk Radio regarding their election night plans, but as of 7:15pm, it appears they too are sticking with the regular lineup.
Thanks to a CNYRadio.com reader who pointed out the announcement that got us started on this story. Anytime you hear or see anything that might be newsworthy, we're at cnyradio@cnyradio.com.