WEST PALM BEACH, FL -- Former WSTM news director Cathy Younkin is "on the beach" after more than four years running the newsroom at the CBS affiliate in the country's 38th largest television market. And one report says her departure from WPEC channel 12 was not of her own choosing.
By way of Mediabistro's TV Spy, a report from "Gossip Extra," which bills itself as South Florida's Online Tabloid, comes word that Younkin was fired Friday morning, "after years of downward ratings."
The report claims WPEC's newscasts solidly ranked second in the Nielsen ratings when Younkin arrived in 2009... but rather than overtaking the market's leader, WPEC's newscasts actually fell to third place during Younkin's tenure. The report quotes an insider who says an announcement said Younkin was leaving "to pursue other interests ... but it's pretty clear to everybody that she was canned."
TV Spy says it was able to obtain its own confirmation of Younkin's exit from WPEC general manager Michael Pumo, but he declined to provide further comment.
Younkin was news director at Syracuse's WSTM-TV during the early- to mid-2000s; according to the archives at our colleague Scott Fybush's NorthEast Radio Watch, Younkin left channel 3 in 2007 for the job she'd hold in Michigan before heading south to Florida.
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