Big Emmy Winners Include KMEX, Jon Weisman and Variety

Well, how about that. Two of my favorite former Variety colleagues (FYI, you're all my favorites) took home Emmy gold on Saturday night! I've been writing about the Los Angeles Area Emmy awards for years, but this year it truly hit home: Jon Weisman won the Emmy for Outstanding Sports Feature, having served as an associate producer on Time Warner Cable SportsNet L.A.'s "10,000 Wins" (on Access SportsNet Dodgers). And "Variety Studio: Actors on Actors," including executive producer Donna Pennestri (above, right), won the Outstanding Entertainment Programming Emmy on behalf of PBS SoCal.

Meanwhile, Spanish-language L.A. TV won the day in most of the key categories: NBC-owned Telemundo station KVEA won the top prize, the Regularly Scheduled Daily Evening Newscast (7 pm to Midnight) Emmy for Noticiero Telemundo 52 A Las 11 PM. Univision-owned KMEX won the Emmy for best morning newscast (4 am to 11 am) for Primera Edicion. And KMEX's 6 p.m. newscast tied with KVEA's 5:30 p.m. newscast for best daytime news.

KMEX led all stations with 9 awards, also including outstanding editor-programming (Antonio Camberos), outstanding news director (Horacio Cervantes), outstanding sports reporting (Diana Alvarado), outstanding investigative news reporting, outstanding hard news reporting (Antonio Valverde), outstanding light news story- multi-part report, and outstanding serious news story - multi-part report.

KVEA followed with seven Emmys, then Time Warner Cable SportsNet L.A. (six) and KTLA (five). KCBS' Pat Harvey was given the Governors' Award.

It's About Time: Dodgers Hire Jon Weisman

There are hires that make sense, and then hires that totally make sense. The Los Angeles Dodgers have finally hired Jon Weisman in a key role as director of digital and print content. The move means Jon is putting his long-running blog Dodger Thoughts back into hibernation, but as he shares on his site, it's for a pretty good reason:

I will be writing plenty over there, as part of an overall series of duties that involves managing and producing content for the Dodgers’ publications and website.

As you can imagine, it’s an opportunity that was too intriguing and exciting for me to pass up, which is why I’m willing to give up the longest job I’ve ever held, a position at Variety that has brought me more great memories than I can begin to mention and placed me among a group of colleagues that have been such a pleasure to be with.



It’s also why I’m willing to put Dodger Thoughts in storage – though again, this isn’t exactly as newsworthy as it might have been, before I essentially took a vacation during the 2012-13 offseason, to focus on an extremely busy awards season for Variety. I did find a rebirth on Dodger Thoughts during the 2013 baseball season, but it was always in competition with the other directions I’ve been pulled in.

So while it would be premature to get into specifics about my new duties with the Dodgers, I can say that one of the greatest appeals for me is that for the first time, writing about the Dodgers will move from avocation to vocation, from hobby to primary activity.

I’ll feel safe using Vin Scully (my new colleague!) as my role model. I’ll consider it my job, as an employee of the Dodgers, to inform and to entertain, in service of the organization. You can be sure I’ll be taking that responsibility very seriously. But don’t worry – we’ll have plenty of fun along the way. There’ll be no shortage of insights or stories, great and small.

Congrats to Jon! I know Variety's going to miss him and all the hard work he's done over there through the years. But I'm truly excited for him.