Media Frenzy

By Rob Holbert Managing Editor

It didn’t take long for WPMI to find its new morning anchor – all they had to do was look towards the sports desk.

Starting Labor Day, Pat Greenwood, the station’s nighttime sports anchor and sports director will take over as one of its morning show co-hosts. Greenwood makes the jump from nights to morning and sports to news after a decade at the NBC affiliate. Greenwood said he is excited about the new challenge and taking over for Scott Walker, who recently left for an anchor position in Orlando, Fla.

“I started in sports for two years in Hattiesburg (Miss.), then switched to news anchor for two years in Lafayette (La.) for two years before coming here,” Greenwood said. “It’s always difficult to leave your comfort zone, but it’s exciting.”

Greenwood said his three children provide one of the biggest incentives for him to make the switch to mornings. He said getting to spend more time with them as they enter school age was an important consideration in seeking the morning anchor’s job. Often, he said, covering sporting events takes him away nights and weekends, meaning he might not see his wife and children all day sometimes.

So, believe it or not, Greenwood welcomes a schedule change that will have him getting up at 3 a.m. instead of coming home at midnight.

“When you have kids everything changes. This schedule is so much more conducive for the kids,” he explained. “They spend all day in school and I don’t get to see them as much as I’d like to. This will allow me to spend more time with my kids and my wife.”

A Mobile native and McGill-Toolen graduate, Greenwood says he currently coaches his nephew in basketball and intends to do the same for his oldest daughter, Maddy, in a year or two. The job change will help those family goals as well, he said.

“Now I can have practice whenever I want. And my son, Robert isn’t far from T-ball, too,” Greenwood said.

Asked how he thinks he and Walker might differ in their approach to the show, Greenwood said the two have such similar backgrounds, that it might not be all that different.

“I don’t know if it will be that much different. You know Scott was in Hattiesburg at the same time I was and he was a sports guy. It’s funny how much our paths have followed the same course,” he said.

In an e-mail to the WPMI staff, news director Michael McCormick said Greenwood had been selected after a nationwide search.

“After a nationwide search, we found our next morning anchor right here at home,” he wrote.

Greenwood also joked the move to the morning show gives him a better shot at winning a coveted Nappie Award, after finishing second to WKRG’s Randy Patrick for several years. Walker has won a Nappie for favorite morning show four years in a row.

“This gives me my best shot at winning a Nappie,” Greenwood said.

Mobile in the news

The Port City was recently featured in a couple of business television reports and has two local businesses highlighted in a national business magazine.

A two-part profile on Mobile aired on CNBC Aug. 23 and 24 as part of its “On the Money” show. The profile centered on the city’s post-Katrina growth and featured both political and business leaders.

Inc. magazine is also set to profile Southern Light LLC and Hargrove & Associates Inc. as part of its annual list of the nation’s 500 fastest growing companies. The September issue of Inc. ranks Southern Light at 151 and Hargrove at 453.

Jammer jamming

We hear WABB’s programming director Tom Naylor who goes by the on-air name “Jammer” is leaving the station to go to a station in Rockford, Ill. We wish him luck.

Rob Holbert is Lagniappe managing editor. Contact him at rholbert@lagniappemobile.com.

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