News flash: Veteran broadcaster, weatherman and all-round performer Karl Wells (photo by Randy Dawe) is retiring from CBC, effective August 1. I will have more on this later. In the meantime, the following internal memo from Janice Stein, Managing Editor for CBC NL, sums up this story quite nicely. I had noticed that Karl was becoming much more animated lately, reading the weather like he was calling the play by play in the Stanley Cup finals. Perhaps he was betraying some of that excitement that one must feel when surveying the new vistas that await in retirement. In this case, Karl plans to pursue his freelance writing career. Karl operates a great web site so if you would like to read more about him, click here. Here's the memo from Janice Stein:Karl Wells, our colleague and Here & Now's weatherperson for almost 30 years, has decided to retire from the CBC.
With the approach of his official CBC retirement date of August 1, Karl has been thinking about a career change. He wants to pursue freelance writing. Karl already writes a regular column for The Telegram and he hopes to expand into magazine writing.
Karl began his remarkable 31-year career with the CBC in 1976 as an announcer in radio and television. In radio he was the first host of Weekend AM and the voice of the Morning Show’s satirical segment, His Worship, an impersonation of former St. John’s mayor John Murphy. In 1978 he moved to television to begin his Here and Now weather assignment and to anchor the very successful late night news program, Newsfinal. In 2001 he went national for two years as the Country Canada channel’s morning weatherperson on CountryWide.
During the past 31 years Karl has spent almost 30 years reporting the weather on Here and Now, becoming an icon across the province for his weather knowledge. During that time he became one of our most visible CBC personalities, in large part because of the highly successful live community segment he helped develop during the early nineties, reporting from winter carnivals, fire stations, church basements, fishing boats and live from the Hibernia platform, over 350 km offshore!
As well as the weather, Karl used his passion for arts and food to bring many arts personalities to our show and to launch the popular ‘Cooking with Karl’ series. And he has always been an ambassador for the CBC at community events, including his role as volunteer host of the CBC Janeway Telethon.
It will be a challenge to find a replacement for Karl. Karl will remain with us as we search for a new weather person and help with training. Our search will begin immediately. We hope to have a new weatherperson selected and trained soon.
Karl’s commitment to his work at Here & Now and to his role as a representative in the community is something we appreciate and will miss. Please join me in congratulating Karl on a wonderful career with the CBC and wish him all the best in exploring his new adventures in writing.
2 comments:
The first and most concerning question to come to my mind upon reading this...Who is going to bring it home with their Scrooge impersonation at The Christmas Carol!?!
I most certainly feel that the person hired to replace him is not doing justice to the position he held.....It is sad that he was forced to retire due to the politics of CBC....Karl should write a book about his career with CBC....
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