Despite slip, Miss Cleo off WTVT weeks ago

© St. Petersburg Times
published February 16, 2002

Ask WTVT-Ch. 13 general manager Bob Linger, and he'll tell you the Fox affiliate stopped airing ads for self-proclaimed telephone psychic Miss Cleo weeks ago.

The station terminated both advertisements and infomercials for the Psychic Readers Network in Florida (the company that presents the Miss Cleo service), after broadcasting a story in August by investigative reporter Glenn Selig featuring a caller who was charged $314 for a supposedly free psychic reading. The advertisements stopped in December, and the infomercials stopped in late December or January, Linger said.

On Thursday, state Attorney General Bob Butterworth filed a lawsuit asking the court to shut down Miss Cleo (real name: Youree Dell Harris) and the Fort Lauderdale company for deceptive business practices.

So why did a commercial for Miss Cleo air on WTVT Friday afternoon?

Linger said Friday's Jenny Jones Show featured a Miss Cleo commercial that was carried nationally by Warner Bros. Television, the company that sells Jenny Jones to TV stations nationwide. Though WTVT had asked Warner Bros. to send Cleo-free Jenny Jones episodes, apparently one slipped by.

"I found the Miss Cleo character to be misleading," said Linger, who said viewers complained last year that the station was airing ads featuring a business questioned by its own investigative reporter.

The general manager would not say how much money WTVT lost by refusing to air Miss Cleo ads, but said he would press Warner Bros. again for Cleo-free episodes. Representatives of Warner Bros. did not comment by press time.

African-American woman to replace Michaels

Mace Michaels, weekend meteorologist at WFLA-Ch. 8, will soon be leaving the station, which has not renewed his contract.

His replacement, Jennifer Hill, comes to WFLA from WLOS-TV in Asheville, N.C. She will be the market's only African-American weather forecaster.

Michaels, 31, got a bumpy start in the Tampa Bay area TV scene in June 2000. He broke away from a U.S. Open broadcast to report on a waterspout just as golf great Tiger Woods was finishing a record, 15-stroke victory. WFLA news director Forrest Carr said the incident, and the wave of viewer complaints it caused, was not the reason for Michaels' departure.

Hill comes to WFLA the week of Feb. 25, but Michaels -- who said he has known of the coming change since May -- will continue helping out when chief meteorologist Steve Jerve vacations.

As the daughter of Oregon Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jim Hill, WFLA's newest weather forecaster has already asked for one perk.

"I had to promise in advance that she could take Election Day off," said Carr, "which is understandable."

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