Sportscaster Brian Sinkoff came into a unique situation when he joined WTEN (Ch. 10) in September 2005.
First of all, he was replacing sports director Dan Murphy, whose contract wasn’t being renewed after 16 years at the station. Second, WTEN was experimenting with doing sports features, and not the traditional three-minute sportscast.
Then you come to find out that Sinkoff was hired before Murphy had even left. And then you learn that Sinkoff had previously worked with WTEN station manager Rene LaSpina in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, Pa. So, you think there would be some loyalty shown to Sinkoff by her.
That didn’t happen on Tuesday. Sinkoff, along with several other staffers, were laid off by WTEN.
I have mixed emotions about it. First and foremost, I feel bad for him because I don’t like to see people lose their job.
On the other hand, Sinkoff never stood out when I would watch him. The sportscasts were OK, but they didn’t make me want to come back to watch every night.
To his credit, he did get WTEN to restore the regular sportscasts, and he helped start “Friday Night Frenzy,” the high school basketball highlight show.
The timing of letting Sinkoff go is horrible. We are in the middle of the high school basketball season, and the Giants are getting ready to play in the Super Bowl. Weekend sports anchor Jamie Seh will be very busy.
It will be interesting to see how quickly WTEN hires a replacement for Sinkoff, but I bet it won’t be as fast they hired him to replace Murphy.