Uncle Barky's reporting that Andrea Burnett, who joined KXAS-Channel 5 as a weekday morning reporter at the beginning of the year, is "the latest casualty of corporate-mandated downsizing." In other words: Last one in, first one out. Or damned near. She came here from Wichita Falls, Ed says, and now she's joining Richard 'Cash' Sirois, Ramona Logan and Loriana Hernandez in the station's "recent or soon-to-be unemployed ranks." Uncle Barky says she will be fired before the new year.
Likely, this relates to something we mentioned in October, when NBC Universal Television Group CEO Jeff Zucker announced that the Peacock's cutting $750 million from the budget by 2008, which it will have to do by firing some 700 employees -- not only at the network but throughout every media property owned by the conglomerate. That's already hit Telemundo's local operations, as we mentioned here. And word was it was going to affect NBC's owned-and-operated affiliates, which includes KXAS-Channel 5. --Robert Wilonsky