

But a cost-benefit analysis has been calculated, and that's why it's going the way it's going."
#CHANNEL 7 METEOROLOGIST DENVER DAYLE TV#
It was awesome: TV stations were making lots of money, and you weren't rich, but you weren't beating yourself to death at work - and it was fun. If you were to ask me what my golden age was, I would say around 1996. With the advent of 18,000 different social-media platforms, the beast needs to be fed. "Today, there's media that either didn't exist or that weren't as important fifteen or twenty years ago as they are now. That's the reality of the business."ĩNewsIn the meantime, the job itself has gotten tougher, he believes. I think people have this assumption that people on TV are paid these massive amounts of money, but there are a lot of schoolteachers who are making more money than some on-air people here. Now, for me, that's not a hardship - but for a lot of people who are starting out as producers or reporters, it's very difficult to live in some of these larger metropolitan areas on what they're paid. "We had a big adjustment in 2009, during the economic downturn, and those monies have not come back. "I can tell you that I make the same money I made in 2004," he reveals. Still, online technology has had a serious impact on local TV, including the bottom line. I don't know that people are necessarily as invested in me personally as some other people who are around, but I hope they trust that I work hard to get them the best information I can." "Even in the mobile-device age, where you have continuous, instant access to some type of weather information, be it on an app or a website or something like that, I find that people like to have secondary human verification. Yet he understands the importance of the role he plays even during a period when fewer people see local newscasts as appointment television.

I've always felt like I'm a utility infielder or a capable backup quarterback, but not really Tom Brady." We have big personalities here" - a reference to Kathy Sabine, who recently renewed her contract to stay at the station, where she's worked for more than 25 years - "so I do what I need to do to keep the cogs moving. "I was never high profile at Channel 4, and even though I was the evening meteorologist at Channel 7, I wasn't high-profile enough for them, which is why they dumped me for Mike Nelson - which is what happened. "I just do the things that need to be done," he maintains. It feels very much like home."ĭespite being in the spotlight for so long, he's decidedly modest about his accomplishments. "A long, long time ago, my mother asked if I was coming home for Christmas, and I told her, 'Are you asking if I'm coming to your house? Because I live at home.'" He adds that "both my daughters were born here, and they were happy to come back after college to live here, which is wonderful. Over this span, Colorado became more than just a good business opportunity. "I was at Channel 4 for ten years, Channel 7 for five years and Channel 9 after that," he notes. From there, he spent a year prognosticating in La Crosse, Wisconsin, and two more in Decatur, Illinois, before getting an opportunity in Colorado. He grew up in Lincoln, earned a bachelor's degree in meteorology from the state university based there and got his first TV job at a station in town in 1985.

So why is Coniglio planning to walk away from what appears to be a plum gig, especially during a period of downsizing and layoffs throughout the traditional media industry? It's complicated. "The honest answer is, I don't know what I'm going to be doing," he says. Indeed, he's open to giving up the television-news business in favor of something new, though he hasn't zeroed in on anything specific. "I wish he wasn't leaving."Īt this point, Coniglio doesn't have a gig lined up with another broadcaster. "I love Marty," says Mark Cornetta, the president and general manager of 9News and its sister station, KTVD, as well as executive vice president for TEGNA, the signals' parent company. But as of December 30, Coniglio will leave 9News and leap into the great unknown.Ĭoniglio isn't retiring, and he's not being pushed out by his current employer. Marty Coniglio has been forecasting Denver weather for three decades at various local TV stations - most recently at 9News, where he's been a staple for fifteen years on such programs as the highly rated morning show.
