Charlotte Newscasts

Estimated viewers reached by key weekday newscasts during the November sweeps and percentage rating change from last November as measured by Nielsen.

Source: Nielsen

Former Charlotte sportscasters are still making a buzz.

Tim Baier is the latest to leave the business. After six years at News 14 Carolina, Baier has joined Spiracle Media, a company launched in 2011 by former WSOC (Channel 9) sports anchor Bill Voth and Jarod Latch, who covered sports for WCNC (Channel 36).

Spiracle is the word for the bee’s component that makes it buzz. Spiracle was aimed at sports groups but has branched out to other businesses, doing social media and consulting.

“Video is what’s really exploded,” says Voth. “Everyone wants video for websites, conferences, on social media, in stores, for employee training, all across the board.”

Voth, Latch and Baier all come from video backgrounds and are familiar with telling stories with pictures.

Baier says he enjoyed his time at Time Warner Cable’s News 14. It is one of the few stations that still puts resources into covering local teams and does a half-hour sportscast at 10 p.m.

Baier covered the Panthers, Bobcats, the NCAA Final Four and even the Master’s tournament in Augusta, Ga. He knew Voth and Latch from covering the sports circuit, and when they decided to expand the company, he decided to take a chance on a career change.

“I came a point that I wanted to stay in Charlotte. I could take a risk now and it wouldn’t hurt too much,” says Baier, 33, who grew up in Atlanta and started in sportscasting at a station in Bangor, Maine.

Media Movers

Matt Harris and Ramona Holloway will be stepping down in two weeks as hosts of “Fox News Edge” (10:35 p.m. weeknights, WCCB, Channel 18). It’s become too much for them as they continue their “Matt & Ramona” afternoon show on WLNK-FM (“Link” 107.9).

“I’m sleepy,” says Holloway. “No matter how we slice it, we get off The Link at 7, go home and get dinner and get out of radio clothes and into fancy TV clothes and get off at 11.”

Harris and Holloway hosted “Edge” for two years, then left in 2006 to concentrate on radio. They returned after Christopher Frederick, better known as “Brotha Fred,” and Morgan Fogarty left “Edge” in January 2011. Fox Charlotte is looking for replacements, says news director Ken White. …

Jack Anthony, known for his 25 years in Charlotte radio at WRFX-FM (“Fox” 99.7) and WEND-FM (“End” 106.5), is now managing a low-power, noncommercial station launched in August in Fort Mill, S.C. WFBK-FM (91.5) plays a mix of classics and contemporary music and Anthony runs it out of his home studio.

“I program it, sell it, promote it, and I’m the on-air talent. It’s a dream come true for an old radio guy,” says Anthony, 50. A fundraising concert for the station will be held Dec. 11 at The Courtroom at Gettys in Rock Hill. …

Joining WNKS-FM (“Kiss” 95.1) for nights on Dec. 17 is Jay Sparxx, who held a similar shift at a Memphis Top-40 station. … Promotion director Shelia Taylor leaves WEND-FM after 12 years. …

Among those nominated for North Carolina sportscaster of the year by the Salisbury-based National Sportswriters-Sportscasters Association are David Jackson of the Appalachian State Radio Network in Boone and Mick Mixon of the Carolina Panthers Radio Network. …

Former Fox Charlotte (WCCB, Channel 18) weekend anchor Eva Pilgrim is moving to the ABC affiliate in Philadelphia. Most recently she worked at the Fox affiliate in Indianapolis. … Greenville, S.C.-based WMUU-FM (94.5), known to listeners in upstate South Carolina for its religious and easy-listening programming, will flip to a nonsecular conservative talk format on Monday.