Knott's Landing...
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Rene Knott saw the writing on the wall.
The St. Louis Sports Anchor say that the future of local TV sports was not looking very bright. When they would cut the time on his sportscast and it pissed him off.
But, instead of just being mad, he decided to do something about it. He told management he wanted out of sports and wanted to do news.
The sports guy was ready to move to the dark side.
“On one of those days when I wasn’t real happy with the amount of time we were getting in sports I thought, ‘Maybe I should try that,’” he said of moving to the news side. “I asked a couple people, they said it would be kind of cool.”
There was discussion about him working in a news fill-in capacity while remaining in sports, but after a rehearsal with anchor Alexandra Corey, the decision was made for a full-time switch. Add that Knott is 52 and television has become a young person’s game — just consider the list of experienced journalists in the market being jettisoned for junior, cheaper help — and he figured versatility would be a plus.
“I thought about it and said for my career and for taking that next step and expanding who you are, and a new challenge, that was the only thing left to do,” he said. “I felt not so much stifled by what we were doing (in sports) because I enjoy doing the high school games and going to Blues skates and Cardinals games. But it was, ‘What else is there? What more can you do? What other influences can you have?’”
“You’ve got to start thinking about what else is there if you want to continue in this line of work. And I do. If we had a normal opportunity to do at least one big (sports) show a week, I’d be right there. But when you’re doing 10-12 hours of going out shooting high school games and getting this and getting that and coming back and condensing it so it fits, it can be frustrating.”
As the morning News Anchor it is a change. He said he now is getting up at 1:15 in the morning to be ready to go on the air at 5. When he was in sports, sometimes he wouldn’t be off the air until after midnight.
“It’s taking some getting used to,” he said, chuckling.
KSDK News Director Karin Movesian said: “We’re super excited that Rene is a new addition to our weekday morning show.”
