OddsMakers! (5/16/16)

It’s been around three months since our last OddsMakers! attempt. One day, we may go back at see how badly great that we did on our predictions. One day. Maybe. Possibly.

Anyway, our crack team of SouthsideCentral writers (not to be confused with the SouthsideCentral writers on crack) have pulled the OddsMakers! chalkboard out of the closet. They told me that this version has a special theme to it. Oh, lovely. Let’s get to it.

I’m a little been interested about this “special theme” thing. Let’s take a look and see what they’ve put on the Big OddsMakers! Board.

Heh. Nice! Every proposition ends with “leaves before the end of the year”. We can work with this, even if they stuck a fifth one on the board. Mean ol’ writers. Let’s get to work!

Hey?! What the heck? You People repeated the word “REPORTER” in the first three ones. FIX IT NOW! We’re professional around here.

Oh yeah, THAT’S professional. Oh well, now let’s get to work!

“A Register & Bee reporter leaves before the end of the year.” – Danville’s second-favorite newspaper (First favorite Star-Tribune, HELLO!) has just hired a reporter to replace the departed SouthsideCentral favorite Vicki Cruz. Ceillie Simkiss (No, I have no idea how to pronounce that yet) has had her first articles published this week and they’ve been competent so far. She’s stick around at least for seven months, I’m sure. That means the R&B is up to their full staff of five reporters. Reporter John Crane knocks everything he does out of the park and likes his job. Denice Thibodeau has been there since 1639 and she’s not going anywhere. We harass poke fun at education and political reporter Trevor Metcalfe some, but he does an decent job with his articles. Crime beat reporter Mike Livingston is doing a terrific job just like the other crime beat reporters before him. Of course, those previous reporters were young and left for better jobs based on their skills. It wouldn’t surprise me to see Livingston fly to a bigger market soon. I’m going out on a limb with this one because I think Mike Livingston will take a bigger job at another newspaper. I’m saying there’s a 84% chance of at least one reporter leaving the R&B. NEXT!

“A WSET-TV reporter leaves before the end of the year.” – Everybody remembers Ashley Singh, right? Oh. How about fluff reporter Sarah Bloom? Um. How about Heather Rosenblatt? Whitney Drawbridge? They were all here in the WSET’s Danville Bureau, folks! We can’t forget Matt Ray who hated it so much that he just quit. Anyway. WSET continues to think that they need three reporters based out of Danville and that makes no sense. They have just hired Caren Pinto to take the spot of the outta-here Matt Ray. She joins Valerie Bragg and Tola Adamson. Sooner or later, WSET’s new ownership company is going to realize that having three Danville reporters is a waste of money. WSET has the best Danville coverage of the local TV stations, but the ratings are dominated by the Roanoke & Lynchburg viewership. WSET’s newscasts have beaten WDBJ’s once in the last 50 years of ratings books. Once. Sinclair Broadcasting ain’t gonna keep spending money like this, folks. There’s a 79% chance one of those three WSET Danville reporters aren’t around at the end of the year. NEXT!

“A WSLS or WDBJ reporter leaves before the end of the year.” – WDBJ’s Danielle Staub is the best Danville TV reporter out there now. She’s got larger-market potential and she’s building her portfolio with good coverage. She’s doing her first sweeps stunt now and that’s a rite of passage for medium-market reporters. If she sticks with WDBJ, she’ll be at the anchor desk soon for fill-in work. She’s that good. I think she’ll be around at the end of the year. As for WSLS? Who the hell knows? They’re trying to penetrate the Danville market yet again after Duke Carter was pulled out last year after his promising start. I’m sure WSLS will be here at the end of the year because they leased an office in the Forum building. Their current reporter is Colter Anstaett, who looks like he’s 14 years old. Heh. With WSLS’s haphazard way of covering the area, I have no idea how long the new guy will last. Overall just because of WSLS’s erratic behavior, there’s a 36% chance of change by the end of the year. NEXT!

“A Danville City Council member leaves before the end of the year.” – Well, it’s happened before. Wayne Williams was mayor and had bailed out of town for a new job. Yeah, that was a shining moment, eh? We’ve also had the Grim Reaper make a visit to council. Yikes. That’s just a lovely thing to think about. I don’t see any of the current council members moving or taking a job out of town. If anything, a very low chance. As for someone dying, I’m not going to even consider that. No, not a chance I’m going there. I’m saying there’s a 2% chance of that happening.

Dammit, we’ve got a fifth one on the board… so NEXT!

“A major employer leaves before the end of the year.” – For this, I’m defining “major employer” as 100+ jobs and using the Danville/Pittsylvania County area as the boundaries. Now that has been defined, I’m saying it’s not going to happen. There haven’t been any strong rumors of a large employer having financial problems. There hasn’t been any major layoffs or job losses from local companies (Well, except for one extremely suspicious local job loss from DCC. Jim Lindley, HELLO!). Yeah, I just said that. Anyway, the local region isn’t going to be rocked with a major employer leaving by the end of the year. Not gonna happen.

I’m going out in style with this one, baby! Put a 0% chance on the board. The Big Squadoosh!

That’s it! We’re done! Let’s take a look at the Final OddsMakers! Board…

Now that’s a nice blue shade of chalk. I think our production staff did a great job on this edition. I do have one final prediction to make, though.

This edition of OddsMakers is 100% over! We’ve got more coming up on SouthsideCentral.