Advisory Council
John Antonio, Executive Producer, WABC-TV
Antonio has worked mostly in television news since graduating from the University of Florida in May 1989. His first stop was at WCJB (ABC-Gainesville) where he was a reporter and weekend producer. While there he abandoned on-air work and focused on producing. His next stop was WTLV (NBC-Jacksonville) where he produced the noon newscast and oversaw the medical unit. After that, he moved north and helped usher through a major format change at WPRI (ABC-Providence, RI) while producing the 11:00 p.m. news.
Two years later, WABC-TV in New York City hired Antonio as a weekend producer/weekday writer where he cut his teeth on big-market news. During his tenure there, he was promoted to producer of the 11:00 p.m. newscast and then the 5:00 p.m. newscast. He also oversaw a few major projects including two trips to the Mideast: a week's worth of live coverage when Benjamin Netanyahu was elected Prime Minister of Israel and another week's worth of coverage when Pope John Paul II made his pilgrimage to Jordan and Israel.
In 2000, Antonio left television news and helped found a start-up internet company called Yo Network which specialized in video streaming. Unfortunately, he reported, the crash of the dot-com industry forced the company to close. He then went back into television news on the management side. He was hired by WFXT (Fox-Boston) as Executive Producer of Special Projects.
One year later, WABC recruited Antonio back to New York City where he currently works as an Executive Producer overseeing the 5:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. newscasts.
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