Local CBS affiliate WRAL announced this morning that WRAL-TV has teamed up with The Fayetteville Observer newspaper for coverage of Fayetteville, the military and the surrounding area.

WRAL-TV Vice President and General Manager Steve Hammel said in a press release that WRAL has actually relocated their Fayetteville news bureau to inside The Fayetteville Observer newsroom. The Fayetteville Observer executive editor, Michael Adams, said his newsroom was looking forward to "opportunities for collaboration that use the unique skills of both organizations."

WRAL has had a news bureau in downtown Fayetteville for years, but their new bureau inside the newspaper will officially debut tomorrow. The Fayetteville Observer has a newsroom of 65 people, covering Fayetteville, Fort Bragg and nine surrounding counties.

WTVD, the local ABC affiliate, opened a new street-level newsroom on Hay Street in downtown Fayetteville in February of this year.

WNCN announced today that former WRAL anchor Pam Saulsby will join the NBC-17 team in September.

According to the station, Saulsby will join current anchor Penn Holderness and meteorologist Wes Hohenstein on the 7 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts. She will also produce reports for the newscasts and the nbc17.com website.

Saulsby was an anchor at WRAL in Raleigh for 20 years before leaving the station last October when WRAL revamped their studio and made other on-air changes. Debra Morgan took Saulsby's place on 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. newscasts, and Jackie Hyland was brought in to anchor other spots with Gerald Owens.

Since leaving WRAL, Saulsby has continued her second career as a singer and served as Artist in Residence at St. Augustine's College.

Saulsby's official NBC-17 debut is currently planned for Sept. 17, 2012.

ACC Tournament: First Round (WRAL/ESPNU) - Games begin at noon and continue through tonight. At noon we have Maryland vs. Wake Forest and at 2:30 it's N.C. State vs. Boston College.  Regular CBS programming will either air at the regularly scheduled time on WRAL2 or overnight on WRAL. Go here for a breakdown of the logistics of catching all these shows (daytime and primetime) either on TV or online.  The Thursday night shows you'll want to plan for are two new episodes of "Big Bang Theory," "Person of Interest," and "The Mentalist."

American Idol (8pm, Fox) - Eliminations begin tonight. New this season: a version of Garner's Scotty McCreery singing Tim McGraw's "Please Remember Me" will be played each week when a contestant is voted off. Scotty, the winner of last year's "Idol" contest, will most likely return to the show in person at some point this season.

30 Rock (8pm, NBC) - All new comedies on NBC tonight, starting with "30 Rock." Kenneth's new job pits him against Liz while Jack squares off against his teen nemesis, the sly Kaylie Hooper.

Saving Face (8:30pm, HBO) - This Academy Award-winner for Best Documentary Short debuts tonight on HBO. Read more about it here.

Awake (10pm, NBC) - As he continues to navigate his two versions of reality, Michael investigates the murder of a homeless person, with a mysterious man with short stature soon materializing as a suspect. Meanwhile, the accident that shattered Michael's life comes into clearer focus.

Archer (10pm, FX) - Archer's dead financee, Katya, miraculously reappears -- in Krieger's lab.

Longtime sports anchor Rich Brenner passed away on Monday after suffering a heart attack while giving a speech to a group of firefighters. He was 65.

Brenner worked at both WRAL and WTVD in the 1970s and 1980s before moving on to WGHP/Fox 8 in Greensboro. He worked there until his retirement in 2008.

Read more about Rich Brenner in this story by Amanda James.

Photo from WGHP/Fox 8

NC State is playing Boston College tonight at 8 p.m. on WRAL, which means regular CBS programming will be disrupted.

The plan is to replay the missed shows -- "Big Bang Theory," "Rob" and "Person of Interest" -- beginning at 1:37 a.m. at WRAL.

"The Mentalist" is still scheduled to air at 10 p.m. and if the game goes over, they will join that program in progress.

There can be exceptions, but as a general rule of thumb, this is how most game disruptions will be handled by WRAL during the regular ACC season. The local news will air in its entirety, and "Late Show with David Letterman" and "Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" will air after that. If you miss any CBS shows because of an ACC game, they will likely air after Ferguson's show.

WRAL suggests you set your recording device to record the entire block from 1:30 a.m. to 4:30 a.m., just to make sure you get everything.

You can also check CBS.com to see if missed episodes are playing there.

It wouldn't be much of a stretch to describe Bret Baier's rise at Fox News as meteoric. In just about 10 years, the Atlanta native went from starting the network’s Atlanta bureau (which consisted of a cell phone and fax machine in his apartment), to lead news anchor, drawing 2 million viewers each night. What many of those viewers may not know is that Baier credits part of that rapid rise to his two-year gig at WRAL in the 1990s.

Baier, anchor of the one-hour "Special Report with Bret Baier" (6 p.m., Monday-Friday), was hired away from WRAL in 1998 by Fox News to start the Atlanta bureau, and then moved to Washington in 2001 as their Pentagon correspondent. He became the White House Correspondent in 2006 and replaced Brit Hume as the Fox News nightly anchor in January 2009.

Baier will moderate the South Carolina GOP debate in Myrtle Beach on Monday (9 p.m., Fox News Channel).

We spoke to Baier by phone on Friday and asked him about his time at WRAL, his family in D.C., and how he plans to handle the big South Carolina debate. Below are excerpts from that conversation.

Rex Healthcare's medical-education television show, "Rex On Call," is moving to WRAL starting October 24.

The live call-in show will air the third Monday of each month at 1 p.m., right after the noon newscast. The show previously aired on NBC 17 on Saturday evenings.

The show's format will be the same: Folks call in with medical questions and experts answer them live on the air. Questions can also be tweeted (@rexoncall Rex now prefers

@rexhealthcare)  or emailed (Rexoncall@rexhealth.com or via web submission form) ahead of time. The first show on October 24 will focus on breast cancer and will feature radiologist Julia Taber, M.D. and oncologist Lola Olajide, M.D.

The Wake County Republican Party is taking a blame the media strategy to energize their base for the upcoming school board elections.

In this week's issue of the Elephant Express, Wake GOP Chairwoman Susan Bryant contends today that the news media is being "dishonest" in not covering the school board's accomplishments. For instance, she contends that a recent article didn't report that Wake County's average SAT scores are above the national average because "the N&O simply wasn't about to print anything that might reflect positively on the job the Wake County School Board was doing."

That story focused on how the state was doing on the SAT. It didn't mention Wake's performance or that of any area district. It also didn't mention that Chapel Hill-Carrboro has an even high score.

Legendary WRAL anchor Charlie Gaddy makes his television acting debut tomorrow in the locally produced "The Rusty Bucket Kids" television series.

"The Rusty Bucket Kids" is an educational entertainment program about two kids who travel back in history on a train called Steamy (The New Hope Valley Railway Steam Locomotive No. 17 and Caboose No. 308) and visit famous people of American history, who are still in their teenage years.

The show is produced in Apex, and the town also serves as the setting (the town in the show is called Peak City).

I've been canned by WRAL-TV.

In 2002, WRAL and The News & Observer joined forces on a weekly 30-minute news and public affairs show called "Headline Sunday" (later changed to "Headline Saturday"). The show was co-hosted by WRAL's David Crabtree and Melanie Sill, executive editor of The N&O. When Sill left for The Sacramento Bee in late 2007, I was named executive editor and joined Crabtree as co-host. 

This week, Steve Hammel, WRAL's general manager, called to say he was changing the format of the show. Crabtree will host alone and the show won't be affiliated with The N&O, although N&O reporters could be invited to appear from time to time. Hammel was gracious and even gave me two weeks notice, meaning my last show will air Saturday, Aug. 22. By the way, neither I nor other N&O staffers who appear on the show are paid by WRAL, so this wasn't a cost-cutting move. 

It's more about the pace of the show, Hammel said, which can quicken with a single anchor. Certainly, TV is not my medium -- even my own mother once pointed that out to me. (If your mother says you looked bad on television Saturday night, you probably did.) But I have enjoyed working with David Crabtree, floor director Stuart Todd and the rest of the crew at WRAL. They always made me feel welcome and helped a newspaper guy get through a television show. They are true professionals. We have a healthy rivalry with WRAL but there's no doubt it's a first-rate operation. I'd like to think we make each other better.

As for my co-hosting abilities, I might have erred in modeling myself after Ron Burgundy of the 2004 movie, "Anchorman." Still, as my TV career ends, I'd like to say: Stay classy, Triangle.

 --John Drescher