Summerfest was his first assignment on the new gig, and for new WITI-TV Fox 6 morning anchor Jessob Reisbeck, that has set the perfect tone.

"You never hear any bad things being said about Milwaukee. I have a few buddies who were born and grew up here and never said anything bad about it. I’m looking forward to the road ahead," Reisbeck said on his first day on air.

The multiple-day music festival drew the Wisconsin Rapids native to Milwaukee as a fan in the past. Now as a journalist, it put him in touch with the people. It also allowed him to get to know the team.

"Nicole (Koglin) and Kim (Murphy) have been unbelievable," Reisbeck said. "Rob (Haswell) has such a great sense of humor and Angelica (Duria) is so easy to work with. It’s been great."

When he was a child his family moved to Irvine, Calif., but would come back to Wisconsin to see grandparents and other extended family members. It’s been that connection that brought him to a sports job at WAOW-TV, the ABC affiliate in Wausau, and now here. In-between, he worked in Fresno, Calif., and Syracuse, N.Y.

One adjustment for the Arizona State graduate has been shifting to mornings.

"I’ve been doing it for a few days now," he said at the time of this interview, done a couple of weeks ago. "I get in somewhere between 3:30 and 3:45 … and the show starts at 4:30. But I’m good to go after the 25 minutes it takes to drive in."

We chatted about his commute to the Brown Deer studio, and the route he takes. I explain with our winters, he’ll want a couple of non-highway back-ups for when the snow flies. But with the shift he works, there are considerably less cars on the road.

So when winter hits, it will be a change, but not something he hasn’t dealt with before.

Career-wise, Reisbeck’s new morning gig means a departure from the type of stories he has cut his teeth on.

"For eight and a half years, I’ve done sports," Reisbeck said. "It has been a transition."

Now, he does news. But news in Wisconsin involves a lot of sports, especially for the Fox outlet that covers the Packers. He’ll be able to still do highlights and fan stories. He’s done news before as a fill-in anchor when he was in Fresno.

"As long as there are little doses of sports, it makes it much more enjoyable," he said, counting on his show producers to play to his strengths. "No matter what I’m doing … (covering news), honing my anchoring skills, dabble in sports … I’m enjoying it."

RATINGS CHANGE: For the past 243 weeks, the top evening network news program was "NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams." For the week of July 22, that changed, when more people tuned into "World News" on ABC. Anchored by Diane Sawyer, the show was the top rated among adults 25 to 54, according to Nielsen ratings.

Locally, "World News" on WISN-TV Ch. 12 usually performs better than "Nightly News" on WTMJ-TV Ch. 4. But nationally, NBC held the ratings crown for the past four and a half years. In Milwaukee there is another sweeps period in October, right before the large national sweep in November. It will be interesting to see which show ends up on top during this non-election year.