It was not exactly the Christmas bonus he may have been hoping for. Dan Metcalf, a web journalist and online film critic who served as executive producer of the KTVX/ABC 4 website, got his pink slip today. ---

Metcalf said he was one of several station employees who were pulled into an office and told their positions were eliminated. He said employees had been nervous ever since Nexstar purchased the station "a couple of months ago." Nexstar is a publicly traded broadcasting company based in Texas that owns 50 TV stations nationwide, including KTVX (ABC 4) and KUCW (CW30).

"It's shocking to think they're going to run the station without a webmaster," Metcalf says, "but there's not a soul left who can do it."

Rumors as to what changes, if any, were made to the roster of reporters and anchors have not yet been confirmed, although senior reporter Chris Vanocur's Twitter account is no longer affiliated with KTVX/ABC4. Calls to ABC 4 news director Larry Perret were not immediately returned.

In the meantime, a "blindsided" Metcalf is simply trying to hold it together for his family. His tweet this afternoon said: "Kudos to @ktvx (ABC 4), who laid off several people 7 days before Christmas - including me."