"Late Breaking News"...

[Tim L]

[quote name=\'daveromanjr\' date=\'May 11 2004, 10:11 AM\'][quote name=\'sshuffield70\' date=\'May 11 2004, 09:17 AM\'] BTW, CBS here no longer has a noon news.  Instead they have a 4PM news. [/quote]
KDKA, Pittsburgh's CBS affiliate, has the most local news of any station I've seen!

5AM-7AM: Morning News
9AM-10AM: KDKA Morning Show (news)
Noon-1230: Noon Report
4PM-7PM Evening News
11PM-1135PM: Nightly News[/quote]
Several of the larger Fox affiliates (especially those acquired in the Mid-90's from New World) Have quite a bit of news as well.For Instance, WJW Fox 8 in Cleveland airs on weekdays:

5-9 Fox 8 News This Morning

12:12:30 Fox 8 News at Noon

5-6 Fox 8 News at 5

6-7 Fox 8 News at 6

10-11 Fox 8 News at 10

The same pattern repeats itself in Dallas, Atlanta, Chicago, LA where Fox owns their affiliates..Of course, they dont have game shows either..

Tim Lones

[Strikerz04]

[quote name=\'Tim L\' date=\'May 11 2004, 12:03 PM\'] [quote name=\'daveromanjr\' date=\'May 11 2004, 10:11 AM\'][quote name=\'sshuffield70\' date=\'May 11 2004, 09:17 AM\'] BTW, CBS here no longer has a noon news.  Instead they have a 4PM news. [/quote]
KDKA, Pittsburgh's CBS affiliate, has the most local news of any station I've seen!

5AM-7AM: Morning News
9AM-10AM: KDKA Morning Show (news)
Noon-1230: Noon Report
4PM-7PM Evening News
11PM-1135PM: Nightly News[/quote]
Several of the larger Fox affiliates (especially those acquired in the Mid-90's from New World) Have quite a bit of news as well.For Instance, WJW Fox 8 in Cleveland airs on weekdays:

5-9 Fox 8 News This Morning

12:12:30 Fox 8 News at Noon

5-6 Fox 8 News at 5

6-7 Fox 8 News at 6

10-11 Fox 8 News at 10

The same pattern repeats itself in Dallas, Atlanta, Chicago, LA where Fox owns their affiliates..Of course, they dont have game shows either..

Tim Lones [/quote]
 Actually, Chicago has only the morning (5-9am) and noon (12-1pm) news hours, along with a 4:55pm news break. Then we have the 9-10pm news. No game shows have aired on WFLD since the Sherwood Dating Game!

[Steve McClellan]

[quote name=\'rigsby\' date=\'May 11 2004, 08:15 AM\'] [quote name=\'daveromanjr\' date=\'May 11 2004, 10:11 AM\'] KDKA, Pittsburgh's CBS affiliate, has the most local news of any station I've seen!

5AM-7AM: Morning News
9AM-10AM: KDKA Morning Show (news)
Noon-1230: Noon Report
4PM-7PM Evening News
11PM-1135PM: Nightly News [/quote]
That probably says a lot about the current crop of syndicated shows, be they game shows, talk shows, or other, if they think their best ratings bet is to go with so much news.  Most of the rest of their daytime lineup would be filled out by CBS's shows, yes? [/quote]
 One of KDKA's staffers told a group I was in that they were the first non-24-hour-news station to have a 4:00 newscast, and that they were very pleased with the results (i.e., ratings). But hey, even *they* found a spot for H2.

[aaron sica]

Swinging to the *other* side of the broadcast day, I find it neat how start times for the local morning news keep getting earlier and earlier. The earliest I've seen is WMAR-2 (ABC) from Baltimore, which starts their local news at 4:55 a.m.

[SRIV94]

[quote name=\'JRaygor\' date=\'May 11 2004, 11:27 AM\'] Sometimes, news just happens:

How did the Exxon Valdez know it was the last day for $otC ? [/quote]
Was *that* the reason for the Dubya Sr. press briefing that day? I thought it was something less significant than that as CBS didn't bother to break into FF, and ABC stayed to the best of my knowledge with their local programming.

Doug -- and the countdown to 500 continues

[mmb5]

A thought that dawned on me when I found out that two of the Detroit stations were doing Apprentice-like things* during their NEWScasts -- namely that stations no longer have any place to do local content other than news.  Since the increasing stranglehold of the affilliates by the networks, locals can no longer pull a weak performer out of the network lineup and show something in its place.  The only place day-in, day-out that is your own station's identity is your newscast, so you might as well show it as much as you can, as long as it's profitable (I don't think a 2:30 PM newscast would fly).

The other reason probably for the incredible amount of news is that very few people catch all two hours (or three, or whatever) of the block the station has, so you essentially have the Headline News effect of a small newscast broadcast several times.

It's a shame, really.  I've never understood why if Station A had a noon news, why doesn't Station B have it at 11:30 and Station C at 12:30.  Or why ET and Access Hollywood run against each other.

*One station is having a locally famous lawyer pick his intern.  The second station is actually picking an on-air reporter.  Thank God Detroit is such a utopian paradise that such things as crime, race wars, a declining job base or a crumbling infrastructure don't exist here so that we have all this extra free time during the news.


--Mike

[sshuffield70]

I can speak for Dallas.

Fox 4:

5-9AM Good Day Dallas.
12-1230 noon news
5-630 evening newscast
9-1030 evening newscast

KXAS (NBC 5) has had a 4PM newscast for a few years.  Before that, WFAA (ABC affiliate) had a 430 newscast in the 80s.

Oh yeah, Fox does air game shows here......but on their other station (KDFI 27).

[BrandonFG]

[quote name=\'sshuffield70\' date=\'May 11 2004, 02:30 PM\'] I can speak for Dallas.

Fox 4:

5-9AM Good Day Dallas.
12-1230 noon news
5-630 evening newscast
9-1030 evening newscast

KXAS (NBC 5) has had a 4PM newscast for a few years.  Before that, WFAA (ABC affiliate) had a 430 newscast in the 80s.

Oh yeah, Fox does air game shows here......but on their other station (KDFI 27). [/quote]
 I remember WTKR getting rid of Family Feud to do a 4:30 newscast. This was early-1995, but the newscast didn't make it past fall of that year.

As far as local news, I think WVEC wins...in addition to the standard newscasts (6-9 am, noon-1 pm, 5-6:30 pm, and 11-11:35 pm), they also have a sister station, LNC (Local News on Cable), which is 24-hours of WVEC newscasts of the day (updated after a "fresh" newscast, with an hour-long newscast at 10 pm.

Norfolk has also experimented with 10 pm newscasts; in addition to LNC, WTKR tried a 10-10:30 newscast, which was aired on WGNT (UPN affil.) c. 1995, but it didn't fly.  WVBT (FOX affil.) has had a little more success; their 10 pm newscast debuted in summer 1998, and expanded to an hour c. 2001 or 2002.

ObGameShows: WVEC aired Hollywood Squares (occasionally pre-empted for weather coverage) at 5:30 pm, before deciding to do a 90-minute news block in 2000.

[Ian Wallis]

I remember WTKR getting rid of Family Feud to do a 4:30 newscast. This was early-1995, but the newscast didn't make it past fall of that year.

That's surprising - I haven't heard of very many newscasts actually being cancelled.  A lot of people think of talk shows or soaps as the main reasons for the decline of game shows, but in a lot of cases it was News.  Back in the late '80s some stations began experimenting with full afternoon newscasts - sometimes running 4-6 p.m., then having the regular 6 p.m. news, then the network news at 6:30.  Once proved successful, this pratice started spreading to a lot of other stations.

While I think that News is definately important, I always wondered why a station would need a solid three-hour block of it.  I guess ratings must have proved it to be viable.

[tvwxman]

[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' date=\'May 11 2004, 03:06 PM\']
While I think that News is definately important, I always wondered why a station would need a solid three-hour block of it.  I guess ratings must have proved it to be viable. [/quote]
 The answer is simple : revenue. If we air a half hour syndicated show, we have to split the ad time with the syndicator. If we air a half hour news show, we get all the ads, and hence, all the revenue...

My station has added 7 hours of news weekly in the last year and a half....totalling 6 hours a day.... Too much? Maybe for some. Profitable? You better believe it...

Matt

[gameshowguy2000]

[quote name=\'sshuffield70\' date=\'May 11 2004, 02:30 PM\'] I can speak for Dallas.

Fox 4:

5-9AM Good Day Dallas.
12-1230 noon news
5-630 evening newscast
9-1030 evening newscast

KXAS (NBC 5) has had a 4PM newscast for a few years.  Before that, WFAA (ABC affiliate) had a 430 newscast in the 80s.

Oh yeah, Fox does air game shows here......but on their other station (KDFI 27). [/quote]
Right, and me also being from Dallas, I know that KTVT (CBS 11) shelved the Noon news earlier this year.

I'll do the schedule.

5-7 AM: CBS 11 Early Show

4-5 PM: CBS 11 News at 4:00

5-5:30 PM: CBS 11 News at 5:00

6-6:30 PM: CBS 11 News at 6:00 (From 1999-2000, they had a 6:30 newscast)

10-10:35 PM: CBS 11 News at 10:00 (Formerly "11 on 11")

Anyway, back on topic.

I, too, have had enough of these break-ins. If they really have important news, please, USE THE TICKERS. It's SO MUCH EASIER, and it makes viewers happier.

If it's severe weather, put a radar near the ticker, and if it's a news conference, put a pic of the news conference near the ticker, so that the viewers aren't missing a beat of any game show, etc. They can get their news AND watch their favorite show at the same time.

[sshuffield70]

Ya know, gsg2000, the screwy thing is that 4PM has been cancelled once in favor of "Millionaire" and H2.

[ChuckNet]

Here in NY, WCBS was always an innovator as far as local news goes...they were the first in the area to launch a noon newscast back in 1987, the first after WABC to move network news from 7 to 6:30, and experimented w/the whole early afternoon news concept in early 1992 w/their "Ch. 2 First News", which aired at 4...it only lasted until Sep of that year, but paved the way for their current 4:30 newscast, launched in fall 01.

ObGameShow: Ch. 2 News at Noon replaced Strike it Rich, which was then exiled to the overnight graveyard.

Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")

[dzinkin]

[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' date=\'May 11 2004, 04:06 PM\'] That's surprising - I haven't heard of very many newscasts actually being cancelled. [/quote]
 There have been plenty of newscasts canceled over the past few years; in fact, a number of stations have dropped all newscasts outright.  And not just tiny-market indie stations, either -- one was the ABC affiliate in St. Louis.

Of course, there are also the Sinclair stations that dropped local news while pretending to keep it... oops, there I go editorializing again.

[aaron sica]

[quote name=\'ChuckNet\' date=\'May 11 2004, 08:40 PM\'] the first after WABC to move network news from 7 to 6:30 [/quote]
 IIRC, the show that inherited the 7pm timeslot on WCBS after the network news moved to 6:30 was WLoD.