NBC Stations in New York, Los Angeles, Miami and Hartford, Conn., will debut hour-long 4 p.m. newscasts in May.
DMAS 1,2, 16 & 30
Four NBC O&Os To Launch 4 P.M. News
The NBC Owned Television Stations division of NBCUniversal today announced it is launching 4 p.m. newscasts at four of its stations: WNBC New York (DMA 1), KNBC Los Angeles (DMA 2), WTVJ Miami (DMA 16) and WVIT Hartford, Conn. (DMA 30).
The new 60-minute newscasts will debut in late May.
“Our stations have done a great job building their news teams, enterprising stories and delivering our viewers the local news, weather and information that is important to them,” said Valari Staab, president, NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations. “Our new 4 p.m. newscasts will expand on our local news commitment and offer our viewers even more of what they’re looking for.”
The newscasts will fill holes in the stations’ daytime schedule caused by the cancellation of the The Meredith Vieira Show.
The Ellen DeGeneres Show, which was just renewed by the NBC Owned Stations through the summer of 2020, will move from 4 p.m. to 3 p.m. beginning in late May in the four markets. The Steve Harvey Show will move up an hour and air at 2 p.m.
Many observers had expected the NBC O&Os to pick up a new talk show featuring Harry Connick Jr. from NBC’s syndication wing to replace the failing Meredith, but Fox Television Stations stepped in and nabbed it in October.
BRAND CONNECTIONS
Most of the other NBC Owned Stations already have 4 p.m. newscasts, including WCAU Philadelphia, KXAS Dallas-Fort Worth, WRC Washington and KNSD San Diego. In those markets, Ellen currently airs at 3 p.m. preceded by Steve Harvey at 2.
Comments (11)
alicia farmer says:
January 4, 2016 at 1:28 pm
Gotta love those 0.5 salable demos.
kendra campbell says:
January 4, 2016 at 3:49 pm
Ah yes – the 2 share radio model.
Wagner Pereira says:
January 4, 2016 at 5:11 pm
incorrect again
Jayson Siler says:
January 4, 2016 at 5:18 pm
This is more about amortizing news gathering costs across another hour of content., as opposed to paying cash for syndicated fare. The only available demo at 4pm is Women 50+…or more accurately 65+…
Wagner Pereira says:
January 4, 2016 at 5:29 pm
When roughly 50% of your revenue is coming from the few hours of local news, better to build up that News Image and amortize the cost across another hour of content, as you correctly state.
Mark Kammerich says:
January 4, 2016 at 5:10 pm
NBC did the first 4pm news at WCAU in the 90s and KXAS in the early 2000’s. Now they realize that local content is a better option than syndication?
Wagner Pereira says:
January 5, 2016 at 12:45 am
Actually the Broadcasters remember that when GE owned NBC, in an effort to save money, threw out the News Image and went with a “Talk Stoop” / “1st Look” / “LX.New York” leading up to the 6PM News. When Comcast came in they got serious about News, hired Magid and have tried to rebuild the image. The 4pm news is an effort to further rebuild the News Image that GE helped to destroy at the end, not to mention, offers more local avails than Syndication – and can be done at very little additional cost. The Non-Broadcasters that are clueless as to how things really work do not understand the big picture.
Keith ONeal says:
January 5, 2016 at 1:09 am
I envision that sometime in say, the next five years or so, that a network O&O or a network affiliate will, as an experiment, scrap all syndicated programing and run local news in all non-network time slots. If it works, than it will expand to stations in other markets. If it doesn’t work, the station can always go beck to the syndicated programming.
Jaclyn Hansen says:
January 5, 2016 at 12:01 pm
I thought this was all about 2016 being an election year and politicians want to get themselves close to newscasts. Plus what other things could a station do besides put on a syndicated program, reruns or news? There are no other ideas in the whole world