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Morning News at 4:30 a.m.?

O

oldschooltv

This morning WTIC-TV FOX61 (Hartford, CT) expanded their morning news program, which now begins at 4:30 a.m. No one else in the Hartford-New Haven market comes online before 5 a.m. The only exception to this is during the winter when they broadcast special coverage of big winter storms.

What is the earliest the morning news comes on in your market?
 
The earliest morning newscasts for 3 Indiana markets. The 4:30 half hour is always pretty empty ... mostly an anchor reading stores, very few packages and no live shots. Practically never any traffic troubles to report.

4:30 - WTHR (NBC) / Indianapolis - 5am for everyone else
4:30 - WFIE (NBC) / Evansville - 5am for WEHT (ABC), WTVW (Fox)
5:30 - WTHI (CBS) and WTWO (NBC) / Terre Haute
 
KABC in Los Angeles just began doing news at 4:30am, starting last month.
 
Both KSHB and KCTV in Kansas City tried 4:00 and 4:30 a.m. news respectively, but that experiment ended two or three years ago. Our reruns of Cops (along with World News Now on KMBC) were beating their newscasts.

I worked overnights for a few years, and I strongly disliked starting the newscasts at 4:00 a.m. just for a little snow. Lame. Lame. Lame.
 
No one in Philadelphia has tried a 4:30 start save for when the snowflakes come....though if it's a minor enough storm, they'll just run the closings/delays on the screen over the network news and still start at 5.

WPVI (ABC) though bumps the last segment of America This Morning from about 4:55-5. For a while they used that time as a headlines/weather/traffic summary, similar to the Good Morning America cut-ins, but later switched to the four personalities talking a bit with one another, making jokes, etc (assuming there's not something excpetional going on in the news), and then start up the actual news at 5.
 
Duncan Park said:
Nashville has had 4:30 AM News for two or three years now on the three big guns: 2 (WKRN) 4 (WSMV) and 5 (WTVF).
Click to expand...

I thought it was on at 4 at least on WSMV & presumably WTVF too?
 
In my neck of the woods, one station used to air a rebroadcast of last night's news between 5am and 6am, but that recently was replaced with a repeater of one of the local talk shows.
 
w9wi said:
Duncan Park said:
Nashville has had 4:30 AM News for two or three years now on the three big guns: 2 (WKRN) 4 (WSMV) and 5 (WTVF).
Click to expand...

I thought it was on at 4 at least on WSMV & presumably WTVF too?
Click to expand...

WKRN (where I interned on the morning news, in the weather department, this past summer) and WSMV start at 4:00am, WTVF begins at 4:30am.

Evansville, Indiana's WFIE-NBC has had a 4:30 newscasts since around 2001 or 2002. They are the only one to do so. They were on the live, going into their full weather report, when the earthquake shook up the mid-west back in April.
 
At 4:30 AM, WKRG-TV (CBS), WPMI-TV (NBC), and WEAR-TV (ABC) air their network morning news programs before their local news programs between 5:00 AM and 7:00 AM. During “Early Today”, WPMI-TV airs a local weather segment before the local news program. WALA-TV has a local news program between 5:00 AM and 8:00 AM.

If these stations were to focus more on local news and their presentations, the news programs would be shorter and viewers, including folks without jobs in the daytime, would actually watch the whole thing. I know the intention is to inform viewers as to get ready to leave home, but some may prefer to wait for new information during the late afternoon and evening news programs. Based on my TV market, there is not enough news to have two or three-hour local morning programs.
 
Tim-In-Houston said:
w9wi said:
Duncan Park said:
Nashville has had 4:30 AM News for two or three years now on the three big guns: 2 (WKRN) 4 (WSMV) and 5 (WTVF).
Click to expand...
I thought it was on at 4 at least on WSMV & presumably WTVF too?
Click to expand...
WKRN (where I interned on the morning news, in the weather department, this past summer) and WSMV start at 4:00am, WTVF begins at 4:30am.
Click to expand...
All correct, except it is technically 4:24 a.m. when Newschannel5 starts their morning newscast.
 
Mario-500 said:
If these stations were to focus more on local news and their presentations, the news programs would be shorter and viewers, including folks without jobs in the daytime, would actually watch the whole thing. I know the intention is to inform viewers as to get ready to leave home, but some may prefer to wait for new information during the late afternoon and evening news programs. Based on my TV market, there is not enough news to have two or three-hour local morning programs.
Click to expand...

This isn't a world where that many people wait any longer. Shorter and supposedly "better" sounds all well and good, but when your morning commute starts at, for example, 5:30, a 6 am show does you no good. Few people expect the audience to stick with the full local morning news program--they know they have turnover. That's the entire point.
 
In Phoenix, here's the lineup:

3-TV Good Morning Arizona airs from 4:30am to 10am (tle longest AM newscast in the market)
CBS 5 Morning News airs from 4:30am to 7am
ABC 15 News airs from 5am to 7am (tried 4:30am a few years ago)
12 News (NBC) airs from 5am to 7am
Fox 10 News Arizona Morning airs from 5am to 10am.
 
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