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Morning News at 4:30 a.m.?

Pat Cook said:
Iowan said:
Not only do the rest of the stations not have a newscast starting at aforementioned time, but WHBF-TV doesn't sign on the air 'til 5 A.M.!
You mean there are ACTUALLY stations that still sign off IN THIS DAY & AGE ?? *Gawk!*

Should probably update this since the post was made in 2010, as WHBF and the other stations of Citadel Communications stations no longer sign off at night and just roll on with Up to the Minute.
 
tested said:
Very old news. Some stations start at 4am and go to 10am.

And isn't WAGA one of them?

Where I live, five news stations have been starting their morning news at 4:30
for some time now, and four of them (WGHP, as a Fox affiliate, is the exception)
have their networks' early-morning newscasts at 4 AM: the "CBS Morning News"
on WFMY and WRAL, "America This Morning" on WTVD, and "Early Today" on WNCN.

What's different for us is that WFMY runs its "Good Morning Show" from 4:30-8,
then carries "CBS This Morning" from 8 to 10.

Also, WTVD (ABC o&o) has a 4 PM newscast, but is the only ABC o&o that does not
win its timeslot with it; WRAL delays "Y&R" to 4 and beats it just as it did Oprah.
 
Saw an interesting start time in Salt Lake City recently. 4:25 AM, obviously trying to get a jump on the competition. Now that is "in it to win it"! Not sure if it was KUTV (CBS), or KTVX (ABC). Not sure if a 5-minute headstart at that hour means much at the end of the day (or morning, as it were).
 
liradioisbad said:
It seems like all Fox O&O's go at least 4:30 to 10.

Those are the hours of the Fox O&O in Phoenix (KSAZ) but you can't call the whole program "news".

From 4:30 to 7AM they run mostly non-stop news with interspersed weather and traffic. From 7 to 10AM they run a news update on the hour and half-hour with weather segments but traffic only if there is some major disruption. Most of that last three hours is typical morning show fluff both recorded and live and from 9-10 it gets real fluffy.
 
landtuna said:
liradioisbad said:
It seems like all Fox O&O's go at least 4:30 to 10.

Those are the hours of the Fox O&O in Phoenix (KSAZ) but you can't call the whole program "news".

From 4:30 to 7AM they run mostly non-stop news with interspersed weather and traffic. From 7 to 10AM they run a news update on the hour and half-hour with weather segments but traffic only if there is some major disruption. Most of that last three hours is typical morning show fluff both recorded and live and from 9-10 it gets real fluffy.

Pretty much the same here in Los Angeles...KTTV does news/weather/traffic from 4:30 to 7, then Good Day L.A. takes over until 10 (final hour pretty much all interviews and/or fluff), followed by another half-hour newscast.
 
WFXT-25 currently (July, 2013) runs a local morning news show from 4 to 10 A.M., and is the only over-the-air station in Boston to start a morning news show at 4 A.M.

However, I fully expect that before too long, perhaps this Fall, WBZ-4 (CBS), WCVB-5 (ABC) and WHDH-7 (NBC) will all follow suit and start at 4 A.M.
 
I expect before long night owls will be able to watch the morning news on the East Coast IMMEDIATELY online after the LATE NEWS on the Hawaii stations WITH NO INTERRUPTION !!! How weird would THAT feel ??

Cheers & 73 ;D
 
I've always enjoyed this topic. I've not always enjoyed the broadcasts. As I mentioned earlier, these shows are built for high cume, and repeat stories, (especially weather and traffic) at a horrific rate. If you watch any early morning newscast longer than 20 minutes, you will start to see repeats.

That being said, most big markets (from my informal internet search), run 4:30 to 7 am. Fox, of course, has no network obligations in the morning, so they run wild through 7-9 AM. Fox also tends to make their morning shows more entertainment than news. Not in all cases, but many.

I look at these hours as prime real estate for most local tv stations. There are no viable alternatives, so why not increase the visibility of the brand. It certainly can't hurt, and the overhead is usually low.

Of course, there is a direct correlation between the morning start time and the length of commute in each metro. This is why, in general, smaller markets don't do the 4:30 start. In my market, which is around 300K, most start at 6 am, not 4:30.
 
Pat Cook said:
I expect before long night owls will be able to watch the morning news on the East Coast IMMEDIATELY online after the LATE NEWS on the Hawaii stations WITH NO INTERRUPTION !!! How weird would THAT feel ??

Cheers & 73 ;D

:D :D :D

But only during Daylight Saving Time, right???
 
FOX 61 in Hartford, CT becomes the first in the market to start their Morning News at 4AM beginning on September 9th. (Their sister station in NYC PIX-11 started the 4AM last September). Meanwhile LIN-TV's NEWS 8 WTNH in New Haven is the only station in the market that does not start their news at 4:30AM. It still starts at 5AM. And except at the end of the Newscast just before 7AM they never promote the fact that Good Morning Connecticut (as their Morning Newscast is called) airs 7AM-8AM on sister station MY TV 9 WCTX 59.1
 
No worries, it'll be the same as any other news broadcast between kindred spirits - they're just there to talk to each other across the various networks, and not necessarily to properly inform you or me.
 
:D :D

But only during Daylight Saving Time, right???
Maybe.....

But since KITV 4 (ABC) ends its late news at 11:00 PM local rather than 10:35 PM local like most other affiliates do, that means that by the time Time Zone Conversion does its thing, it's 5:00 AM ET. By that time, the East Coast stations we've been talking about recently are already saying Good Morning while people in Hawaii are likely thinking Morning ?? You're kidding, right ?? Time for bed at that hour :D

Winter months only add a 1 hour buffer between the Hawaii Late News & the East Coast AM news (A gap that's rapidly closing)

Cheers & 73 :)
 
WBTV, WSOC and WCNC all start at 4:30 am. Only a matter of time before they go to 4. WCCB doesn't start til 5:30. WJZY should be starting morning news in a year or so, IMO. The question will be for how long right off the bat.
 
On the other end of the day, I'm beginning to notice some early local newscasts
at 7:30 PM; WAVE Louisville and WJHL Johnson City, TN are doing news from 7-8,
and WSPA Spartanburg, SC has something called "Scene On 7" at 7:30.

I wonder when more stations in the Central and Mountain time zones will realize
the inconvenience a 5-6:30 local/network block causes commuters and expand their local
news to run until 7 (I've only seen this in Nashville (two stations), Houston, Minneapolis-
St. Paul, and Denver). Also, why the lack of 7 PM local newscasts on the West Coast?
 
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