35 years after debuting The Midwest’s first-ever hour-long nightly primetime newscast, The Nine O’Clock News (John Drury and Denise Cannon) on Monday March 10th, 1980, WGN 9 will launch WGN News at 10:00 starting Monday October 5th, 2015. The new weeknight-ONLY half-hour newscast will compete against the heavyweights in Chicago: The #1-rated WLS 7 (ABC)’s ABC 7 Eyewitness News at 10:00 and #2-rated WMAQ 5 (NBC)’s NBC 5 News at 10:00, as well as the lesser known, but once-dominant WBBM 2 (CBS)’s CBS 2 News at 10:00. It will also compete against the Spanish-language newscasts in the area from WGBO 66 (Univision)’s Noticias Univision Chicago a las 10:00 and WSNS 44 (Telemundo)’s Noticiero Telemundo Chicago a las 10:00.
The newscast will be anchored by the same team that already delivers WGN News at 9:00, Mark Suppelsa (having a successful career at WGN 9 after leaving from WFLD 32 – FOX), Micah Materre (The queen of weeknight news on WGN 9, since she also does the 4:00, 5:00 and 9:00pm), WGN 9’s Chief Meteorologist and the Dean of American Local Meteorologists, Tom Freakin’ Skilling (Been at WGN 9 since 1978 and has been America’s #1, most-trusted and most-beloved Local Weatherman for 37 years now. He was part of the original news team from 1980 and is still the only original member left, still on-air from its 1980 debut.) and Sports Director Dan Roan (who has been at WGN for 31 years now, having first started in February 1984, according to WGNTV.com).
The format will be a little bit different at 10:00 p.m. because Tom Skilling will be the first person on at 10:00 p.m. with the full forecast (that’s because he’s on-air at 11:00 a.m., 12:00 Noon, 4:00, 5:00 and 9:00 p.m. and needs some sleep in between!) In addition, according to the story on WGNTV.com, WGN News at 10:00 will feature enterprise stories offering viewers consumer alerts, problem solving tips and investigative reports.
