TV Q&A: How do evening newscast hours differ from one another?
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Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen answers reader questions every Wednesday at TribLive.com in a column that also appears in the Sunday Tribune-Review.
Q: Local news now starts at 4 p.m. weekdays and goes for several hours. At the top of each hour, the anchors sometimes change and they introduce the next hour of news as if it is a totally separate program. Are there actually different strategies for the 4, 5 and 6 p.m. news? It all seems the same to me.
— Becky, Scott Township
Rob: Traditionally, the 5 p.m. hour has been a little lighter in tone than the serious, buttoned-up 6 p.m. newscast. And especially during “sweeps” months (November, February, May, July) and even out of sweeps you’ll see a “highly-promotable” story air at 5:45 p.m., possibly an investigation.
KDKA’s 7:30 p.m. newscast launched with the intention of offering more uplifting, positive news stories.
As for 4 p.m., I don’t have as good a handle on how it is differentiated now. Before KDKA had local news competition in that time period from WPXI and WTAE, the 4 p.m. on KDKA had the lowest priority internally among KDKA’s 4-7 p.m. newscasts, and thus it had more national and international news. The addition of competition probably changes the calculus, as each station strives to avoid being beaten on a local story by a competitor.
And then KDKA’s 6:30 p.m. half-hour, by virtue of competing with national newscasts on WTAE and WPXI, counter-programs with local news and especially local sports.
If Becky notices more repetition in evening newscasts, my understanding is it’s because there are now fewer producers despite an increase in the hours of local news at some stations.
It used to be rare for a dayside producer to produce more than one hour of news. Now, that has become more common. With only so much time in the workday, producers often have to repeat elements from the first hour they produce in the next hour they produce.
Q: Why do the local news programs do so many stories about Kennywood? A new ride, Christmas lights, new food item will get a story on the air. Is it because its an easy story? If I was an advertiser on these programs, I would wonder how I could get some free advertising.
— Mike, Jeannette
Rob: Local media love stories on local institutions. Viewers/readers are often interested in local institutions and these stories tend to get a lot of pageviews online. There’s also a large subculture of theme park aficionados eager for every morsel of theme park information (and unafraid to be critical, too). Kennywood is a local institution, so it gets the sort of treatment that other local companies that don’t have such a long local history could only hope to get.
And yes, it’s also an easy story that can be put together quickly.
Q: We enjoy CBS’s “East New York” and TiVo it every week. Unfortunately, because of football overruns, the last five-to-20 minutes do not get recorded. Any suggestions? I cannot find anywhere to stream it.
— George, via email
Rob: Most DVRs give you the option to extend a recording by a set time increment. Look on your TiVo and see if you can change the setting for that show’s recording to extend the recording time so you’re covered when football causes a delay.
You can stream the five most recent episodes of “East New York” for free at CBS.com and the full first season is available at subscription streaming service Paramount+.
Q: How can Dan Abrams be live on NewsNation and live on “On Patrol: Live” on Friday evening at the same time and both say live? Which one is live and which is Memorex? Please don’t say through the magic of television.
— Brian, Ross
Rob: Through the magic of … not actually being live on NewsNation Friday nights. I’m told Abrams pre-tapes his NewsNation show on Friday so he can be live on “On Patrol: Live!”