TV Talk: WPGH to add evening newscast produced by WPXI
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Pittsburgh viewers will soon have another half-hour weekday evening newscast option: WPXI-TV will begin producing a 6:30 p.m. newscast for WPGH-TV beginning March 14.
WPXI’s David Johnson and Liz Kilmer will anchor the additional half-hour news broadcast that displaces a second run of the syndicated, Jay Leno-hosted game show “You Bet Your Life” on WPGH, Pittsburgh’s Fox affiliate.
With the addition of the Channel 53 newscast, WPXI will equal the number of consecutive half-hours of news KDKA-TV has long produced from 4-7 p.m. KDKA offers an additional half-hour newscast at 7:30 p.m. after the “CBS Evening News.”
For a brief period in the late 1990s and early 2000s, WPGH had its own news department and a 10 p.m. newscast. That broadcast was canceled in January 2006 and the news department was disbanded. That same month, WPGH’s in-house newscast was replaced with a 10 p.m. newscast produced by Channel 11. The addition of a 6:30 p.m. newscast extends that existing relationship.
In addition to the new newscast, WPGH will adjust its evening lineup, moving the first run of “You Bet Your Life” from 6 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. “The Big Bang Theory” reruns will move into the 6 p.m. time slot and will also continue to air at 7 p.m. weekdays.