The War Of The Local Morning TV News Shows

[PublicRef2 <norwood@mln.lib.ma.us>]

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Well, it's official. Today's (May 10th) Boston Herald announces that
both Channels 25 and 56 will launch long-awaited 7 to 9 A.M. local
morning news blocks to go head-to-head against the network mornng shows.
Channel 56's will be the first to launch, premiering in June. Channel
25's will probably start in September.

In fact, WLVI-56's website <http://www.wb56.com>, under their "jobs"
listing, is looking for some production personell for the morning show.

I wonder if WFXT-25 might now try to accelerate the launch of their
morning show so WLVI won't have a three-month head-start.

I'm not surprised WLVI is starting a local morning news show, as sister
station WPIX in New York is planning to do the same thing later this
year.

It might take awhile, but in other markets, local morning news shows
between 7 and 9 A.M. have become very competitive against network
morning shows. In Washington, Detroit, Miami, Dallas, and Los Angeles,
the top-rated TV show between 7 and 9 A.M. isn't NBC's nationally-
top-rated "Today", but a local morning news show. In Los Angeles, the
top show is the local morning show on Tribune's KTLA; in the other
cities mentioned, the top-rated morning shows air on Fox O & O's or
affiliates. In Los Angeles, in fact, although KTLA's mornig show is
number-one in it's time period, Fox-owned KTTV's morning show is second.
In New York, WNYW's "Good Day New York" is a strong number-two, lagging
a little behind "Today", but well ahead of ABC and CBS in that time
period.

Joseph Gallant
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