CraigViewer

Both Alex and Olga were great in that 7am-10am time slot indeed. I wonder if Deanno will only be in the 7am block temporarily until Amber Lee, who was the weather forecaster on CBS2 in the 4:30am-7am slot, returns from maternity leave. With Deanno coming on board, that will be a total of seven weatherpersons (Evelyn Taft; Markina Brown and Alissa Carlson are the others) on KCAL News, which in my view is excessive for a region that is relatively uneventful from a weather perspective year-round in Southern California.

According to Paul Deanno, who was recently hired as a weather anchor by CBS Los Angeles, he will be making his KCAL News debut this coming Wednesday.

Oh, that's right. I stand corrected about Kolk. Based on what I've seen in recent months, Cortese and Chambers make for a good co-anchor duo. Karren Wynter, who I have also seen co-anchoring with Chambers over the past few weeks, would be a fantastic successor to Friel, as well. I suspect that it's the latter of what you were mentioning, with regard to Nexstar (or possibly KTLA) being frugal in tapping someone from in-house rather than hiring from the outside to fill these weekend morning anchor positions.

Interestingly, it turns out that Kolk and Lyster may not be paired with each other permanently on the weekend edition of the "KTLA Morning News" after all. I noticed when I turned on Channel 5 this morning that Pedro Rivera, who co-anchors with Cher Calvin at 5pm weekdays, was in Kolk's position with Lyster; meanwhile, Kolk slid over to handle entertainment anchor duties, while Megan Telles was back out in the field as a feature reporter, as she handled on the weekend morning broadcasts previously. Later, I came across Rivera tweeting that those changes will be in effect for the next couple of months, in that he will co-anchor with Calvin on Monday through Wednesdays, and him co-anchoring the weekend morning shows, as well. I enjoy this Lyster and Rivera co-anchor pairing, more than the Lyster-Kolk combination. To me, Kolk has never seemed fully comfortable being a news anchor and is more natural at what he was originally hired by KTLA to do in entertainment, which he was great at this morning.

As you may well know, Kasie Hunt was originally hired to primarily host her own political show on CNN+, which was essentially gone in the blink of an eye, as a result of the days-old length of the streaming network's existence. Following the demise of CNN+, CNN terminated a sizable number of the streaming network's employees. But due to Hunt's popularity and stature, I assume those were part of the decision-making from the powers that be to keep her at CNN. Now, she is left mainly offering political analysis; though I observed on a few occasions that she was seemingly auditioning for "CNN Tonight," before both Laura Coates and Alisyn Camerota were eventually named permanent anchors of the program. In any case, although the new CNN CEO, Chris Licht, has reduced the number of on-air political commentators at the network in recent weeks, it still certainly does feel weighty with political opinion. Besides ratings and entertainment (for some), there is no real redeeming value to feature panels with having both sides of the political spectrum arguing with one another, which fortunately they don't feature as often as was formerly the case under former head Jeff Zucker.

Yes. That would be redundant to Chris Wallace's interview series indeed. I can imagine, however, a scenario of Gayle King occasionally hosting interview specials with celebrities and newsmakers on CNN, like what the late Barbara Walters used to do on ABC, for example. On the subject of Wallace, while his series is interesting to watch, at times, I have never understood why CNN does not use him in a full time capacity covering politics. It seems more like his wheelhouse as opposed to a generalized interview show with high-profile guests. CNN is losing a golden opportunity by not using one of the best in the business at covering politics on a full-time basis, in my opinion.

I doubt that "The Challenge" will be returning ever again. Neither will Roggin's other program on NBC4, "Going Roggin," for that matter, which I noticed in my channel guide is no longer listed in airing at midnight Sundays (technically, Monday morning). That could be repurposed under a new title and, of course, a new host, but that seems unlikely though.

I am skeptical that a short five to 15 minute episode of "Overtime" from YouTube will help move the needle for CNN's ratings. Regardless of one's opinions of Bill Maher, "Overtime" is just less interesting and compelling than a full episode of his "Real Time" series on HBO. This all comes across to me as CNN pretty much throwing spaghetti at the wall.

Yeah, that will probably be the case. Unlike the other local L.A. TV stations, KNBC's lacks depth in its sports department, as far as the amount of on-air talent is concerned. As it stands, it is now only Mario Solis, so it may very well be he along with the news anchors reading the sports, whenever he has his days off, at least for the foreseeable future.

I started to notice the new mugs myself recently, as well. My theory is that Doug Kolk and Lauren Lyster were quietly named the new permanent co-anchors, so that KTLA wouldn't receive any more backlash (given an official public announcement made) on social media from those who still may be indignant following the departures of Lynette Romero and Mark Mester from the station.

Over recent years, certain unnamed people in politics were a driving force for segments of the U.S. population to feel aggrieved -- contributing to the development of a new media ecosystem as well. And, in the cases of both Newsmax and OAN being dropped by cable/satellite providers, the powers that be at both networks, and, by extension, its ardent viewers, were all acting out of grievance politics, yet again.

It's being twisted by some to be somehow part of a culture war and also for political gain, when in reality, this was purely a business decision.

As you suggested, Jamie is outgoing; whereas, Rudabeh to me is reserved. Both of their respective personalities feed off and work well with each other. Due to Jamie's network commitments at the mothership, and so forth, there will be times when Jamie is away from the CBS Los Angeles anchor desk. Kristin Smith is a nice fill-in for those occasions (and filling in for Rudabeh, vice-versa) indeed. I always enjoyed Kristin whenever she anchored and reported for the station's "Sports Central" broadcasts previously, where I felt she was a bit under-utilized. Time will tell, but it is a good morning program so far!

My thoughts exactly. I will admit that I have slightly become more accustomed to 'The Desk,' but it still feels very awkward though. The same information that Mike Rodgers and the other assignment editors gathers and then conveys to the audience can easily be relayed to have an anchor/reporter deliver such instead. Given its overall ratings, there's nothing wrong with CBS Los Angeles trying to not reinvent the wheel, which is certainly another example here. 'The Desk' is actually a decent addition, but it seems unnecessary to have the anchors toss to it many times per hour -- slowing the rhythm of the news broadcasts -- and indeed having these segments helmed by the assignment editors on-camera, as well.

I feel that former KCBS-TV director John Lipmann, who helped mastermind the "Action News" format in the 1990s, played a role in the perception of newscasts on the station as well. I'm old enough to remember how over-the-top it was to watch at the time. But, over the years, KCBS-TV is pretty much like those certain sports franchises that perennially have been plagued by poor management, that are close to, if not, last in the team standings and quite a few players (in this case, reporters and anchors) who leave to go to other teams (the competitors across town, etc.).

I happened to notice that during the 5am hour today that morning traffic anchor Kaylina Astrinos was doing a local traffic cut-in on "CBS Mornings" on KCBS around 5:25am or so, while "KCAL Mornings" over on KCAL was in a commercial break at the time.

I would imagine that they will have Mario Solis and/or bringing freelancers on board to handle the sports anchoring at least on an interim basis. Or, the news anchors may do it perhaps for a time as well. With Roggin's retirement, I was just thinking that very few on-air veterans are left at the station now. Conan Nolan, Ted Chen as well as Colleen Williams are three of the current vets who come to mind for me.

Yeah, it makes sense to replace "KCAL News Los Angeles" with the "CBS News Los Angeles" bug over the local "KCAL News Los Angeles" bug, which is still seen on channel 9, so the streams are more identifying and consistent to CBS Los Angeles audiences online.

I am currently watching the local over-the-air feed of KCAL, and the "KCAL News Los Angeles" on-air bug still remains on screen.

I have seen weeknight sports anchor Rob Fukuzaki of KABC in Los Angeles anchor a sports wrap up show following the 11pm newscasts on Sundays for a few years now.

At one point, Channel 13 was the broadcast home of the L.A. Marathon, televised Clippers basketball and had its own news department, with nightly news broadcasts. Once the news department was shuttered, it seems like the station started to fall apart. Nowadays, other than some syndicated courtroom shows and daytime talk show programming, the station resembles KDOC out of Orange County.

I can probably count the number of times on one hand that I have watched Channel 13 over the past decade or so.

Yes, "Good Day Live" used to be a great program to watch on weekday mornings too! Here in Southern California, it was often fascinating to watch the different contrasts between the local (7-9am) and national versions, in which they stayed on set to host live at 9am local time.

"Good Day L.A" has not been the same since the days of Steve, Jillian and Dorothy co-hosting the program. During their tenure, it was competitive with the "KTLA Morning News" from time to time. It will be interesting to see what Jennifer and Melvin will be like on "Good Day L.A."

Actually, Billy Bush is the weekday host of "Extra," so it should have very little to no bearing with regard to Jenn and Melvin's schedule at FOX11 during the work week. In addition to weekend co-anchor, Pascucci serves as a reporter on "Good Day L.A. She technically has a greater profile now than she had on KTLA, which there were some long stints when I didn't see her on Channel 5. Given her following, FOX11 would be wise to use her in prime spots in the future.