Encore 323

Hopefully CBS News Atlanta Mornings will expand into a full 4:30-7am morning news show as time goes on, more resources come in, and more hires are made. Oh, and there are the other dayparts to do in between 7am and 6pm as well as weekends but that is to come in near future and is a discussion for another day. Viewers are now seeing that WUPA is a station that knows what they are doing and the ratings are paying off as a result.

Veteran CBS LA and KCAL 9 anchor Juan Fernandez, celebrated 30 years with the duopoly yesterday and he had a special segment just for that milestone during CBS LA News at 4pm. https://youtu.be/W85e5rEUt5E?si=wScdewr63MHClCIT

In other news, Perry Russom made his debut on Eyewitness News Weekend Mornings on Saturday 1/24 just in time for the brutal winter storm that is hitting New York City and much of the country right now. https://youtu.be/-qmR1CeZ3g8?si=7vhMhBAObbmSiyr0

As we all know, 2026 will be a big year for NBC due to the Olympics, Super Bowl 60, NBA, MLB, NFL, other sports, plus the busy political cycle with President Trump and the midterms so I get why NBC 5 has been making these moves. Last year, NBC 5 lured away Chuck Goudie from ABC 7 to strengthen the investigative team and now this year with Lou Canellis from FOX 32 to strengthen the sports coverage, and as the station becomes highly sampled, they obviously want that momentum from these events to continue beyond these periods, which goes into why they made the investment into new digital proof-state of the art studios, integration with Telemundo Chicago for extended resources, better reporting, and investigative content, as well as being more present in the communities across the Chicagoland region. The other stations in town better watch out because NBC 5 will be highly sampled this year and may slowly take a half or more of the ratings cake away from channel 7. They have done it before during parts of the 1990s, 2010s, and they might do it again. The NBC O&O stations are in a state of momentum right now due to the stations prioritizing stability and substance, and it is paying off in the ratings, so we will see what happens in Chicago.

Here are some additional parts to that promo. The voiceover, who is Roger Rose, says here that “Everywhere News Breaks, We’re There Monday to Friday with Marc Brown and Michelle Fisher, David Ono and Jovana Lara, and Weekends with Liz Nagy and Jory Rand, Covering SoCal 7 Days a Week, ABC 7 Eyewitness News” (with a Southern California’s News Leader end tag of course) This shows viewers that all of the evening teams are stable again across the entire week and that the coverage we expect from Southern California’s News Leader will remain top notch and to the point. The station is gearing up for its next chapter and no other LA station besides maybe KTLA, will come close to the same level of talent stability and set execution. I like what I see so far but we will see what happens in March, when all the new stuff debuts.

I wish that they gave it to Toni Yates because she has always been a steady fill-in presence for years and is loved by many viewers but Perry Russom is more youthful and has a higher profile with him also being a national correspondent, so it makes sense. Russom has a stiff and serious personality at times, and being a network correspondent requires some toughness but he has been able to lighten up a bit when he filled in a few times on Eyewitness News This Morning, so he is still not a bad choice.

The New York Post and NBCUniversal themselves are reporting that “NBC Nightly News” notched a rare ratings win over longtime rival “ABC World News Tonight” in the prized 25-54 demographic last week — as “CBS Evening News” fell further behind with new anchor Tony Dokoupil at the helm. This marked its first weekly win in this key demographic in six years, attracting an average of 992,000 viewers aged 25-54 in the first week of this year between January 5-11, slightly surpassing ABC’s 989,000 viewers according to Nielsen. A lot of viewers are fatigued from Muir’s in-your-face approach and the propagandist news vision that Dokoupil has to endure. Llamas is straight to the point with the headlines and hones in on those daily issues that people in and out of that 25-54 group can relate to.

I feel like a big restructuring is in the works for FOX 11 this year with the move of West Coast News Wrap to 6:30pm, this expansion of GNLA to weekends, hopefully bringing GDLA to weekends, new reporters being hired or to be hired, and hopefully finding a permanent co-anchor for the weeknight 5 and 6pm newscasts because even though Christine Devine and Marla Tellez have been holding the fort since Elex Michaelson’s departure, they can’t do those hours solo forever and then they do the 8pm on KCOP and flagship 10pm shows together, but it feels like a placeholder at least for now. We will see what else is in store at the FOX Television Center.

That is David Pingalore, who is going to be celebrating a decade with KTLA later this year.

We rarely see ratings numbers in the LA market because of the changing times but these Nielsen ratings figures show that KTLA was/is #1 at 10 and 11pm from Monday to Sunday in the A25-54 demo during the November 2025 Sweeps not long ago. Despite some rough years, KTLA has historically been the top dog at 10pm over KTTV and KCAL, despite the latter *also* being #1 in some figures and trading that top spot back and forth with LA’s Very Own. None of this is surprising, but it shows that consistency and substance is key, especially in late nights, where the viewership is already fragmented.

With this logo and set overhaul happening in March and the talent placement fully sorted out, I feel like they *might* expand their talent opens beyond 4:30pm, 5:30pm, and 11:15pm, and put them back at the top of the hour like they used to do in the 2000s, and do it the same way WABC has done their talent opens since they launched the Defiant ABC O&O graphics. They both are using the Dispatch theme, so it wouldn’t be difficult to customize the talent open version of the theme to KABC’s liking but we shall see when that time comes.

FOX 11 suddenly went to two bars on the left and right sides of the screen right as the 6pm news started and the quality shifted to SD at least on my end. Might have something to do with technical glitches and being the last night of the year. KCOP has normal quality, so nothing wrong there. Hopefully this gets fixed before the start of 2026 in a few hours.

This is going to be interesting because nearly all of the LA stations in both languages have some type of national news in the 6:30pm half hour, and West Coast News Wrap goes into regional issues beyond the three Pacific Time markets FOX is in. KTVU FOX 2 up north will also deal with a lot of national news competition due to KPIX, KNTV, and the Spanish language stations airing those broadcasts at 6:30pm. KGO has World News at 5:30, so that is the exception. Back to the impact on Los Angeles, the change will make FOX 11 more “prestigious” and “network-level” according to some people compared to KTLA, who will still air their 6:30pm local news but KTLA is still going to be the more watched station in that half hour between the two of them because of viewer habits that were set 15+ years ago when they started improving their news product. We will see how this benefits FOX 11 in the long run.

The New Year is about to be here and a change is coming to California’s FOX O&Os starting next week. That change is the movement of West Coast News Wrap to 6:30pm and this might be part of new strategies that KTTV and KTVU are working on or have yet to disclose. This is the updated news schedule for weekday evenings in SoCal and the Bay Area as from Monday, January 5. KTTV/KCOP - LOS ANGELES 5-6:30 PM: FOX 11 NEWS (remains as is) 6:30-7 PM: West Coast News Wrap (new time) 8-10 PM: LA Live News Tonight on FOX 11 Plus (remains as is) 10 PM: The full one hour flagship newscast returns after holiday hiatus 11 PM: Good Nite LA returns to normal slot after holiday hiatus KTVU/KICU - SAN FRANCISCO/OAKLAND/SAN JOSE 5-6:30 PM: KTVU FOX 2 NEWS (remains as is) 6:30-7 PM: West Coast News Wrap (new time) 7-7:30 PM: KTVU FOX 2 NEWS (remains as is) 10 PM: The Ten O’Clock News (remains as is) 11 PM: The Eleven O’Clock News (remains as is)

The guide still shows the 10pm news and Good Nite LA at 11pm as before for next work week (Dec. 29, 2025-Jan. 2, 2026), so it might just be for this week due to it being Christmas Week with less people watching news but we will see. If this is permanent in 2026, then these changes would be such a blow to the flagship newscast that they have been producing for years. It seems like they want to take a page from WFLD’s book with them shortening their 9pm news during the week. As for 11pm, many other FOX O&Os produce newscasts in that half hour without any issues and with KTTV moving Good Nite LA to 10:30pm, it shows to me that they are not (fully) confident in some of the choices they make as well as competing with CBS LA, NBC 4, KTLA 5, ABC 7, Univision 34, and Telemundo 52 in the latest timeslot. Again, could just be a holiday experiment, so let’s keep an eye on things.

I am not saying that KTLA got rid of Cutler because he is still heard in a handful of station promos and commercials but in the daily morning news promos, I can tell that it is AI because the voice sounds stiff/robotic and not natural like a human.

I just saw Olga doing the weather on the 4pm news today, so I guess she most likely started doing the 11am-5pm shift on Monday and I didn’t get a chance to catch her then. On a different note, KTLA has now started using an AI-voiceover for many station promos instead of Jim Cutler, who has voiced the station for years. Sister station KTVX in Salt Lake City has also followed this route. Nexstar’s greed is very real and there is nothing that can be done about it.

Today is Jovana Lara’s 25th anniversary at KABC and she received an award for that, as common Disney/ABC practice for employees who hit certain milestones. She still looks nearly the same all these years later, even with the hairstyle changes.

I feel like Bowens is the better fit out of the two because he filled in regularly for Menefee when he was out and is already a trusted morning voice because of him anchoring the early portion of Good Day from 4:30-7am. DuBois anchored mornings at CBS New York during the late 2000s, so he knows how a morning show works but his hard news personality is more suited for evenings, but you never know.

Well that is a full circle moment indeed, after stints at FOX 11 and the CBS LA duopoly but now the question is when and what shift will she be doing weather on? My best guess is the daytime shift that covers the 11am, Noon, 1pm, 3pm, and 4pm newscasts. Kacey Montoya and Kaj Goldberg rotate during the week in those hours, have a big following and have been there long enough now to be on during the week so that will be tricky to figure out. CBS LA’s loss is KTLA’s gain yet again. They have been poaching talent from CBS LA since Don Corsini and Jason Ball were running the station, and it is still common practice today.

On top of all of this, Scripps is still launching its new graphics for its stations and has other plans in the works for 2026 so there is no way that they will give up the company to Sinclair without a fight, even with their financial problems.

A new-ish development here: KCBS/KCAL recently gave Paul Deanno the title of “NEXT Weather Chief Meteorologist”. I feel like they should’ve gave that title to Evelyn Taft because she has been at the duopoly the longest out of the meteorologists and has a lot of experience working across California but Deanno has more credentials when you consider his experiences in the same position KPIX, then spending time at WMAQ and forecasting for all three network morning shows.

None of these “power moves” will change viewing habits overnight, but I am glad that the current management at CBS LA is trying its best to not make channel 2 look like a weak major market station any further than it has been while still trying to leverage on channel 9’s strengths in primetime and now mornings. In these times, the 4-7pm news block is arguably the most competitive period in the Los Angeles market outside of mornings without a doubt, and it has been way past time to put the 4pm news back on KCBS. The CBS Evening News with John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois from 6:30-7pm is a sinking ship with the former exiting the program by year’s end along with the wake of the network-wide layoffs, but at least one can watch from 4-7 without having to switch at 5pm from KCAL 9 to CBS LA. I don’t like that they got rid of the legacy Noon newscast because it’s part of KCAL’s identity but at least they can be more competitive with KABC, KNBC, KTLA, and KTTV with the longer 11am news. If the duopoly decides to axe the live edition of CBS Mornings from 4-6am in the near future, CBS LA Mornings can be expanded back into the 4am hour with the 4-7am early block on KCBS like pre-2023. The 5am and 6am hours can continue airing on KCAL for expanded reach. That depends on the resources available, so I am not going speculate much on that.

With today’s election and the cancellation of CBS Evening News Plus, KCBS is now permanently simulcasting CBS LA at 4pm, which typically airs on KCAL 9. The last time they aired a 4pm newscast on KCBS was at least 20 or more years ago before it got moved to KCAL to make way for other programming. It feels like a full circle moment is happening. This leaves FOX 11 as the only station in LA without a 4pm newscast.

WGBA’s rollout happens to be exactly two weeks after the WXYZ rollout and the first non-ABC station to receive it. This means that the rollout process of these graphics is slowly speeding up as the resources become more widespread.