Encore 323

I knew this was coming but it happened so suddenly. They should’ve rebranded to this instead of “KCAL News” back in 2023 but I guess they were trying to get people used to not seeing the channel numbers in the newscast title because that was apart of KCBS and KCAL’s identities for decades. What’s interesting is that they did not choose “CBS News Los Angeles” as the title but the “CBS LA” name is something we will have to get used to outside of the station website.

Lauren Melendez from NBC 10 Boston anchored her last weekend morning newscast yesterday. Not sure on what she is doing next but she did a good job co-anchoring over the last 3 years.

If you listen closely, the music sounds strong at points but is still the same generic track that is being used at WFTS/WEWS and it makes this legacy station so pathetic compared to Local 4, FOX 2, and even CBS Detroit, the station that has the newest full time news operation in Metro Detroit. Part of me wishes that the station was still an ABC O&O but that is not how reality occurred nearly 40 years ago. WXYZ is making the package stand out in other ways by putting “In Your Community” last in the “Your Voices, Your Stories” tagline and making the text bigger in teasers going into newscasts and going into commercial breaks during said newscasts. They did not bother to change the cut even for the 10 and 11pm shows, but oh well. We will see first thing tomorrow morning if they use the same generic morning cut that WFTS and WEWS use or something else to not feel repetitive.

Liz Nagy from sister station WLS (ABC 7 Chicago) will be Jory Rand’s official co-anchor on weekend nights according to KABC management. I thought Sophie Flay was going to be his permanent co-anchor after Michelle Fisher got promoted to weekdays because I think Sophie has proven herself as very capable but I guess she was just a placeholder until they could find someone that is more qualified according to them.

It seems like KCAL is broadcasting from the newsroom tonight so they are probably making upgrades to the main studio or doing something with that VR studio. This photo is from tonight’s 6pm news with Gio Insignares and Hunter Sowards. Lesley Marin is still obviously on maternity leave.

In other news, reporter Nic Garcia has joined FOX 11 from ABC 30 in Fresno. He just did a live report from Beverly Hills at 5:30pm on the FOX 11 News at Five.

To be fair, Elex is/was great with poltical reporting and that is where he shines but other than that, there is nothing that special about him. He is definitely not on the same journalistic level of the other people who were anchors at FOX 11 but he is tough and fair so people do respect that. Hopefully Elex’s new opportunity will pay him better and allow him to be stable. As far as who his replacement on the 5, 6, and 10pm newscasts: we shall see.

You do have a point because the networks can just create their own O&Os if they absolutely want to and we’ve seen it before with how NBC bought WBTS, KNTV, and WTVJ outright when the former affiliates WHDH, KRON, and WSVN said NO to astronomical rates. In addition to that, all networks have streaming services so most station affiliations are almost irrelevant anyway.

I guess I can now say that this historic day in South Florida television history (Aug 4, 2025) is in the books and hopefully NO MORE affiliation switches happen but never say never because people thought that 1995 would be the last time this would happen but here we are 30 years later. If Local 10 were to be affiliated with a network again, The CW would be the best choice because they don’t have much programming outside of primetime (8-10pm) and weekend sports, plus it allows the station to continue it’s local-first vision that they clearly want to do now.

Unfortunately, some of KTLA’s news vans got damaged during the ICE protest/violence chaos yesterday. Hopefully they can be repaired soon.

Today happens to be Meterologist Maria Quiban’s 25th year at FOX 11 and it just shows how fast the time flies.

I’m not going to speculate too much because KABC clearly knows what they are doing but if I was making the post-Ellen Leyva lineup decisions, it would look like this: Mornings: Talent stays the same (John Gregory, Leslie Sykes, Rachel Brown) 11am & 3pm: Phillip Palmer and Colleen Sullivan (Pairing that now exists) 4pm & 6pm: David Ono and Michelle Fisher 5pm & 11pm: Marc Brown and Jovana Lara Weekend Mornings: Talent stays the same (Tony Cabrera & Irene Cruz) Weekend Evenings: Jory Rand and Sophie Flay

Luckily some Nexstar stations like KTLA has not been airing those segments that they are trying to force on all of their stations. Nexstar is clearly going the Sinclair route here with this and you might remember Sinclair got a lot of criticism for running the same pieces on their stations a few years back.

It is sad to see WABC and the ABC network in general leaving its longtime home on the Upper West Side especially with all of the memories, newscasts, and personalities that have been coming in and out of those doors but I am glad that they are planning for the future and 7 Hudson Square will be able to accommodate those needs. The same standards that made the station the most watched in the Tri-State and in the whole nation will continue and will improve with being housed in this modern facility as well as the standards of the ABC News division. I am based in Los Angeles but I know people in New York so it is going to be a change for them when they watch Eyewitness News and network news programming.

It is sad to see WABC and the ABC network in general leaving its longtime home on the Upper West Side especially with all of the memories, newscasts, and personalities that have been coming in and out of those doors but I am glad that they are planning for the future and 7 Hudson Square will be able to accommodate those needs. The same standards that made the station the most watched in the Tri-State and in the whole nation will continue and will improve with being housed in this modern facility as well as the standards of the ABC News division. I am based in Los Angeles but I know people in New York so it is going to be a change for them when they watch Eyewitness News and network news programming. *This will be posted in the WABC thread as well*.

KTLA has probably lost a lot of ad revenue over the last 3 days from non-stop fire coverage and because of that, they have been airing so much commercial breaks during the 1:30-2pm half hour and only like 15-30 seconds or 1 minute of news in between those breaks.

FOX 11 was entertaining Rick Caruso’s crazy statements 15 minutes ago but otherwise they and the other stations have been doing a good job covering this fire.

All the petty arguments on the forum need to be let behind in 2024 and start fresh in 2025 by focusing only on WABC in this thread and respecting decisions to air less news on certain holidays. Have a nice New Year everyone.

FOX Sports L.A. reporter Alex Curry moved to KTLA and is on the 10pm news tonight. They made a good choice hiring her considering her previous experience at FOX Sports.

Yesterday on Christmas Eve, I was taking a little break from the news cycle but I did see a little bit of Omar Lewis doing double duty at 11am and 10pm but I'm not making a big deal out of it because it is the holidays and the main anchors deserve time off because of the holiday season. Merry Christmas everyone.

It is definitely all day especially west of Eastern time for sure.

Aside from GDLA+, KTTV updated its time/temp ticker today for the rest of the newscasts to be more in line with other FOX O&O stations. This also means temperatures for other SoCal cities will no longer be shown in the ticker.

WDIV Local 4 evening anchor Devin Scillian has retired tonight after 3 decades in Detroit television news. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aIjIbMO8cY This month so far has been a very tough and interesting one in the news business with plenty of local news legends retiring including Chuck Scarborough in New York, Mike Nelson in Denver, John Clark in Raleigh-Durham, Amy Doyt in Panama City and now Devin Scillian in Detroit and we are still not done yet because Don Postles in Buffalo is still working until the end of the month.

ABC7 morning anchor Leslie Sykes celebrated 30 years with the station today and it just shows that Disney really cares about their employees.

@TheNewsTV Palombo’s investigative reports are shown during the week so that is why the promo says that.