Live or taped?

[rkolsen 1684]

Now with these late newscasts does your station do actual live shots or look lives? For WBAL and WJZ it appears that any newscast that is scheduled to go on air after 11:30 they’ll do a look live from the field. With ABC moving major sports rights to ESPN I have no clue on how WMAR would handle it. I would assume they do a look live.

 

WBFF at filmed last nights / early morning’s newscast at 11:29 PM based on the weather radar clock.

[kdex86 53]

WFXT airs live late local news when the World Series runs late. Even when (for the 3rd year in a row) one of the games doesn't end until 1 AM Eastern, and their weekday morning news starts at 4 AM.

 

It makes for some interesting behind the scenes tweets on Twitter when some of the morning news personalities post how they ran into the night team when they walked into the station. Or one of the night news personalities tweets that the morning meteorologist is already here when it's finally time to go home.

 

Does it make sense to air live local news at 1:30 AM when they're going to be live at 4 AM, with "fresh" on-air talent?

[TriangleTriadMediaNews 267]

Does it make sense to air live local news at 1:30 AM when they're going to be live at 4 AM, with "fresh" on-air talent?

 

It depends. If the Astros would have won last night, of course I'd expect KTTV and KRIV to go live, but any other FOX affiliate that produces their own newscasts should go live as well, same with a Stanley Cup Finals game where the Cup was won, I'd expect all NBC affiliates to air a live newscast, as both events are huge for ratings, even when the home team isn't involved.

 

When it comes to late-running races, games not involving a home team, etc, I would say that producing a live show late at night would be at the discretion of the respective affiliates. Go live if there were some late breaking developments in a hot local story, severe weather, etc, but if it was just a regular night, record and wait til your next regularly scheduled newscast.