312newswannabe 7 Posted August 25, 2010 Share Posted August 25, 2010 From yesterday's Trib: "August 23, 2010 WGN-Ch. 9 plans new early morning weekend news WGN-Ch. 9, which last week joined the increasingly crowded 4:30 a.m. fray by moving up the start of its weekday morning news, plans to launch a new one-hour 6 a.m. Saturday and Sunday newscast on the weekend of Oct. 2. Channel 9 news boss Greg Caputo said Monday that the weekend newscast will be "straighter" than the free-form weekday "WGN Morning News" tends to be and will include some content from other newscasts. No anchor or staffing decisions have been made yet, but the choices are expected to come from in house. The decision by Chicago Tribune parent Tribune Co.'s WGN to decision to try to establish its weekend beachhead at 6 a.m. is driven at least partially by other station commitments, according to Caputo. That puts the Channel 9 effort up squarely against similar efforts Saturday and Sunday on Disney-owned WLS-Ch. 7 and Saturday on WMAQ-Ch. 5, which dropped its local Sunday morning newscast last year. "We're a news company and a lot of us have felt deficient not having a weekend morning show," Caputo said. "I know the station tried it several years ago. ... I don't know what happened to it, but it obviously went away." A factor in resurrecting the franchise are the efficiencies created last year, when Tribune Co. integrated the Channel 9 newsroom with that of its local cable channel, CLTV. "We're a 24/7 news operation now and we weren't before," Caputo said. WGN, under then-General Manager (and future Tribune Co. Chairman) Dennis FitzSimons, introduced a one-hour 8 a.m. newscast on Saturdays and Sundays in early 1992. But it dropped the Sunday show in 1994 and canceled the Saturday edition at the end of 1998." I'm wondering who can they lose during the week to anchor an hour long show on the weekends? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lazynetjunkie 34 Posted August 25, 2010 Share Posted August 25, 2010 I'm wondering who can they lose during the week to anchor an hour long show on the weekends? Nancy Loo maybe? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TVNewsLover 727 Posted August 25, 2010 Share Posted August 25, 2010 Nancy Loo maybe? Or Tom Negovan? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ED2 144 Posted August 25, 2010 Share Posted August 25, 2010 I remember watching WGN's Saturday Morning News back in '98. At the time it was cancelled it was anchored by the late Randy Salerno, Dina Bair, and I believe weather was handled by Alan Seals. It might not have been as wild as the weekday show, but Randy and Dina had pretty good chemistry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WGN9fan 0 Posted August 25, 2010 Share Posted August 25, 2010 I wonder what fate lies for People 2 People or Adelente Chicago on Saturday mornings and Singsation! on Sunday mornings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lazynetjunkie 34 Posted September 22, 2010 Share Posted September 22, 2010 And we get Sean Lewis anchoring that newscast along with Mike Hamernik on weather.. Seems like it's going to be a little CLTV-ish borefest. WGN's got some good talent with potential chemistry and this is what they come up with? I'm guessing they're aiming for the elderly viewer demographic that gets up early on weekends.. http://blogs.vocalo.org/feder/2010/09/morning-news-returns-to-channel-9-on-weekends Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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