Too Much Local News? (Jan 26, 2008)

Problem is that there's so much local news on the air that we wonder why the local stations can't come up with anything else to locally produce. 40 years ago, we once had local kid show hosts on the weekday afternoons such as Johnny Downs and Suzy Saturn, and on weekends, we had Uncle Russ and Chester the Jester. That was a time when the local stations once had no cable competetion. Nickelodeon and Disney Channel didn't come for another decade.

Back in 1968, we had just XETV 6, KFMB 8, KOGO 10, and KCST 39 broadcasting in 1968, as well as the fledgling NET affilliate, KEBS 15. For Spanish language programming, we only had XEWT 12 broadcasting from about 4pm until 11pm in the beginning. KEBS broadcasted for about six hours from 5pm-11pm. KCST signed on at about 4pm and off at 10pm. The only fulltime stations locally were XETV (ABC), KFMB (CBS), and KOGO (NBC). That was it.

Local newswise, KCST didn't have a local newscast. XETV didn't do news at all, except for a public affairs program "Tijuana, Window to the South." KFMB and KOGO had a local newscast at noontime, evening, and 11pm. KFMB once had a daily news magazine called "SunUp" and it was on thorugh the late 1980s.

I remember the old black and white Zenith TV we used to have. It had a knob that read 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and UHF. When you turned to the UHF position, you could use the second dial to tune in the channels 14-83 provided that there was something on the air. The local cable company only covered channels 2-13, with KCST on 3, and KEBS on 12. The rest had channels 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, and 13 from Los Angeles. 6, 8, and 10 were where they were.

Nowdays, all of the local stations are 24 hours a day, many more local stations were added since then, and more local news than there was back in the day were broadcast. Many of them start their news at 5am and run until 9am with or without a national network morning news show.

KGTV, the ABC affilliate since 1977, has the local news from 5am-7am, then Good Morning America from 7am-9am, then the local news at 11am until NOON, then more local news from 5pm-7:30pm, with the ABC Evening News at 6:30pm, and a late newscast from 11pm-11:35pm. Late nights, it reruns their 11pm newscast at 1:05am, World News Now at 2:40am, and America This Morning at 4:30am. Weekend newscasts will air at 6pm and 11pm. It has no weekend morning newscast except on their digital cable channel.

KUSI, which didn't exist until 1982, has too much news. Weekdays, their news go from 5am-9am, then from 10am-11am, then from 6pm-7pm, and 10pm-11:35pm. Weekends, they're on from 7am-10am, 6pm-7pm, and 10pm-11:35pm.

KFMB has local news from 5am-7am, then CBS's morning show from 7am-9am. Local news from NOON-1pm, 5pm-7pm (with CBS news at 6pm), and from 11pm-11:35pm. Weekends, local news from 5pm-7pm (with CBS news at 6pm), and from 11pm-11:35pm.

KNSD, the NBC affillate since 1977 (it was ABC briefly from 1973-1977), has a Spanish-language newscast at 4am. Early Today at 4:30am. Local news from 5am-7am. Four hours of Today from 7am-11am. A newsmagazine from 11am-11:30am. Local news from 4pm-6:30pm (NBC News at 5:30pm). Produces KSWB's 10pm-10:30pm newscast for that channel. It has a 11pm-11:35pm newscast. Weekends, local news from 7am-9am Saturday, and 7am-8am Sunday. No weekend evening newscasts. Late news from 11pm-11:35pm.

XETV, the Fox affilliate since 1987 (it lost the ABC affilliation to KCST after June 30, 1973 despite inaccurate sources reporting 1972 as the year; on July 1, 1973, KCST became the official ABC affilliate serving San Diego), has a local newscast weekdays from 5am-10am, and a late newscast from 10pm-11pm. Weekends, it has a local newscast from 7am-9am, and 10pm-11pm. A 6 p.m. edition of the station's weekend news broadcast will begin airing in mid-February.

KSWB has no local newscast, except for the aforementioned KNSD-produced late night newscast from 10pm-10:30pm, and KTLA's CW News from 7am-10am.

Anyone care to count the hours? It's just more news than anybody can watch. One 30-minute local newscast is enough. Just pick a time, channel, and watch.

As for the local kid shows, they're as extinct as a 29 cent gallon of gasoline. I don't see either of them coming back.