It was September 2007 when NBC ditched their 5pm newscast in favor of Extra TV due to “changing consumer habits”. Apparently our habits must not have changed that much (or people just didn’t care for Extra?) so NBC suits were forced to undo themselves. “We tried something different, but found that the available audience
had a habit for news at 5 p.m., and we’re going to serve that need,” says one of the WNBC suits. So now they have to undo themselves.
As of January 2nd WNBC is back to 30 minutes of news at 5pm followed by Extra TV until 6pm.
What will NBC6 do? Will they do anything at all? Clearly Ellen isn’t Dr. Phil and people are eating up what Channel 7 has to offer at 4pm and 5pm. Is WPLG banking too much on Dr. Phil once he goes would they have to do resets?
NY Times – TV Decoder – 5 O’Clock News back on WNBC
I will tell you one thing–I am damn tired of wealthy network-owned stations crying poverty. Cut costs by reducing news, hiring on-air talent not ready for the big time, running an excessive number of infomercials, and worst, not upgrading to HD while smaller markets are already there. NBC6 has no excuse. At least 10 can say they’re moving to a new building. 4 and 6 have no excuse, and if they’re having trouble turning a profit, maybe they should have their license taken away and given to someone with more business acumen. Perhaps the problem with the O & O’s is that they are used to prop up the crappy results at the network level. Whatever the excuse, the WTVJ of today pales to Ralph Renick’s days. Somehow WTVJ used to produce a local one-hour variety special every year, which usually kicked tail at the Emmys because it so far surpassed the local competition. Again, if these clowns running the local stations and turn a profit without turning roughly a half of its airtimes to infomercials, time to give the PUBLICLY OWNED airwaves back to someone who can.