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KDAF relaunches evening newscasts


T.L. Hughes

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Dallas' KDAF has had troubling times for its newscasts in the past few years, but the station is hoping to gain viewers by relaunching its evening news programs. Starting tonight (November 1), the CW affiliate is relaunching its 9 p.m. newscast as Nightcap News, a comedy-infused newscast in the vein of Eye Opener (which is produced by KDAF and distributed to other Tribune stations without local morning newscasts including KIAH/Houston, WPHL/Philadelphia and KRCW/Portland) or The Daily Buzz. According to KDAF's listings on Zap2It (which is owned by KDAF parent Tribune Company), the station's 5 p.m. newscast is also getting rebooted as Opening Shots News, though nothing has been reported about the revised format of that program (note that Opening Shots News is only listed as airing at 5 p.m. from November 5 onward, though it is likely relaunched with the new 9 p.m. program).

 

With the reboot of its evening newscasts, KDAF hopes to overtake KDFW at 9 p.m. and KDFW, WFAA, KXAS and KTVT at 5 p.m. Though it didn't come without a few costs: there is no longer a sports department and several on-air employees have been let go in preparation from the revamped program, including reporters Dawn Tongish and Charles Bassett, and meteorologist Rebecca Miller (who has now stated that she is retiring from television news).

 

To show how much the revamp might be needed, the 9 p.m. newscast airing the previous Thursday (October 25) at the start of November sweeps attracted only 27,537 viewers (11,731 were in the 18-to-34-year-old demographic that The CW has targeted since its launch, which inexplicably exceeded the 8,379 viewers in the demo that KTVT's 10 p.m. newscast pulled in that same night), compare that with the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex's market reach of almost 6.9 million viewers. The idea came from Larissa Hall, who was recently hired by KDAF as its "director of content".

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According to Nielsen numbers, Nightcap News may have to take a while to grow on viewers (the link also has a review by David Bark on the program): http://unclebarky.co...6e922-2608.html

 

Nightcap averaged 17,211 viewers on opening night, with the audience dropping in each quarter hour. It had a lead-in of 26,848 viewers from the closing 15-minute segment of The CW's Beauty and the Beast, according to Nielsen Media Research.

 

In CW33's target demographic --18-to-34-year-olds, -- Nightcap registered "hashmarks" (no measurable audience) for its closing 45 minutes after luring 4,692 in the opening 15 minutes. So that's a turn-off from those viewers that the station cares about most.

 

It shows you that a traditional WGN/KTLA-style newscast would work much better than a meager attempt at a news program trying to target younger viewers using a format that ultimately turned off viewers throughout the initial broadcast.

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Finally was able to watch 5 minutes of this crap. The story: the "baby daddy" on the Maury show, that has 25 kids. Story was from a Memphis station. KDAF decided to add their own touch by playing annoying music in the background during the whole story.

 

This is just pure awful. It seems like a poorly-put-together-teen-attempt-at-humor-online-newscast. God help us if Tribune spreads this style at other markets. Can't believe they fired all their real journalist and anchors for this.

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Finally was able to watch 5 minutes of this crap. The story: the "baby daddy" on the Maury show, that has 25 kids. Story was from a Memphis station. KDAF decided to add their own touch by playing annoying music in the background during the whole story.

 

This is just pure awful. It seems like a poorly-put-together-teen-attempt-at-humor-online-newscast. God help us if Tribune spreads this style at other markets. Can't believe they fired all their real journalist and anchors for this.

Video? I want to see this.

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  • 2 weeks later...

So, how has the station done since the format change?

 

9:00 P.M. (November Sweeps Results)

KDFW FOX 4 News - 148,974 viewers

KDAF Nightcap - 15,971 viewers

 

Which I bet does not include a majority of the "key demographic" this new format is targeting. The station has been struggling to keep the target demographic from CW primetime programming.

 

Source:

http://www.unclebarky.com/dfw.html

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  • 3 months later...

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