FIRST ON THE BLOG: Well… so much for that. An East Texas station discontinues a newscast.
KETK 56 is now, no longer airing its own weekend morning newscast. The previously hour-long newscast, which was known as KETK News Today at 8:00 a.m., has now been replaced by The Today Show on Saturdays and Paid Programming on Sundays. With this discontinuation, KLTV 7 / KTRE 9 now have the title as having the ONLY weekend morning newscast in the area at 8:00 a.m. with the hour-long Good Morning East Texas Weekend. KYTX 19 broadcasts a half-hour Sunday morning newscast at 7:30 a.m. with CBS 19 News Sunday Morning.
No word or no idea as to why KETK 56 has decided to discontinue their weekend morning newscast.
But maybe its because this market is getting smaller and smaller, maybe that’s according to KETK 56 itself. Nice going guys. No wonder why KLTV 7 is winning in the ratings.
changingnewscasts.wordpress.com 
I read on a TV News website a few years back that the Station General Manger at KETK-TV is narrow minded and very conservative. I read on an article a few years ago on one of the TV news websites that the GM at KETK-TV runs KETK-TV like if it were FOX News or a Sinclair owned station with one sided news stories. After reading that article a few years ago if I lived in Tyler Texas I would have quit watching KETK TV for local newz and maybe switch to KLTV or KYTV News probably more then likely KETV since they have more local news with 4:00pm news and Saturday and Sunday Morning news. So really no skin off my back if they can their Saturday and Sunday Morning News just what conservative news operations like to do with being obsessed with cutting news and being obsessed with stationomics or newsonomics and because of stationomics or newsonimics is the reason local stations cut news. Such as like what Sinclair did when they bought KSNV NBC 3 in Las Vegas by canning its hour long 11:00am news and 4:00pm newscasts. These stationomics or newsonomics don’t give a care about local viewers all they care about is marking money and they will make money at the expense of the viewers by cutting news or jamming local newscasts with no relevant news such as more national and international news on the local news. Again if I lived in Tyler I would have ditched KETK News a few years by finding out about the stations viewpoint.
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Jeremy. Sinclair cut those newscasts because they bought back Days of Our Lives and another show. They already have enough newscasts already. Had nothing to do with economics. They wanted to air more then just news. It’s the only good decision they made besides giving KUTV there weekend morning show back.
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Also KYTV 19 needs to work at getting a noon news and maybe a 4:30am or 5:00am newscast. KYTV is one the the CBS affiliates that does not have noon news.
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I don’t think KYTX should spend the resources on a noon newscast. There aren’t enough people home at that time to build much of an audience–and those who ARE home are likely long-time KLTV fans.
Early morning is a good idea, though. You want to be on whenever people get up. If KYTX is going to add anything, it should be a 7 AM show on their .2 or .3. It wouldn’t cost much, since the crew is already there for the morning show.
KETK/KFXK and KYTX still have the same challenge the market has faced for 30 years: how to actually compete against KLTV rather than just existing. Maybe it’s carving out a niche of a certain audience or certain cities in the market.
I don’t know the exact article you saw about KETK’s general manager. Was it the one about comments about homosexuality that a conservative radio host made on their regularly scheduled TV segment? If so, then, yes, what he said was offensive, but KETK’s response, based on what I read, seemed to be headed in the right direction.
East Texas is a very conservative region and certainly you’re going to see conservative viewpoints represented on TV. I think a lot of people who consider themselves conservative would find that guy’s comments offensive.
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I think it’s a mixture of ratings and that Nexstar doesn’t let a station air a weekend morning newscast unless they are a number one station.
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WFRV, also owned by Nexstar, airs a Sunday morning newscast from 6:00-8:00 a.m.
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That was added pre Nexstar, even airing during the CBS days. Nexstar cut KUTV’s weekend morning newscast back when they owned them.
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