FIRST ON THE BLOG: A new year comes with many new changes and sometimes with many new beginnings. For KLJB and its news, those new beginnings start tonight. In fact, it started hours ago with a brand new logo.
But starting TONIGHT, KLJB 18 will start airing newscasts produced and delivered by its sister station through an SSA with Nexstar, WHBF 4. KLJB 18 will continue to air its primetime newscast, but starting tonight, the weeknight newscasts are expanded to an hour and is rebranded as FOX 18 News at 9:00, previously The FOX 18 – 9:00 O’Clock News. The new expanded weeknight newscast is being touted on KLJB 18’s Facebook page (now taken over by WHBF 4 and its Nexstar graphics/looks) as The Quad Cities’ ONLY Hour of Local News in Primetime. That is true starting tonight and TV listings tout it as two separate half-hour newscasts at 9:00 and 9:30pm.
This will only affect weeknights as weekends will remain a half-hour, but Marshall did promise more news coming in 2016 for KLJB, as we first mentioned back in 2014.
- Expanded weeknight news?
- Yes.
- A new sports show on Sunday?
- Yes with FOX 18 Sports Sunday, set to debut this Sunday at 9:30pm.
- Weekday morning news?
- It could be coming, but we’re not sure as of this point.
- Expanded weekend news?
- For now, no. But that could be coming soon if ratings are proven successful.
So for now, KLJB 18’s newscasts are taken over by WHBF 4. It’s the 4th shift in newscast production for KLJB 18 since starting its 9:00pm newscast in 1999. First it was INN: The Independent News Network out of Davenport, IA; then came WQAD 8 (ABC) in 2010 after INN went bankrupt. The agreement lasted right until the end in 2012. Then in 2013, a new agreement came with long-time leader KWQC 6 (NBC) to produce the 9:00pm news for KLJB 18. But now that Nexstar is operating KLJB 18 and already owns WHBF 4, its now their turn to offer and provide an expanded 9:00pm newscast on KLJB 18, starting tonight.
So yes, more Quad Cities news is coming starting tonight. And who knows? They’re maybe more down the road ahead in the future. Stay tuned…
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