You don’t hear this very often. In fact, its RARE. So RARE that only one other TV station that I can think of has tried this (KSTP, which merged it into its 10:00pm news in 2013 but has since been a half-hour since 2015). Can you guess what it is? KTVI will soon try it…
Starting Monday January 18th, 2015, KTVI 2 will venture into a rare opportunity by adding a weeknight half-hour 11:00pm newscast. That’s right. FOX 2 News at 11:00 will come on-the-air a half-hour after FOX 2 News at 10:00. It will be the ONLY 11:00pm weeknight newscast in St. Louis and the greater metro area. The newscast will be anchored by Shirley Washington (who’s been with KTVI 2 since 2007) and Jasmine Huda (who joins KTVI 2 from KMOV 4 (CBS) in the same market) with AMS-CBM/Sealed Meteorologist Chris Higgins delivering the latest weather forecasts and a nightly sports wrap-up from Charlie Marlow.
Shirley will move from weekends at KTVI to weeknight at 11:00pm while Jasmine Huda will move from KMOV 4 to KTVI 2, where at KMOV 4, she was given the opportunity to become the main anchor there, but was denied and somebody else got the job, basically leaving Jasmine feeling awful, which explains why she left KMOV 4 not too long ago. Both Shirley and Jasmine will report throughout the week.
KTVI 2 and sister station KPLR 11 (CW)’s President and General Manager, Spencer Koch:
“With the responsibility of producing over 80 hours of news content each week, it is imperative to have strong reporters and anchors. Like Shirley, Jasmine Huda more than fits both roles. She’s smart, a solid investigative reporter and a strong communicator. With these attributes, we are proud to have Jasmine join Shirley to launch FOX 2 News at 11(pm – not to be confused with the station’s 11:00am midday newscast)”
According to the station’s website, FOX2NOW.com, they ran half-hour news specials at 11:00pm in November of 2015. The specials were so successful that the station made it clear that St. Louis news viewers were looking for a late night broadcast.
KTVI 2 and KPLR 11’s V.P. and News Director, Audrey Prywitch:
“Jasmine is the kind of winning journalist you want on your team and not working across town.”
KTVI 2 and KPLR 11’s President and GM, Koch, on News Consumption:
“We are finding that news viewers of all ages have very different lifestyles, but the one constant is their appetite for local news, whether it’s before sunrise or late at night. With the continued shift in viewing patterns and content consumption, news viewers of websites, Facebook, and Twitter will have another option to receive all the major news stories of the day.”
With 80+ hours of news each week, expect that total amount to only get bigger now. KTVI 2 is about to do something rare and they hope that it works.
We’ll see…
changingnewscasts.wordpress.com 
Maybe its because of the Mississippi River floods that have been going on in St. Louis
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Well as a resident of one of the worst hit towns (Union), I can vouch that they also made the 6PM a half-hour longer 3 days in a row for it. (Which is rare as the last time they did that was Ferguson and that was more like 5 hours extra!)
Also they currently rebroadcast the 10PM at 1AM so I wonder if that reshowing is going to be discontinued or now going to reair the 11PM.
I think the main thing though is that it’s rare as most stations **CAN’T** have a 11PM due to network-provided late night shows. KTVI and KPLR are the only major stations in the area that don’t as both FOX and CW don’t schedule late programs. This is why KTVI’s main newscast is at 9PM as FOX gives that hour to affiliates since it doesn’t have to lead into a late night broadcast.
Similar thing with KPLR which is at 7PM. That is because when they merged news operations, they got approval from CW to delay primetime an hour so they don’t compete with their own 9PM. (Which they couldn’t do now if they wanted as they share one set).
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Or those political ad dollars the station sees coming in from the big 2016 election.
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