FIRST ON THE BLOG: History will soon be made in Western and Southern Oregon with their first-ever afternoon newscasts at 4:00pm. If you haven’t seen the logos I’m using, then guess which stations will deserve those honors?
Starting Monday September 12th, Heartland Media-owned KEZI 9 will have an hour-long 4:00pm newscast with KEZI 9 News at 4:00. The hour-long broadcast will be the first and ONLY local newscast on at that timeslot in the market. And with this, KEZI 9 will air a three-hour news block with local newscasts at 4:00, 4:30, 5:00, 6:00 and 6:30pm with ABC World News TONIGHT sandwiched in at 5:30pm.
The newscast will be anchored by Megan Higgens and Oscar Maciel with StormTracker 9 Weather from AMS-CBM/Sealed Chief Meteorologist Marisa Woloszyn. Because of the new addition, programming changes are made. Judge Judy, which currently airs at 4:00pm, will move to 3:00pm and Hot Bench, will move to overnights at 2:00am after a repeat of The Insider at 1:30am and it seems that Rachael Ray will be kept in the 2:00pm timeslot.
In Medford’s situation, Heartland Media-owned KDRV 12 will also have an hour-long 4:00pm newscast starting on the exact same day with NewsWatch 12 at 4:00. This will also be the first and ONLY local newscast on at that timeslot in the market. KDRV 12 will do the exact same as KEZI 9 in broadcasting local news at 4:00, 4:30, 5:00, 6:00 and 6:30pm with ABC World News TONIGHT at 5:30pm.
KDRV 12’s newscast at 4:00pm will have Ashley Hall and Brian Morton anchor with StormTracker 12 Weather from Chief Meteorologist Kate McKenna. Programming changes will be made to KDRV 12 as well with Dr. Phil moving up to 3:00pm, Judge Judy up to 2:00pm and Hot Bench will either be kicked off KDRV 12’s schedule or be moved to just one single episode at 1:30am after the 11:00pm news repeat.
So no matter where you live in Western or in Southern Oregon, 4:00pm news is coming your way and all thanks to KEZI 9 and KDRV 12, sister stations that are so much interconnected indeed.
changingnewscasts.wordpress.com 
I heard Eugene Oregon TV Market and the Eugene Metro area is the fastest growing TV Market and metropolitan area in the Grand United States of America. If so then this is the beginning of the Eugene Market expanding and adding more news. Maybe within the next few years you can see KVAL/KMTR since both TV stations are owned by the same broadcasting company have news at 4:00pm also or KMTR adding a midday newscast. Maybe within the next few years A Eugene TV station could start morning news at 4:30m or if KLSR-TV station in Eugene expand their 7:00am newscast from a one hour newscast to a 2 hour long newscast and add an hour at 8:00am, maybe even a 9:00am hour of news on KLSR to compete with KVAL 9:00am newscast within the next few years. The beginning of news expansion boom in the Eugene TV Market actually may have started a few years ago with news expanding on KVAL at 9:00 am and KEZI with a midday newscast, weekend morning news, and now an hour long 4:00pm newscast.
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KLSR can’t do that because it doesn’t have its own news operation and that its weekday newscasts are produced by KVAL.
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