Some recent changes in the Tampa Bay market, involving WFLA and WWSB.

WFLA-TV 8 / Tampa – St. Petersburg (“NewsChannel 8”)

WWSB 40 / Sarasota – Bradenton – Venice – North Point (“ABC 7”)

FIRST ON THE BLOG: There has been some changes recently involving two stations in the Tampa Bay market.

Just recently, WFLA 8 has discontinued the 4:00am half-hour of its weekday morning newscast. NewsChannel 8 Today now only airs on weekdays from 4:30-7:00am and now just leaves WTVT 13 (FOX) as the ONLY station in Tampa Bay left to start airing their weekday morning newscast at 4:00am with FOX 13’s Good Day Tampa Bay. WFLA 8’s weekday morning news is anchored by Gayle Guyardo and Gene Ramirez. That wasn’t the only change though in the market…

WWSB 40 (Cable 7; will use 7 for research/broadcasting purposes) has expanded its half-hour 7:00pm weeknight newscast to a full hour. ABC 7 News at 7:00 competes against WFLA 8’s half-hour 7:00pm newscast, but then is the ONLY ones on in the market with local news at 7:30pm. WWSB 7 still airs local news at 5:00, 5:30 and 6:00pm for the viewers’ convenience.

So a mixed bag of changes in the market as one discontinues and another expands. Let’s see how viewers react to this.