FIRST ON THE BLOG: It looks like a new news department has taken over the skies of KWKT. Its been two years in the making (literary since this blog first reported on it in 2015) and it’s finally here.
KWKT 44 has launched its very own in-house news department and did so on Saturday (oddly enough?!) by expanding the 9:00 p.m. newscast to a full hour. Not only will it be a full hour on Saturdays and on Sundays, but also on weeknights as well, which means that the 9:00 p.m. newscast will be an hour-long newscast, seven nights a week. It is the ONLY hour-long primetime newscast in Central Texas and the Brazos Valley (since KWKT 44 in Waco is also seen on KYLE 28.2 in Bryan – College Station) but also competes with the half-hour weeknight-ONLY newscast at 9:00 p.m. that’s seen on KWTX 10 and KBTX 3’s (both CBS) digital subchannels which carry The CW and are known as CW 12 Central Texas (KWTX 10.2) and CW 8 Aggieland (KBTX 3.2).
Not only that, it has also introduced the area’s ONLY weeknight local newscast at 5:30 p.m. with FOX 44 News at 5:30. This will run for a half-hour on weeknights as everyone else (as in KBTX 3/KWTX 10 – CBS/CW, KCEN 6/KAGS 23 – NBC and KXXV 25/KRHD 40 – ABC) is airing the network national newscasts.
And eventually, starting next week on Monday, July 17th, it will also air a two-hour local morning newscast from 7:00-9:00 a.m. called FOX 44 Capital News (the name would probably be changed after the newscast debuts), which will also be the ONLY local newscast on in those timeslots in the market since everyone else is, once again and you guessed it, airing the network morning news shows.
So the morning and early-evening newscasts will be weeknights ONLY while the primetime newscast will air seven nights a week, just to clear up any possible confusion.
It’s a good time to be alive in the market if you want local news at a more convenient time than the others.
changingnewscasts.wordpress.com 