FIRST ON THE BLOG: It feels like I’ve been talking about Augusta and the Central Savannah River Area recently. But I had to because so much has been happening in that market within the past month of reporting that I’ve done alone on this market.
I’ve reported in the past month on WJBF (twice) and just in the last post on WFXG. Now, the turn is on the duo in the market.
Just recently, or possibly as early as today, WRDW 12 has expanded its half-hour 4:00 p.m. newscast on its sister station WAGT 26 to a full hour. News 12 at 4:00 on NBC 26 is now an hour from 4:00-5:00 p.m. and this is seen as a response to WJBF 6 (ABC) as they’ve recently added two half-hour newscasts at 4:00 and 4:30 p.m.
This new half-hour replaces an episode of The Big Bang Theory but keeps all other newscasts separate from both stations, besides the weekday morning simulcast from 4:30-7:00 a.m. and the nightly half-hour news at 11:00 p.m. Not only that, both stations now run at least 90 minutes of early-evening news with WAGT on at 4:00, 4:30 and 7:00 p.m. and WRDW on at 5:00, 5:30 and 6:00 p.m. Pretty cool, huh? Coincidence? Probably not.
But that’s not just the only thing… WRDW will also add a two-hour weekend morning newscast, its first such attempt in the station’s history. Starting Saturday, September 21st, WRDW will start airing a weekend edition of News 12 This Morning. The newscast will air in a two-hour format from 6:00-8:00 a.m. on both Saturdays and Sundays In terms of competition, at 6:00 a.m., it will be the ONLY station on at that time (and provide the area’s earliest weekend morning news) while it will compete against WJBF in the 7:00 a.m. hour (WJBF only has an hour of its weekend morning news).
This market is really poppin’ with more local news from every station in the area. Its really incredible and now, WRDW and WAGT are ready to contribute and add to that too.
changingnewscasts.wordpress.com 