Newscasts
In the 1970s, KHJ-TV had a 10 p.m. newscast, which was moved to 9 p.m. during the 1980s; the station subsequently added a half-hour 8 p.m. newscast during the late 1980s, and also had afternoon newscasts throughout this time. Some of its most notable personalities included anchors George Putnam, Jerry Dunphy, Pat Harvey, Chris Harris, Tom Lawrence, Nathan Roberts, Lonnie Lardner, Linda Edwards, and weather personality Andrew Amador. By 1989, Disney implemented the concept of a primetime news block, with the three-hour long Prime 9 News from 8 to 11 p.m. This evening news block remains on KCAL-TV to this day. A few years later, channel 9 added a short-lived half-hour newscast at 6:30 p.m.
KCAL is notable for airing newscasts during unconventional time periods. Along with newscasts at noon (where it competes against KTTV and KNBC), 4 p.m. (competes against KABC) and 10 p.m. (competes against KTLA and KTTV), the station also airs local newscasts at 2 and 3 p.m. weekdays and seven nights a week at 8 and 9 p.m. Combined with its sister station KCBS-TV the two stations air just over 11 hours of news programming every weekday. KCAL has no weekday morning newscast, but has a weekend morning newscast.
KCAL's newscasts are variable in tone, depending on the timeslot. Its 8 p.m. newscast is generally an update on the day's news, which largely feature stories devoted to California and the Los Angeles area, and was previously branded as the California Report during the Prime 9 News era. Its 9 p.m. newscast is generally the most serious newscast and was branded in previous years as the Prime 9 News World Report, that newscast prominently features political, business and international news. The noon newscast, on the other hand, features lighter stories, including features on food, health and the entertainment industry. The 4 p.m. newscast was essentially a repurposed KCBS-TV newscast and was done with former channel 2 anchors Harold Greene and Ann Martin, who did not appear recently elsewhere on KCAL.
The 4 p.m. newscast was moved to KCAL from KCBS-TV to make room for Dr. Phil, which by contract was not allowed to air opposite The Oprah Winfrey Show (which aired in Los Angeles on KABC-TV at 3 p.m., until its syndication run ended in September 2011). Its 10 p.m. newscast is simply more of an update of the 8 p.m. news, as it competes with KTTV and KTLA (and in the past, KCOP), though in recent years, it has been shortened to 30 minutes, in order to make way for Sports Central, the only comprehensive local sports news program in Southern California (since the demise of the Southern California Sports Report on Fox Sports Net). The 6:30 p.m. newscast, which ran in the early 1990s was called First 9 News focused primarily on local news and competed against the national network newscasts aired on KCBS-TV, KNBC and KABC-TV (however, KCBS did air a 6:30 p.m. local newscast in the mid to late 1990s, while the CBS Evening News aired at 5:30 p.m.).
Because of the amount of news programming on the station (which currently totals 42½ hours each week), channel 9 is known as the station showing the most police chases. Often regular news programming is dropped to cover a police chase, and programming following the news is sometimes pre-empted to show the chase's conclusion.
On April 1, 2008, CBS Television Stations ordered widespread budget cuts and staff layoffs from its stations. As a result of the budget cuts, roughly 10 to 15 staffers were released from KCBS-TV and KCAL-TV, including reporters Jennifer Sabih, Greg Phillips and Jennifer Davis. Harold Greene and Ann Martin, who were then the 4 p.m. co-anchors on channel 9 and 6 p.m. on KCBS-TV were also said to have been on the layoff list, but both decided to retire from television upon the June 2009 expiration of their contracts.
On April 23, 2009, it was announced that Rick Garcia, formerly with KTTV, had joined KCAL and would be paired with Pat Harvey as co-anchors of the station's weeknight 8 and 10 p.m. newscasts. He is now paired with Sharon Tay, as Pat Harvey had moved to sister station KCBS-TV to co-anchor that station's 5 and 11 p.m. newscasts.
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