#06: Atlanta over the past year.
This had the most changes from the past year than any other market.
Out of all the markets I’ve covered in terms of changes over the past year, I don’t think I have seen as many changes as the one market I’m about to cover: Atlanta. As a matter of fact, the only station that WASN’T affected… WATL. I’m not kidding. Out of all the major commercial stations that air local news in town, whether on its own station or a produced newscast for a sister station, WATL wasn’t touched. Yeah… there is a lot to get to here.
First, to WXIA where they shifted their hour-long midday newscast that used to start at 11:30 a.m. back on September 12th of last year into a full hour-long newscast from 12:00-1:00 p.m. with 11 Alive News at Noon. Atlanta and Company, their longtime lifestyle talk show, is still on for a half-hour at 11:00 a.m.
Now this year, WXIA has added an hour-long weekday newscast at 4:00 p.m. Originally, 11 Alive News at 4:00 was supposed to debut on Monday, September 11th, but they pushed it back to a week later and ended up debuting yesterday, Monday, September 18th. The newscast replaces Dr. Phil in the timeslot but aired Dateline there last week. Its anchored by Faith Jessie and newcomer, Atlanta-born and bred Jonathan Martin who joined the station from KRIV (FOX) in Houston.
Next, we go to the new WANF, which used to be WGCL. Last year, they received a complete overhauled makeover and are now known as ANF: Atlanta News First. Last year on October 3rd, it added an hour-long nightly 10:00 p.m. newscast on WPCH. That ended up being a useful move because this year, WPCH became the new affiliate for The CW, taking it away from WUPA. As a result, the nightly 9:00 p.m. news it had on for six years starting in 2017, was dropped so that it could accommodate The CW Primetime programming from 8:00-10:00 p.m.
Also, starting last week, WANF moved its half-hour weekday 3:30 p.m. news over to WPCH so that the main station could air parent company Gray Television’s Investigate TV+ at that time.
Speaking of WUPA, it became the ONLY newest CBS-owned Independent station that’s not connected to a CBS O&O news station to continue to air a weeknight newscast. In this case, an hour-long weeknight newscast at 8:00 p.m. Yes, its still called Atlanta NOW News but is unknown now as to who is producing the newscast for WUPA. It could still be coming from sister station KTVT (CBS) in Fort Worth-Dallas but that’s still unknown as of right now. This began on WUPA’s first day as an Independent station, Friday, September 1st.
Next, to WAGA where at some point over the past year, it expanded its weekend morning news to start an hour earlier at 5:00 a.m. FOX 5 News - Good Day Atlanta now competes at that hour against WSB which expanded its weekend morning news to 5:00 a.m. back in 2017. The Saturday edition now airs from 5:00-9:00 a.m. with the Sunday edition from 5:00-8:30 a.m. The reason for the difference on Sundays is that the station airs its long-running Sunday morning public affairs show, The Georgia Gang, at 8:30 a.m. which has been on WAGA’s airwaves since at least the late 1970s and is the longest-running show in the state of Georgia.
Finally, we go to WSB. There really weren’t that many changes for them as they kept it status quo. However, they have added a two-hour weekday morning newscast on its second subchannel, Bounce Atlanta, from 7:00-9:00 a.m. The newscast, Channel 2 Action News This Morning on Bounce Atlanta previously came from their streaming service, WSB NOW. Fred Blakenship, Lori Wilson, Severe Weather Team 2 Meteorologist Brian Monahan, and Triple Team Traffic reports all helm the morning broadcast. It now competes against WAGA and WANF on WPCH’s morning news during those exact same times.
I told you it was going to be a lot from just this one market.