#08: D.C. over the past year.
Not everyone saw some changes but some of them did, including some very recent ones.
We do have some changes to take into account regarding the D.C. market, our nation’s capital.
First off, WTTG moved its half-hour weeknight newscast at 9:00 p.m. on its sister station WDCA to 8:30 p.m., creating an hour-long weeknight newscast at 8:00 p.m. FOX 5 News at 8:00 on FOX 5 Plus became an hour-long again back on September 19th of last year. When it first debuted a few years ago, it was an hour-long newscast before splitting it to allow Family Feud in between the two newscasts at 8:30 and 9:30 p.m. Its still the ONLY newscast on in the market. The newscast is anchored by Tisha Lewis and Shirin Rajaee with weather from Caitlin Roth.
Also, very recently, WTTG added an hour-long weekday newscast at 3:00 p.m. under what is known as The DMV Zone. It sounds like a more fast-paced behind-the-scenes type of newscast that comes from the newsroom, at least from some of the footage from the show we’ve seen thus far. Its the ONLY newscast on in the market, unless you also count WJLA 24/7 News (which is also available OTA via WIAV-CD 58.4).
Next, we go to WDVM where back on May 22nd of this year, they’ve added yet another hour to its weekday news coverage at 4:00 p.m. With D.C. News NOW at 4:00, the station now airs four straight hours of local news from 4:00-8:00 p.m. and now competes against everyone else in the market at that time, except for WUSA (which would join months later). The newscast is anchored by Mark Hall and Anna-Lysa Gayle with D.C. Weather NOW from Meteorologist Damon Matson.
Finally, we got to WUSA where months ago, they converted their half-hour 7:00 p.m. news into a traditional newscast, but back on August 14th, it was canceled after it had aired since the early 2000s, in favor of Inside Edition. However, they’ve since transferred the resources of the 7:00 p.m. news in favor of a new hour-long 4:00 p.m. weekday newscast which debuted back on September 6th of this year, the station’s first in 23 years. WUSA 9 News at 4:00 now competes against everyone else in the market that has had 4:00 p.m. news for quite some time now, including WRC (NBC) which has had the longest for nearly 30 years at this point.