7:30 PM Local News

[William_Yeager]

WAVE/Louisville (NBC) began a 7:30 PM local newscast today, which immediately follows their 7:00 PM Newscast.  Extra previously ran in that timeslot.  Are any other stations across the country doing this?

[mrschimpf]

WTMJ in Milwaukee did a 6:30pm newscast for a couple of years, which did nothing at all against ET on ABC, Seinfeld reruns on Fox, and Wheel of Fortune on CBS. They got Access Hollywood in February and killed the 6:30 immediately to fit it in.

There seems to be one sole aim with these pre-primetime shows; if they can get a good syndicated program, they'll put it before primetime. WTMJ also had Extra before programming the 6:30pm newscast, which of course is the red-headed stepchild of the infotainment shows. So basically WAVE is doing much more than they ever could with Extra's non-news and it doesn't cost much more to have their 6pm/11pm team doing a newscast in the middle.

[brian4]

KPHO/Phoenix (CBS) is the only Big 4 + 1 major independent that does "7:30 PM" news. Rather it's 6:30 with prime time schedule starting at 7:00.

KPHO has an hour of local news at 5:00 PM, CBS Evening News at 6:00, and local at 6:30. Interestingly, ABC/NBC air World News/Nightly News at 5:30.

[w9wi]

6:30 (Central Time) news has been the norm on channels 4 and 5 in Nashville for years. 

[bpatrick]

Likewise KTRK/13 Houston, and I assume KCNC/4 Denver and
KSTP/5 St. Paul-Minneapolis are also running local news at
6:30 (CT, except MT in Denver).

I wonder how much more news the Louisville stations can
squeeze in; WHAS has started a 4 PM newscast to replace
Oprah.

[KeithE4]

KPHO/Phoenix (CBS) is the only Big 4 + 1 major independent that does "7:30 PM" news. Rather it's 6:30 with prime time schedule starting at 7:00.

KPHO has an hour of local news at 5:00 PM, CBS Evening News at 6:00, and local at 6:30. Interestingly, ABC/NBC air World News/Nightly News at 5:30.

If you want to flip channels, Phoenix has local news from 4 to 7 PM.

[formeraa]

This is one case where comparing newscasts in the Eastern/Pacific time zones to the Central/Mountain time zones is not really valid.  Central/Mountain are much more likely to have newscasts at 6:30pm than Eastern/Pacific are to have newscasts at 7:30pm.  Now, I must mention that then-independent KTVT in Dallas tried an hour-long newscast at 7pm for a while in the early 90's.

[Lkeller]

In the San Francisco Bay Area, the 7:30 is the only half hour between 4:00 PM and 11:35 PM without a newscast.  With that exception, news is on continually on one station or another between those hours.

[oldiesfan6479]

If you want to flip channels, Phoenix has local news from 4 to 7 PM.

And you don't even have to count that "200 EVB Live" mess on KPNX channel 12!

[mgsports]

KMBC repeats it's 6pm Newscast on METV at 6:30pm.
Some area's have 24/7 Local News Channel.