Chattanooga TV station to eliminate news department
“The news pie in this town is not big enough to be split among four news-producing stations,” manager Michael Costa said Friday.
The Fox station’s last original newscast will air Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. It will be replaced Thursday by reruns of the half-hour comedy “Frasier.”
WDSI will continue to show late local news during its current 10 p.m. time slot, but it won’t be produced by the station.
Instead, WTVC, Chattanooga’s ABC network affiliate, has agreed to produce the newscast — an arrangement similar to one the two stations had before 1999 when WDSI launched its own news operation.
The show will originate from the WTVC studio, according to that station’s general manager, Jerry Lingerfelt.
“We’ll have an anchor for the Fox show most of the time,” he said. “We’ll have the same weekend anchor on both stations.
“It will still be a Fox property, and it will look like a Fox property. We’re basically adding a half hour to our news programming and being paid a syndicator’s fee.”
The station’s first WTVC-produced newscast will begin airing March 8.
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On the Net:
WDSI Fox 61, http://www.fox61tv.com/