CBS News correspondent Jamie Yuccas has been named an anchor on the KCAL Los Angeles morning program. She will anchor the 7-10 a.m. portion of the show, which will run 4 to 11 a.m. Yuccas has also been named an anchor at the CBS News Los Angeles streaming channel.
Part of CBS News and Stations, KCAL has not announced a start date for the morning program, other than it being a fall premiere. KCAL has never had weekday morning news.
Yuccas will continue to be a correspondent at CBS News, and a guest co-host on CBS Mornings. She will remain at the CBS Broadcast Center in Studio City, California, home base for KCBS-KCAL and the CBS News West Coast bureau. She will also continue to host episodes of Nickelodeon’s Nick News.
“Creating a hybrid role that is perfectly aligned with Jamie’s experience and strengths as a journalist and storyteller represents a seminal moment in the continuing unification of our local-to-global news organization,” said Wendy McMahon, president and co-head, CBS News and Stations. “Neeraj [Khemlani, also president and co-head] and I love the notion of having someone with Jamie’s range of talents play a significant role in the launch of our morning news franchise in Southern California, and also continue to report for all of our CBS News broadcasts and platforms. This truly is a best-of-all-worlds opportunity for both Jamie and CBS.”
Joel Vilmenay became president/general manager of KCBS-KCAL last year. “It’s wonderful that we needed to look no further than down our hallway to find Jamie, who will play a leading role in establishing our new morning news franchise on KCAL,” Vilmenay said. “Jamie’s experience with covering high-profile stories for CBS News has made her a familiar face to our local viewers. We believe her credentials, local knowledge and enthusiasm will serve her and us extremely well.”
Yuccas started with CBS at WCCO Minneapolis in 2011 after working at WBBH Fort Myers. In 2015, she became a New York-based correspondent for CBS Newspath. In 2017, she moved to Los Angeles and became a CBS News correspondent.
“It has been a privilege to spend the last several years as a CBS News correspondent, reporting on stories of national and international importance, and I’m thrilled to have a chance to broaden my work as an anchor here in Los Angeles, a city I know and love. I am grateful to Wendy, Neeraj, Joel, Mike (Dello Stritto, vice president and news director, CBS Los Angeles) and the incredibly collaborative team at CBS News and Stations who worked together to create a new kind of role that I’m confident will strengthen our ability to tell those meaningful stories and further connect our CBS community of journalists. I can’t wait to get started.” ■
