CBS Television Stations is introducing nightly 10 p.m. news at owned The CW affiliates in Detroit, Atlanta and Tampa. None of the stations currently feature newscasts. Each station will be hiring multimedia journalists to create news content. The newscasts will be produced at another CBS-owned station, which will add national news, sports and weather, then sent back to the station where it will air.
WKBD Detroit will debut 10 p.m. news Jan. 22. WUPA Atlanta and WTOG Tampa are expected to start 10 p.m. news in February. Unlike in Atlanta and Tampa, CBS has local weather talent in Detroit.
Detroit newscasts will be produced by the CBS duopoly in Dallas. The Atlanta newscasts will be produced by the CBS duopoly in New York, and the Tampa program will be produced by the CBS duopoly in Miami.
“Our stations love news,” CBS Television Stations president Peter Dunn said. “It does so much for a station’s identity in the community it serves, and it is appealing for advertisers. Given advances in technology and the high demand for political advertising this year, this is a perfect time for us to launch newscasts on our CW stations.”
Lessons learned from CBSN Local prompted the CBS group to consider adding news in these markets. CBSN New York debuted in December 2018. CBSN Los Angeles, CBSN Boston, CBSN San Francisco and CBSN Minnesota followed. The rest of the group will debut local direct-to-consumer platforms this year. “With the technology we have, we realized we can definitely do the newscasts without a lot of problems,” Dunn said.
Each of the three markets is adding two or three multimedia journalists, Dunn said. The newscasts will feature a single anchor.
“Our stations in Atlanta, Detroit and Tampa have long wanted to have news,” added Dunn. “We are excited to have come up with a creative way to help them by utilizing the great people and resources at our New York, Dallas-Fort Worth and Miami duopolies.”
