WKMG-TV - News Operation

News Operation

From the late 1980s until 2001, the station was almost always in last place in the ratings. At the same time, WESH and WFTV battled for first place in the Orlando market, and basically continued to do so into the early 2000s; however, in the past few years, WFTV has become the dominant station (though channel 6 claimed first place at 11 p.m. in the May 2006 ratings period). Management changes had a number of GMs on the treadmill with Mike Schweitzer, Kathleen Keefe, Jeff Sales and Henry Maldonado all taking a turn at the top. News and Sales Departments had similar turnover with at least 5 News Directors taking the chair between 2000 and 2008. Sales Managers included Connie Albino for a short tenure before being replaced by Tom Calato.

Internet Broadcasting Systems provided the Internet site named "myCFnow.com" by Sales; it then switched to "local6.com", and is currently known as "clickorlando.com". Currently, despite the strength of CBS prime-time programming, WKMG has been trading second and third place with WESH in the evening newscast ratings except at 11 p.m., where until recently it waged a spirited battle with WFTV for first. From late 2007 until March 2009, WKMG's 11 p.m. newscast was in second place behind WFTV. Continuing its ratings slide, the May 2009 sweeps found WKMG's newscasts finishing in third place in all time slots, behind WFTV and WESH. In fact, despite being number one in prime time WKMG's late night newscast has failed to hold on to its lead-in audience for the most part. The siphoning off in news audience share appears to have held in the November 2009 sweeps period, when WKMG remained in a distant third place weekday evenings while its morning and late night newscasts improved slightly although still in a distant second place.

The main news anchors at WKMG currently are Gaard Swanson and Lauren Rowe; they anchor the 6 and 11pm newscast. Rowe moved to help co-anchor the morning news with Erick Weber before returning to nights, joining former news anchor Mike Garafalo for the 11 p.m. news. Matt Austin and Bridgett anchor The Morning News Former Reporter Laura Diaz left to work for radio station WXXL. Before May 1, 2009, former news anchor Jacqueline London anchored the 4, 5, 6, and 11 p.m. newscasts with Garofalo and solo anchored the 5:30 p.m. newscast.

In 2008, WKMG-TV began broadcasting its news in SD 16:9 widescreen format. On June 2, 2012, WKMG became the last major station in the Orlando market as well as the last Post-Newsweek station to upgrade its newscasts to full high definition.

On Monday, May 1, 2009, the station's 4, 5 and 5:30 p.m. newscasts were axed, and a new hour-long newscast at 6:00 debuted. It was the market's first and only full hour of news at 6 p.m. and pushed the CBS Evening News to 7 p.m. However, on January 3, 2011, the Evening News returned to the 6:30 half-hour, and a new 7:00 newscast took its place. On April 27, 2011, WKMG announced that it will relaunch a half-hour 5 p.m. newscast in September 2011, with syndicated entertainment newsmagazine The Insider following it at 5:30 p.m.; both will replace Dr. Phil, which had aired in the 5 p.m. slot to compete against the 5 p.m. newscasts on WFTV, WESH and WOFL, and will move to Fox-owned WOFL in September.

For the February 2012 sweeps period, WKMG took first place in the 25-to-54 demographic at 11 p.m., beating WESH by 5,000 viewers and WFTV by 5,700 viewers.