K49AS - News Operation

News Operation

KUTV produced a 30 minute 6:30 p.m. (Eastern time) daily local news program for WTVX, "CW West Palm News at 6:30". KUTV staffers anchored the show from a separate studio, and WTVX added material from two local reporters.

Currently, KUTV produces a 30-minute 7 p.m. weekday news program for KMYU, who also simulcasts KUTV's 10 p.m. newscast on weeknights.

On April 19, 2008, during their 5:30 newscast, KUTV became the first station in Salt Lake City to do local news in HD. This was about 10 days before KSL news switched to HD instead of upconverting wide-screen standard definition video. On June 7, 2009, the weekend morning newscast was abruptly canceled; the WTVX newscast followed the next day. The reasons given were that the management company did not like to air weekend morning newscasts and that they were looking for ways to trim the budget. September 2012 brought back weekend morning news along with weekday morning newscasts starting at 4:30am.

During August 2009 KUTV did not renew its lease on their helicopter to save on leasing fees and storing it in the hangar. Instead KUTV has put an emphasis on "Chopper 2", a Harley Davidson motorcycle with a sidecar converted into a swiveling camera mount and seat for a camera operator. It will be used to help cover traffic accidents, weather reports, and parades.

For most of its tenure as an NBC affiliate, KUTV had been a distant runner-up to long-dominant KSL-TV. However, since its acquisition by CBS in the mid-1990s, KUTV's newscasts have been far more competitive with KSL-TV. It remained a strong second for most of the time since then although it took over first place in most time slots in the November 2010 ratings period. For the February 2011 sweeps period, KUTV even unseated KSL-TV at 10 p.m., resulting in KUTV sweeping all of the newscast races for the first time in its history. May 2011 found KUTV dominating all newscast time slots in total viewers. KUTV's run at the top was short-lived: In the November 2011 sweeps, KUTV slipped back to second place in most newscasts behind KSL-TV. However, for the February 2012 sweeps period, KUTV regained the lead in households in all newscast time slots except at 6 pm.