KDFW - News Operation

News Operation

KDFW broadcasts a total of 48½ hours of local news a week (eight hours on weekdays, four hours on Saturdays and 4½ hours on Sundays), more than any other station in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and the most of any television station in Texas; however as is standard with Fox stations that carry early evening weekend newscasts, KDFW's Sunday 5 p.m. newscast is subject to preemption and the Saturday 6 p.m. newscast is subject to delay due to sports coverage from Fox. From the time KDFW became a Fox affiliate (and later owned-and-operated station) in 1995, the station has placed more emphasis on local news; maintaining a newscast schedule that is very similar to a CBS, ABC, or NBC affiliated station, along with the added weeknight 5:30 and nightly 9 p.m. newscasts and the additional two hours of news on weekday mornings.

KDFW is one of a steadily growing number of Fox stations with a newscast in the traditional late news time slot (with the majority of Texas being located in the Central time zone, at 10 p.m. in KDFW's case), in addition to the primetime (9 p.m.) newscast, along with one of the few to continue their Big Three-era 10 p.m. (or 11 p.m.) newscast after the affiliation switch. In 2006, Fox Television Stations Group started to push expansion into that time slot (sister station KTBC in Austin had a 10 p.m. newscast for years after switching to Fox, which was moved to 9 p.m. in 2000). After the switch, KDFW's 10 p.m. newscast was scaled back to weeknights only (Fox late night programming airs on Saturdays at 10 p.m., while the sports wrap-up show "FOX4 Sports Sunday" airs Sundays in that timeslot). It is likely that Fox will have all of its owned-and-operated stations add these later newscasts within the next few years (at least half of the Fox O&Os already have added newscasts at 11 p.m. (ET/PT)/10 p.m. (CT/MT)).

Starting in 2006, the Fox-owned stations began revamping their sets and graphics to be more closely aligned with Fox News Channel. The stations now have standardized logos that resemble Fox News Channel's. KDFW debuted the new logo, set, graphics and news music on September 20, 2006 on its 9 p.m. newscast. The station also launched a new website, which features more news and video with the "myfox" name and interface. On February 18, 2009 at noon, KDFW became the fifth station in the Dallas-Fort Worth market to broadcast its local newscasts in high definition, thus leaving KDAF (channel 33, a CW affiliate owned by Tribune Company) as the only local English-language television station not to broadcast its newscasts in HD for another 15 months.

On April 5, 2010 the station expanded its morning newscast by a half-hour, now running from 4:30 to 9 a.m. KDFW is the last remaining Fox-owned station not to run news in the 9 a.m. hour; this is due to the fact that the station broadcasts Live with Regis and Kelly in that timeslot, which KDFW has done for several years. On July 10, 2011, KDFW debuted a Sunday morning edition of its Good Day newscast (prior to then, the only weekend morning newscast on KDFW was a two-hour Saturday morning newscast from 8-10 a.m., which remains on the station).