KDNL-TV - News Operation

News Operation

KDNL aired hourly news cut-ins for most of its first 25 years on the air. Shortly before the ABC affiliation was announced in 1994, KDNL established a full news department. Initially, local news was offered in the form of a nightly program at 9 p.m. that debuted on January 1, 1995. The original anchors were Jim Wicks (who came to St. Louis from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada) and Leslie Lyles (who had been anchoring in Charleston, South Carolina).

When the station switched to its ABC affiliation on August 8, 1995, the station began airing more newscasts; it added newscast weeknights at 5 and 6 p.m., and weekends at 5 p.m., along with weekday morning cut-ins during Good Morning America; the 9 p.m. newscast was also moved to 10 p.m. At the same time, the station made an anchor change; Jim Wicks was fired and longtime KTVI anchor/reporter Don Marsh joined Leslie Lyles for all three weekday evening newscasts. Ratings plummeted and did not match what Channel 2 had been doing in those time periods when it was still an ABC affiliate. The first Nielsen sweep month in the fall averaged only a 2 rating and 5 share. KDNL was never competitive with KMOV, KSDK (both have had at least 20% shares over the years), or even KTVI due to the fact that many of the on-air talent came from out-of-town and were unfamiliar with viewers. In KDNL's defense, the station was unable to hire locally since talent on competing stations had either six month or one year non-compete mandates in their contracts. The early evening newscast on weeknights had its time slot fluctuate between 5 and 6 and was even canceled for a time. Turnover in the newsroom was very high and this showed in the ratings.

In spring 2001, a transmitter failure left KDNL off-the-air for a number of days (or at least broadcasting at lower power than normally). What little audience there was for its newscasts switched to other sources and never returned. The station finally shuttered its news department altogether on October 12, 2001. For the next nine years, KDNL was one of the very few major network affiliates that did not have a local news operation. Although KDNL did not carry local shows, it continued to air national news programming from ABC News. Until January 2011, the station had been the largest major network affiliate in terms of market size without any local newscasts (CBS O&O WWJ-TV in Detroit was the largest until May 5, 2009, when it launched a weekday morning show that was originally produced in partnership with the Detroit Free Press). Most major network affiliates are contractually obligated to air local news, but KDNL's affiliation agreement does not have such a clause.

KDNL occasionally employs its former news set for commentary on sporting events. It also has local weather cut-ins on weekday mornings during Good Morning America. These updates were formerly compiled and presented by meteorologist Tony Pagnotti at Sinclair's News Central headquarters on Beaver Dam Road in Hunt Valley, Maryland. The forecasts are now compiled and presented from Columbus, Ohio sister operation WSYX/WTTE by those station's evening meteorologists.

On January 3, 2011, NBC affiliate KSDK (owned by Gannett Company) began producing two half-hour newscasts for KDNL at 5 and 10 weeknights through a news share agreement. Both broadcasts air in high definition from a virtual set at KSDK's studios on Market Street in Downtown St. Louis and required the hiring of additional personnel. KDNL general manager Tom Tipton stated that the station did not want to run simulcasted or repurposed newscasts in its efforts to return daily news broadcasts to the station. The KSDK-produced newscasts on KDNL are pre-taped in advance. There is no sports report featured during the program. The news share agreement between the two stations is quite unusual given the rarity of a Big Three network affiliate producing newscasts of another Big Three station. In this case, KDNL and KSDK actually compete against one another. There is no local news programming featured on KDNL during the weekend, but the station does air replays of KSDK's entertainment/features program Show Me St. Louis.