Newscasts
KMAX-TV presently broadcasts a total of 43 hours of local newscasts each week (with seven hours on weekdays and four hours on weekends); the station does not broadcast any local newscasts on weekend evenings. KMAX is also one of only four CW affiliates that produce a local newscast on weekend mornings, alongside WGN-TV/Chicago, KTLA/Los Angeles and XETV-TV/Tijuana-San Diego. The station's morning newscast Good Day Sacramento (which debuted in 1995), consistently ranks as the Sacramento area's second highest-rated morning news program – among both local or network shows – behind Today on NBC affiliate KCRA-TV.
After Viacom's acquisition of KOVR, KMAX's news department was merged with KOVR, with reporters appearing on both stations and the Good Day Sacramento set was relocated into the KOVR studio facility. While it does hinder both stations, KOVR and KMAX each produce a weekday morning news block from 5 to 7 a.m., though KMAX's morning newscast starts at 4:30 and ends at 11 a.m. The station expanded its news programming in 2003 with a late evening newscast called Good Evening Sacramento, this program was cancelled the following year.
On January 11, 2008, KOVR/KMAX management announced on a viewer blog that KOVR would begin producing a primetime newscast on KMAX-TV. However, owing to cutbacks ordered by CBS corporate management, plans for this broadcast were shelved in late summer 2008. On June 1, 2009, KMAX-TV began broadcasting Good Day Sacramento in high definition; footage shot in-studio is broadcast in high definition, while all news video from on-remote locations was initially broadcast in standard definition. Both KMAX-TV and KOVR currently utilize high-definition cameras for field reports, with video downconverted to widescreen standard definition.
On June 4, 2012, KMAX-TV debuted a half-hour 11 p.m. newscast produced by KOVR, becoming the station's first traditional evening newscast in over a decade since the 2000 cancellation of UPN 31 Action News; unlike most CW affiliates, the program broadcasts in the traditiional late evening news timeslot of 11 p.m., due to KOVR's hour-long newscast at 10 p.m.
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