KSHB-TV - News Operation

News Operation

KSHB-TV broadcasts a total of 32 hours of local news per week, with five hours on weekdays, four hours on Saturdays and 2½ hours on Sundays. KSHB is also one of ten television stations that air consumer reports from John Matarese of ABC affiliate (and sister station) WCPO in Cincinnati.

The station had already run news in various formats for years. In its KBMA days, UPI news updates would air over a 41 Newsbreak slide. The station did live news updates during prime time and 15 minutes of local news at 10 p.m. as 41 Express during the 1980s. In August 1993, KSHB began producing a 9 p.m. newscast called Fox 41 News at Nine, anchored by Jim Condelles and Pam Davis. The following year when KSHB picked up the NBC affiliation, it became 41 News; during which the newscasts started running at 5, 6, and 10 p.m. on weeknights, and 5 and 10 p.m. on weekends. In 1997, the station cancelled its 5 and 6 p.m. newscasts in favor of a pre-primetime newscast at 6:30 p.m.; that newscast was dropped in March 1999, and newscasts were reinstated at 5 and 6 p.m.

KSHB has since become a more news-intensive operation—to the point where the station currently brands itself as 41 Action News. The Action News branding, as a UHF owned by Scripps, is also shared with sister station WFTS in Tampa-St. Petersburg and WXYZ-TV in Detroit; both of which are ABC affiliates. But in the case of the Kansas City market, KSHB is the second station to use the branding — dating from when WDAF used it for its news branding back when it was an NBC affiliate. The Action News branding was originally adopted in 2003 under the name NBC Action News for both general entertainment programming and newscasts, the on-air branding was changed (with very little promotion) to 41 Action News on February 5, 2012 beginning with its 10 p.m. newscast (following NBC's coverage of Super Bowl XLVI) after the station realized that most viewers still referred to KSHB as "channel 41."

In September 2005, KSHB started its mid-morning chat program, Kansas City Live. This show is similar to Kansas City Today which aired on the station in the late 1990s, and AM Live which aired in the 1980s. The show was cancelled in early 2008, replaced with a late-morning newscast at 11 a.m. KSHB began broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition on April 24, 2008, starting with its 11 a.m. newscast, becoming the second station in the Kansas City market (behind KMBC channel 9) to switch to HD. The new high definition set was unveiled on August 8, 2008. In November 2009, KSHB-TV introduced a new red and brown graphics package and new news theme on its newscasts, a standardized package produced by a graphics hub based out of sister station WFTS-TV in Tampa that is now utilized on most Scripps-owned stations.

On February 6, 2010, it was announced that KSHB's assistant news director and general manager would both be resigning from the station. The assistant news director would move to WFTX-TV in Cape Coral, Florida to become the station's new news director (the fifth in seven years at the station). The station's general manager announced that he would be taking an early retirement, thus the reason for his resignation. He had been associated with the station for 15 years and officially stepped down on March 5, 2010. On February 25, 2010, KSHB's new general manager was announced.

On August 19, 2010 KSHB management announced that it was adding an additional four hours of newscasts to its lineup; this included re-expanding morning newscast to a 4:30 a.m. start time on August 23 (at one point, the morning newscast began straight at 4 a.m.), extending their Saturday morning newscast from one hour from 8-9 a.m. to two hours from 8-10 a.m. on September 4, and adding an hour-long Saturday evening 6 p.m. newscast on that same date. It was also announced that former WDAF-TV sports director Frank Boal would be joining the station for the stations football season coverage. Boal had announced in 2009 that he was retiring. This too, sparked some little controversy. On August 29, 2011, KSHB debut a half-hour 4:30 p.m. newscast, the newscast will utilize social media platforms to allow viewers to interact with the newscast. On August 1, 2011, KSHB began rebroadcasting its 11 a.m. midday newscast on sister station KMCI at noon on weekdays.