History
The program began on July 8, 1991 as The KTLA Morning News, anchored by Carlos Amezcua and Barbara Beck, with weathercaster Mark Kriski, and Eric Spillman and Michele Ruiz reporting from remote locations. It was created under the direction of then-general manager Steve Bell and produced by Raymond J. Brune. The show's emphasis was mostly on news, with very little on lighter features. With the emphasis on hard news, the show received poor ratings and some negative reviews. Near the end of 1991, Joel Tator, a new executive producer, had been brought in to help revive the show, by giving the show a more relaxed atmosphere by spreading out newspapers on the desk. The anchors, feeling that the show was in its final weeks, also relaxed and they started joking around.
The critical moment for the Morning News came in February 1992, when a series of rain storms hit the Southland, causing severe flooding in the San Fernando Valley. At that time, the only other news programs on in the morning were the morning news shows on ABC (Good Morning America), NBC (Today) and CBS (CBS This Morning), which were all broadcast on a three-hour tape delay in the Pacific Time Zone, with limited live coverage during the local news segments. Filling a need, KTLA set aside its normal programming and provided extensive coverage of the flooding. That brought in large numbers of Southland viewers; once the flood crisis ended, the viewers stayed with the show. And as a result, ratings improved dramatically.
Another critical moment for the Morning News occurred on January 17, 1994, when the Northridge earthquake rocked the area, causing widespread damage, collapsing freeways, sparked power outages, ruptured water and gas lines, prompted the stoppage of television and film production and altered public events and flight schedules, due to precaution closures in Hollywood and Los Angeles International Airport. The quake almost trashed the KTLA newsroom when reporters Eric Spillman, Larry McCormick, Stan Chambers and Michele Ruiz were producing special reports throughout the morning.
With the new relaxed atmosphere and a need to provide live, local news when the other stations could not, the show survived. The program continued to succeed even as the newscast saw new competition with the debut of Good Day L.A. on Fox-owned KTTV (channel 11) in July 1993. Around 1998, Michele Ruiz left for NBC-owned KNBC (channel 4) and Jim Newman also left for ABC-owned KABC (channel 7). On May 2, 2001, Barbara Beck resigned from KTLA and Giselle Fernandez later became co-anchor. In 2003, Giselle Fernandez left and was replaced by Michaela Pereira. In September 2007, Carlos Amezcua left KTLA for KTTV to replace John Beard on that station's 10 p.m. newscast.
In September 2006, KTLA changed the subtitles of each portion of the morning newscasts. The 5 a.m. hour was renamed KTLA Morning News First Edition, the 6 a.m. hour was retitled KTLA Morning News Early Edition and the 7-10 a.m. portion was renamed the KTLA Morning Show. The newscasts underwent another retitling on February 4, 2008 to fall under the KTLA Morning News brand; with the 5 a.m. hour renamed KTLA Morning News @ 5, the 6 a.m. hour renamed KTLA Morning News @ 6, the 7-9 a.m. portion of the KTLA Morning Show reverting back to its original title as the KTLA Morning News, and the 9 a.m. hour became known as KTLA Morning News @ 9.
In April 2011, KTLA added a weekend morning extension of the newscast, airing on Saturdays from 6-7 a.m. (airing in the early time slot due to The CW's Toonzai animation block), and on Sundays from 6-9 a.m.; it is currently anchored by Chris Burrous and Wendy Burch. The addition made KTLA the fourth Tribune-owned station to carry a weekend morning newscast (the others being fellow CW affiliate WGN-TV in Chicago, and Fox affiliates WXIN in Indianapolis and WTIC-TV in Hartford). On February 2, 2012, the KTLA Morning News was expanded by an extra hour, starting at 4 a.m.
Read more about this topic: KTLA Morning News
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