Page 76 - Convergent Journalism an Introduction Writing and Producing Across Media

BROADCAST WRITING AND SPEAKING

to be limited to all news, news/talk, some public radio stations, and a
handful of others.
While radio news has generally been contracting, TV news has been
steadily expanding. The typical TV station today runs about 4 hours
of local news every weekday and at least an hour a day on weekends.
On weekdays, stations are likely to start local news some time between
5 a.m. and 6 a.m. If they’re ABC, CBS, or NBC affiliates, they are likely
to run local news until the network morning news at 7 a.m. Then they
do short, local cut-ins during the network news. Stations commonly
run a half hour of local news at noon and then an hour and a half
between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. (the other half hour is network news) and
a half hour late news at either 10 p.m. or 11 p.m., depending on the
time zone.
All station newscasts include local news and weather. Sports usually
runs on just the 6 p.m. news and the late news. Special segments, such
as consumer, health, food, and other areas, tend to run in specific
newscasts, depending on how a station structures its newscasts and the
audience it’s trying to reach for each program.
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