WGN Morning News
The WGN Morning News is a popular morning television news program airing on CW affiliate and national cable superstation WGN-TV in Chicago, Illinois. The newscast airs Monday through Friday mornings from 4:00-9 a.m. Central Time.
Formatted as a newscast with a somewhat less serious tone than WGN-TV's other local news programming and known for its fun and rambunctious attitude, the anchors and reporters are often silly and funny on-air pulling on-air pranks and practical jokes.
The newscast debuted on September 6, 1994 as an hour-long newscast from 7-8 a.m.[1]; in the following years, the morning newscast gradually expanded in length: first to two hours (remaining with its initial start time) in January 1996, and then added an additional hour at 6 a.m. eight months later in August 1996. In January 2001, the newscast expanded to 3½ hours, adding a half-hour at 5:30 a.m. and in January 2004, expanded to four hours starting at 5 a.m. On August 16, 2010, WGN-TV added an additional half-hour to the newscast, which expanded to 4:30-9 a.m.[2]; WGN-TV is the third Chicago station to begin its morning newscast at 4:30 a.m., along with NBC-owned WMAQ-TV (which debuted in its current form in 2009), and ABC-owned WLS-TV (which debuted a newscast in that timeslot two weeks earlier).
Contents |
[edit] National carriage
The newscast does not currently air on WGN-TV's national superstation feed WGN America and has not aired on the national feed regularly since 1996, reportedly because certain segments of the newscast were not allowed to air outside of Chicago due to SyndEx rules (the weekend morning editions of the newscast, as well as the 11 a.m.-noon hour of the midday newscast and the weeknight 5 p.m. newscast, also do not air on the superstation feed, though for unknown reasons); although the newscast did air nationally on September 12, 2001 as part of special coverage of the September 11th terror attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C. All of WGN's news programming, including the SyndEx-restricted segments, is streamed over the station's website and through WGN's smartphone applications.
[edit] On-air staff
[edit] Current on-air staff
- Larry Potash – 5:30-9 a.m. anchor
- Robin Baumgarten – 5:30-9 a.m. anchor
- Erin McElroy (Mendez) – 4-5:30 a.m. anchor and 5-9 a.m. traffic reporter
- Frank Holland - 4-5:30 a.m. anchor; also reporter
- Paul Konrad – weather anchor
- Pat Tomasulo – sports anchor
- Dean Richards – entertainment reporter
- Ana Belaval – "Around Town" feature reporter
- Kurt Knutsson – "Cyber Guy" technology reporter; based out of sister station KTLA in Los Angeles
[edit] Former on-air staff
- Mike Barz – sports anchor
- Randy Salerno – reporter/substitute anchor (deceased)
- Roseanne Tellez – anchor
- Valerie Warner - traffic reporter
- Bill Weir – sports anchor
[edit] See also
- KTLA Morning News - a morning news and entertainment program on sister station KTLA in Los Angeles.
[edit] References
- ^ Robert Feder. "Ch. 9 Plans `Solid' Morning Newscast", Chicago Sun-Times. July 5, 1994. HighBeam Research. (February 20, 2011).
- ^ http://corporate.tribune.com/pressroom/?p=1992
