As has been rumored for months, KSL-Ch. 5 is adding a late-afternoon newscast. But the news still comes as a bit of a surprise.
The first surprise is that one part of the rumor turned out to be wrong - this will not be a 5 p.m. newscast, it will air at 4:30 p.m.And the second is that, unlike all of KSL's other news programs, this one will not have "Eyewitness News" in the title. Instead, in a major break with KSL tradition, it will carry the name of its anchor - "4:30 with Carole Mikita."
The half-hour newscast will be directly aimed at female viewers, and KSL News Director Ray Carter promises that "it will be like nothing else in this market."
He plans an in-depth look at each day's lead story "with a female perspective." Shelley Osterloh will be the show's lead reporter, and she will, in most cases, work on that in-depth story.
Carter said the show will "tear down the wall between the anchor and the audience." On some (but not all) days, Mikita will invite viewers to phone in their questions and comments so that the show becomes "talk radio on television."
The show, which is scheduled to debut on July 31, will also be replete with "news you can use," with segments including auto mechanics, health, parenting, fashion on a budget, money management, home improvement, cooking and exercise, all done in quick segments.
"It's different and it's exciting," Carter said. "And it's tailored to Carole Mikita . . . She is the perfect driver for this vehicle."
Mikita, you may recall, was not overly happy when she was removed from the 10 p.m. newscast earlier this year. She will now be anchoring the noon, 4:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. newscasts.
The addition of another half hour of news at KSL will probably not be the last.
"We know that we want to be a strong news presence in the afternoon and all throughout the evening," Carter said. "Don't be surprised if you see a 5 o'clock newscast coming after this pretty soon."
GOING AND COMING: KSL is adding a newscast but losing an anchorman. Noon co-anchor Steve Eager is headed for Dallas, where he'll be the lead anchor on the Fox (formerly CBS) station's two lead newscasts - 6 p.m. and 10 p.m.
Eager's last day at KSL is July 28. He will be replaced at noon by Nick Toma, who will add that newscast to his 6 a.m. anchoring duties.
The Eyewitness News team has also just gained a new managing editor - Dan Burns, who comes from KVBC in Las Vegas, where he held a similar position.
SAME OLD ADDRESS: "Saturday Night Live" has found a home in Utah, and it isn't exactly a new address.
Despite the fact that the local CBS and NBC affil-i-a-tions will be trading places soon, "SNL" is going to remain right where it has always been - on KUTV-Ch. 2.
Which is sort of odd, because that means that a station that will soon be owned in part by CBS will be running NBC's show. The surprise is that the CBS owners said yes to Ch. 2 carrying "SNL."
"Well, they didn't say no," said John Bailey, KUTV's vice president of sales and programming. "They don't program that time period. It's a show that has worked for us and can continue to work for us."
NBC, the current majority owner of Ch. 2, is in the process of selling that station to a joint venture of CBS and Group W. And when that is completed - probably sometime in late August or early September - the station will switch from carrying NBC programming to carrying CBS programming.
At the same time, longtime local CBS affiliate KSL-Ch. 5 will become the new NBC affiliate in Salt Lake City.
The fact that Ch. 5 wasn't particularly enthusiastic about carrying the often racy - even raunchy - "Saturday Night Live" came as no surprise. After all, this is the station that won't carry CBS's "Picket Fences" in prime time.
Some months ago, KSL officials told NBC that they would not carry "SNL" in pattern - on Saturdays at 10:35 p.m. That decision was in part because Ch. 5 already has the very successful "SportsBeat Saturday" in that time slot, and in part because of the content of "SNL."
Ch. 5 did not outright refuse to carry the show but was looking at airing it sometime past midnight - a prospect that didn't exactly thrill the folks at NBC.
NBC sent letters to every station in town, informing them of the availability of "Saturday Night Live" as well as some of its sports programming, which Ch. 5 will not carry because of other com-mit-ments.
At least one other station, KJZZ-Ch. 14, expressed some interest in "SNL." (Although KJZZ's real interest was in the sports programming, which it has picked up.) But NBC decided to go with Ch. 2, with its strong signal, its agreement to carry the show in the correct time slot and its long tradition of broadcasting "Saturday Night Live."
NBC SPORTS ON CH. 14: KJZZ-Ch. 14 will indeed be carrying a bit of NBC Sports broadcasts, but not quite as much as it originally planned.
Because of KSL's commitments to air LDS General Conference, Ch. 14 will air beach volleyball on Saturday, Sept. 30, and an NFL doubleheader on Sunday, Sept. 1. It will also air at least one college football game, Notre Dame vs. USC, on Saturday, Oct. 21 - a date that conflicts with Ch. 5's coverage of a BYU football game.
Ch. 14 had also looked at carrying a couple of other Notre Dame games, but it turns out those dates conflict with KJZZ's new commitment to broadcast University of Utah football.
So Fighting Irish fans in Utah will probably be out of luck.
"SATURDAY NIGHT" CHANGES: "Saturday Night Live" will remain on Ch. 2 locally, but it won't be the same show that aired there last season.
Thank goodness.
"SNL" has been, to be as charitable as possible, in a creative slump for the past couple of years. To be more blunt, the show has been stinking up TV with tasteless, unfunny, self-indulgent stupidity.
"It's time to re-invent the show again," said NBC West Coast President Don Ohlmeyer. "The cast has gotten too large. We have to focus on break-out characters. We have a cast where none of the characters has really broken out in the last three or four years. It's time to bring some fresh blood to the writing staff."
Ohlmeyer didn't mention it, but the ratings are down, which is what is prompting some wholesale changes. Most of last season's cast has either quit or been fired - only Norm McDonald and Mark McKinney will return. And executive producer Lorne Michaels has hired a new head writer, Steve Higgins, a veteran of "The Jon Stewart Show" and "The Larry Sanders Show."
The one thing working in their favor is that it would be pretty much impossible to come up with a show that is worse than last year's.