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Hello all — I noticed that KXL doesn’t seem to be doing local news on the top of the hour on the weekends any longer. They used to do the first half of the network news, then do (briefly) local news and weather. Does anyone know if there was any more to this than cutting costs?
We had a power failure a few days ago and I got out a radio to look for some news, and couldn’t find any. Is there any any more?
Could it be some paid programing that is bought for the full hour? In my market this seems to be common on weekends.
The KXL schedule shows a few shows that are obvious infomercials (such as Purity Products). However, I suspect that cost-cutting is the most likely explanation. The station no longer has any kind of radio local news competition. KEX went to syndicated programming on weekday morning drive some years ago, and KPAM dropped its local morning show shortly after Salem bought it. In my recollection, both KEX and KPAM had brief weekend local news updates in the past, but these have been gone longer than the local news shows.
I have no insider knowledge, but it looks like they eliminated the budget for weekend news staffing sometime last year. We were better served when both KXL and KEX were 24/7 news shops, but the economics don’t support that any more.
And then comes Chapter 11.
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