Newscasts
KTVK broadcasts a total of 50½ hours of local newscasts each week (with 8½ hours on weekdays and four hours on weekends); this gives the station the largest local news output of any television station in the state of Arizona, surpassing area Fox affiliate KSAZ's weekly news total by 5½ hours, though the two stations produce an equal amount of local newscasts (nine hours) on weekdays. The station's sports department also produces a half-hour sports wrap-up program called the 3TV Sports Show, airing on Sunday evenings after the 9 p.m. newscast.
One of the station's flagship programs is Good Morning Arizona, one of the country's original long-form local morning newscasts. Running weekdays from 4:30 to 10 a.m., and weekends from 7 to 10 a.m., the show has long been the top-rated local morning news program in Phoenix and the highest-rated program of its kind in the United States. The program has its own budget, writers and on-air staff. Jodi Applegate was the program's original anchor from 1994 to 1996, when she became a weekend anchor for NBC's Today. The program was also simulcast on Fox-affiliated sister station KMSB/Tucson until February 2012, when CBS affiliate KOLD-TV began to produce a morning newscast for the station as part of a shared services agreement (which also involved KMSB duopoly partner KTTU) between Belo and KOLD owner Raycom Media. The station is unique in that its news programming utilizes a general brand name, but individual titles are used for specific newscasts. Besides Good Morning Arizona, the station's early evening news block is currently named Good Evening Arizona, while Good Day Arizona was the name for its now-defunct 11 a.m. newscast and its 9 and 10 p.m. newscasts were once respectively called Tonight Arizona and the NewShow, the latter titles were later dropped in favor of conventional titing.
On April 26, 2007, KTVK became the third television station in Arizona (following NBC affiliates KPNX/Phoenix and KVOA-TV/Tucson) to broadcast their local newscasts in high definition. On March 1, 2009, KTVK began to share a news helicopter operated by Helicopters Inc., as part of a Local News Service agreement with KPHO-TV and KPNX; the helicopter is named "News Chopper 20", as a combination of the over-the-air virtual channel numbers of the three stations (3, 5 and 12).
On January 25, 2010, Good Morning Arizona expanded by one hour (running from 4:30 to 10 a.m.), while the 11 a.m. newscast was discontinued. On August 22, 2011, KTVK launched a weeknight 10 p.m. newscast, bringing the station's daily news output to nine hours each weekday, and also marked the return of a local newscast to that timeslot since the station's days as an ABC affiliate.
Even with the station's loss of the ABC affiliation in 1995, KTVK's newscasts still receive high ratings and channel 3 overall is one of the nation's strongest and most successful independent stations. Its evening newscast, "Good Evening Arizona," regularly beats the national network newscasts on KPHO, KPNX and KNXV in the ratings. The Saturday edition of Good Morning Arizona had the highest ratings of any other newscast in Phoenix during the February 2010 ratings period. KTVK currently advertises that Good Evening Arizona places #1 in the ratings during the 4:30-6:30 p.m. time period.
Read more about this topic: K54GI, Local Programming