News programming
KABC-TV currently broadcasts 48 hours, 55 minutes of locally produced newscasts each week (with 7 hours, 35 minutes each weekday; six hours on Saturdays and five hours on Sundays). KABC-TV formerly operated a news bureau in California's state capital of Sacramento, sharing resources with sister stations KGO-TV in San Francisco and KFSN-TV in Fresno; the bureau was closed in 2014. The station also has bureaus located within its viewing area, in Riverside and Orange. In the 1980s, the station also had a bureau located in Ventura.
Lew Irwin Reports, the station's first locally produced newscast, debuted in 1957. Initially, the 15-minute program was broadcast Monday through Saturday at 11 p.m. and featured Irwin delivering a news summary prepared by KABC Radio news writers, followed by a seven-minute feature written by Irwin that included footage shot for the program by the MGM-owned newsreel company Telenews. Irwin interviewed a host of public figures for the program, including former President Harry S. Truman, former Senator John F. Kennedy, philosopher Bertrand Russell, actor Marlon Brando, H-bomb scientist Edward Teller, and poets Robert Frost and Carl Sandburg. Irwin's features often included news-breaking investigations into such controversial topics as migrant workers, police brutality, proprietary hospitals, disc jockey payola, the Hollywood blacklist, and the John Birch Society.[14] In a letter to the chief of ABC News, James Hagerty, in 1961, Sandburg wrote: "He is one of the great reporters in America today. I could make a case that he is one of the most useful citizens." In 1962, a new KABC-TV program director for the station mounted a second newscast on the station (following John Daly's network newscast in the early evening) presented by Ed Fleming, who had previously worked for rival KNXT. A few months later, he decided to feature Fleming and Irwin on both the early-evening and late-night newscasts, with Fleming delivering the news and Irwin a long-form feature. After numerous clashes between the program director and Irwin, Irwin resigned in 1962 citing creative differences. He was eventually succeeded by KCOP newscaster Baxter Ward, who was backed by the station's first staff film crew.
KABC-TV first adopted the Eyewitness News format for its newscasts in February 1969, not long after it became popular on New York City sister station WABC-TV. Like the other ABC-owned stations, KABC-TV used the "Tar Sequence" cue from the soundtrack of the 1967 film Cool Hand Luke as its theme music, and continued to use it even after other channels adopted an updated version of the theme, the Frank Gari-composed "News Series 2000". Later, the station used the original Cool Hand Luke theme only during the main newscast. The station's newscasts used a synthesized version of the old theme (composed by Frank Becker) during the mid-1980s. KABC-TV picked up the "News Series 2000" package first in 1989 for Eyewitness News promos, then in 1990 for additional use in bumpers and as the closing theme before being fully adopted as the Eyewitness News theme in 1992. The original Cool Hand Luke theme was retained for some Eyewitness News promos as late as 1993. In 1995, KABC began using Gari Media Group's "Eyewitness News" music package, which remains as the station's news theme.
Bill Bonds and Stu Nahan were KABC-TV's first anchor team under the Eyewitness News banner. Within two years, unable to upend the dominance of KNXT (now KCBS-TV)'s The Big News and Eleven O'Clock Report with Jerry Dunphy and KNBC's Newservice format, Bonds returned to his previous ABC assignment at WXYZ-TV in Detroit and Nahan became the station's lead sportscaster. A succession of anchors—Joseph Benti, Barney Morris, John Schubeck and Judd Hambrick—followed, but the newscast gained its greatest growth in August 1975 when KABC-TV hired Dunphy as its lead anchor, following his firing from KNXT. Though initially paired with newcomer John Hambrick, Dunphy later partnered with reporter Christine Lund, and that duo led KABC-TV to local news supremacy well into the 1980s. Others who have reported or anchored for KABC-TV include Lisa McRee, Harold Greene, Tawny Little, Laura Diaz, Paul Moyer, Chuck Henry, Johnny Mountain, George Fischbeck, Judd Rose, and Bill Weir. Former KABC-TV sports reporters and anchors include former NFL players Lynn Swann, Gene Washington, Jim Hill, and Bob Chandler; and former Major League Baseball player (and current Los Angeles Dodgers radio analyst and play-by-play announcer) Rick Monday.
In the highly competitive Los Angeles media market, Eyewitness News has long engaged in several initiatives to connect with local viewers and is quite beloved in Southern California for its "neighborhood news" approach. One such early effort was to originate a local newscast from a typical Southern California suburban family home. In the spring of 1972, a contest was held, asking the public to write letters telling KABC why an edition of the newscast should be produced at their home. The winner was Joseph Jensen from Sepulveda (now known as North Hills), and on June 13, the 11 p.m. edition of Eyewitness News originated live from the Jensen family dining room, with anchormen John Schubeck and Joseph Benti seated at the Jensen dinner table, reading the latest headlines. The Jensen family surrounded the journalists, dressed in their "Sunday best". Camera equipment, lights, microphones and a remote broadcast truck (similar to the ones used at sporting events), to connect the house to the ABC Television Center, were employed to help with the broadcast.[15][16]
During the 1970s and 1980s, the station's newscasts often included spirited miniature debates and commentaries reflecting various political viewpoints. Several notable politicians and political pundits appeared on these segments, including Proposition 13 backer Howard Jarvis, former U.S. Representative and Senator John Tunney, Bruce Herschensohn, Bill Press and Baxter Ward. In addition, KABC-TV aired brief editorials from the station's general manager, most notably John Severino, who served throughout the 1980s. This practice was discontinued in 1990.
During the 1980s, KABC-TV was one of a few stations in the country to run a three-hour block of local newscasts on weekdays from 4 to 7 pm. The station was the first in the region to introduce an hour-long newscast at 4 pm, first anchored by Jerry Dunphy and Tawny Little in September 1980. Before this, the station ran two hours of news from 5 to 7 pm. The station reduced this block by one half-hour in 1990, when it moved World News Tonight from 7 p.m. to 6:30 pm. For a time in the late 1980s, its 6:30 p.m. newscast was titled Eyewitness Update and served as a final recap of the day's news, similar in nature to an 11 p.m. newscast. KABC-TV is one of three ABC stations on the West Coast to air World News at 6:30 p.m. (the two other ABC stations to do this being KGTV in San Diego and KAEF in Eureka); most other ABC stations in the western United States run the program at either 5:30 or 6 pm. When the network soap opera Port Charles ended its run in 2003, KABC-TV expanded its midday newscast to a full hour. Occasionally, KABC-TV has aired the live East Coast edition of World News Tonight at 3:30 pm.
From January 13, 2014, to July 28, 2022, KABC-TV produced an hour-long evening newscast on then-independent Anaheim-based KDOC-TV (channel 56); the newscast originally aired at 8 p.m. before moving to 7 p.m. and aired seven nights a week; KDOC also added a midnight rebroadcast of KABC's 11 p.m. newscast.[17] KABC was the fifth ABC owned-and-operated station to enter into a news share agreement (after WTVD, KGO-TV, WPVI-TV and KFSN-TV). KABC aired its final news broadcast on KDOC on July 28, 2022, due to KDOC being sold to Tri-State Christian Television and switching to religious programming the next day.
On May 31, 2016, KABC added a 3 p.m. newscast on weekdays, competing with KTLA's newscast at that time slot. On September 10, 2018, KABC became the third television station in the market to expand its weekday morning newscast to three hours, with an additional half-hour at 4 a.m.
On September 30, 2015, the KABC-TV studios in Glendale were evacuated due to a bomb threat. The station's employees were evacuated and forced the station off-the-air; the suspect who was responsible for the threat was a 22-year-old Glendale man, who was arrested on October 14, 2015. As a result, the 4 p.m. newscast was temporarily moved outside the studio, while the police swept the studio with bomb-sniffing dogs inside. At 4:42 pm, the station's employees were allowed to re-enter the studio and the newscast continued from the studio after the threat.[18]
In February 2017, the station's news helicopter, AIR7HD, received an upgrade and debuted with two new features: XTREME Vision and SkyMap7. XTREME Vision uses an advanced zoom lens and can track vehicle speeds in real time. SkyMap7 uses augmented reality technology which overlays the names of streets and highways onto the picture. Both features are powered by the SHOTOVER F1 Live.[19]
Ratings
The introduction of the Eyewitness News format, followed by the addition of syndicated staples such as The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1986, Live with Kelly and Mark and its predecessors in 1991, and Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune in 1992, has allowed KABC-TV to maintain a substantial ratings advantage over its competition. Leveraging the strength of its sizeable lead-in at 3 p.m. by the now-defunct Oprah, KABC-TV has long held first or second in the ratings for its 4 to 6:30 p.m. news block. However, ratings leads for the morning and late news have typically been expensive battles with local stations KTLA and KTTV in the morning, and KNBC (and recently KCBS-TV) at 11 p.m.
With its across-the-board ratings success in hand, the station has been known to run quick five-second promos throughout the day that feature the slogan, "ABC7 – #1 in news, #1 in Southern California". This is a throwback to its openers during the 1980s and 1990s, when the station proudly proclaimed itself "Number One in Southern California".
KABC-TV led all local news time periods during initial coverage of the January 2025 Southern California wildfires.[20][21]
