WWL Scraps News It Produces for WUPL

By Kevin Eck 

New Orleans CBS affiliate WWL has announced, starting Monday, it will no longer produce the 9:00 pm. newscast airing on sister station MyNetworkTV affiliate WUPL. In its place, the station plans to launch a show called “The 504” an interview show featuring WWL morning anchor Melanie Hebert.

“We’re just excited to try something new and do some longer-form interview segments,” WWL news director Bill Siegel told the New Orleans Times-Picayune. “I think with the kind of elections we have and the number of elections we have, it will be really valuable to have a lot of different candidates come and talk about issues and try to do some debate-style things that we couldn’t really do during regular newscasts.”

According to the Times-Picayune, the WUPL 9:00 p.m. news was one of the lowest rated newscasts in any time slot during February’s book, averaging a 1.1 rating. One rating point in the New Orleans market equals roughly 6,400 homes.

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Siegel told the New Orleans paper the new show would be given some time to grow its audience, “I think it’s going to be trial-and-error,” Siegel said. “I think eventually we’ll find out what works and what doesn’t work, what we like and what we don’t like, and what viewers respond to. We’re looking for their input, too.”

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