Re: Fox Chicago Cancelling "The Ten"

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: : Chicago's WFLD-Ch. 32 in September plans to give up its 10 p.m. weeknight news program, "The Ten," less than 30 months after the Fox-owned station launched the 35-minute broadcast to run headlong at fellow network-owned rivals with its own late local headlines. : I never liked "The Ten" as a newscast, but I really don't wish to see David Novarro leave. I like him as a newscaster, and find him to be much better than the station's current 9 p.m. male newscaster Jeff Goldblum, and even better than Good Day Chicago's Mike Barz (who should stick to sports or other small segments). From Phil Rosenthal at the Trib: : : WFLD to eliminate 10 p.m. newscast; 'The Office' reruns debut in September : Chicago�s WFLD-Ch. 32 in September plans to giving up its 10 p.m. weeknight news program, �The Ten,� less than 30 months after the Fox-owned station launched the 35-minute broadcast to run headlong at fellow network-owned rivals with its own late local headlines. : Reruns of NBC�s �The Office� will replace �The Ten,� following Channel 32�s one-hour 9 p.m. Monday-through-Friday newscast, effective Sept. 21. �The Office� also will take over the 6:30 p.m. weeknight slot held for years by �Seinfeld� repeats, which move to sister station WPWR-Ch. 50. : �The Ten� co-anchor David Novarro�s contract expires in September, and the newscaster brought in from New York�s WABC in 2000 as a WFLD morning anchor to replace Bob Sirott is expected to leave the station. Lauren Cohn, Novarro's on-air 10 p.m. partner, will be reassigned as a reporter for the station�s 9 p.m. newscast. : Channel 32 employees were to be told of the changes at a meeting this afternoon. : Apart from Novarro�s exit, Pat Mullen, vice president and general manager of WFLD and WPWR, said the elimination of �The Ten� would have no impact on the size of the station�s news staffing and sidestepped a question about whether Channel 32 might add an earlier newscast even as it eliminates its late-night one. : �We�re always going to look for expansion opportunities with our local news,� Mullen said in an interview. �Local news is critical and it�s an important part of our long-term plan. That�s why we�ve expanded t add the 9-to-10 a.m., which has done very, very well � better than we expected. But we have no announcement at this point.� : Thanks to the addition of a fifth weekday hour of morning news at 9 a.m., WFLD will still air a market-leading 37 � hours of live local news weekly after the 10 p.m. broadcast Monday through Friday goes away. : �We�re replacing the �The Ten� with �The Office� because we think there�s just a great upside opportunity for us,� Mullen said. �We�ve got an opportunity here that we simply can�t pass. : �This is going to be about the hottest new syndicated product to hit the market in quite some time and strong enough that we�re putting it at both 6:30 and 10 o�clock, which is historically where we put the �Seinfeld� program when it was at its peak,� he said. �That gives you some idea of how important we think that show is and what we think it can do.� : �The Ten� sought to carve out a niche for itself by being a bit faster and flashier than CBS-owned WBBM-Ch. 2, NBC-owned WMAQ-Ch. 5 and long-time market leader ABC-owned WLS-Ch. 7. The approach had its critics and never really cut into its competitors� news audiences, but Mullen felt it created its own audience. : �I�m proud of what we put on. It�s a good product and it achieved the kind of ratings results that we anticipated that it would,� Mullen said. �We knew were going into a very tough time period for news. We knew we had to put something on that was a different and fresh approach to the news. : �Now we�re looking at an opportunity we just didn�t have,� he said. �We didn�t have fresh syndicated programming, and what we had that was of quality had been in the time period for many, many years. � There�s no question that the economic opportunity with �The Office� is greater.�

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