Tribune Tacks on More News in Denver
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KWGN is adding more news to their line-up....
Natalie Tysdal who left the station 3 years ago to "spend more time with her family" is coming back (because, let's be honest, you can only spend so much time with family, before you need to leave the house) to co-anchor “Daybreak” with Tom Green beginning Jan. 23.
“We’re serious about revamping Channel 2,” vice president and news director Holly Gauntt said. It’s all part of a plan to underscore Channel 2 — Denver’s first TV station — as historic, and to distinguish the stepsister of KDVR-Channel 31 as having its own identity.
Tysdal anchored the Channel 2 wake-up show with Green from 2002 to 2013, when she left.
The station was in flux at the time. Previous management “didn’t understand how much a part of the cultural fabric Channel 2 is,” Gauntt said. “That’s changed.”
She and general manager Joan Barrett, with the support of owner Tribune Media, are adding newscasts (at 4 p.m. and 11 p.m.) and promoting the station as “Colorado’s Own Channel 2.” Bringing Denver TV news fixture Mike Landess back to town was an early step; next, they’re building a new studio and set to emphasize “the Colorado feel.”
The wake-up show has been profitable for the station. In the latest ratings sweeps, KWGN was the only station to show an increase in viewers year-to-year at 6 to 7 a.m., finishing No. 2 to long dominant KUSA. The new 11 p.m. newscast seems to be doing well, with transplants from the coasts accustomed to seeing news at that hour.
H/T Denver Post
