The 10:00 News

Back in the early 90’s KCRA in Sacramento decided to move their newscast up one hour from 11PM to 10PM.

The station was an NBC affiliate and battled with the network about shifting NBC’s primetime lineup up an hour, so it could put the newscast on an hour earlier.

Well, now it appears that a number of NBC affiliates might be adding a 10PM newscast to their lineup. And midwest stations might be looking at a 9PM newscast.

Word is that NBC is considering a plan to potentially ditch the 10PM hour and hand back the 10 p.m. block to affiliates.

This could be a huge deal for the NBC stations as they could be putting on a newscast an hour before the competition.

Of course, the affiliates could fill that 10PM hour with something besides news, like a syndicated show, but a newscast would be the cheapest and most logical option.

Many people across the country have changed their sleeping patterns. If used to be common for people to stay up and watch the 11PM news before turning in. But now, people are rising earlier and often going to bed before 11. TV stations have seen their HUT levels rise in the AM hours and that is why you are seeing early morning newscasts with earlier start times.

Years ago the thought of NBC, or any network just giving up an hour of primetime programming would have been unheard of. But, now it seems to make much more sense.

If NBC does make the move, you could see CBS and ABC affiliates begging their networks to do the same as they watch more people tune into the competition at 10PM.

This also shows that KCRA was about 30 years ahead of the curve.