KTXD in Dallas is pulling the plug on their nightly newscast The Texas Daily.   

The last edition is scheduled to air on Friday, March 21st, a little less than 18 months after launching on Oct. 1, 2012 with a constellation of former D-FW news stars as rotating contributors and former WFAA8 anchor Jeff Brady as the daily host. 

Phil Hurley, executive vice president and COO of London Broadcasting Company (which owns Dallas-based KTXD and stations in five other Texas markets), said that Texas Daily will be replaced at 9 p.m. weeknights with a new syndicated acquisition, America’s Funniest Videos. “We know it will draw an audience,” he said in an email reply. 

Texas Daily never found a substantial following after debuting as a one-hour 8 a.m. weekday program and lately airing at 9 p.m. Last week, Texas Daily’s biggest audience was for Thursday’s edition, which had 5,681 viewers in a D-FW market of 7.1 million viewers. The Monday and Tuesday March 10-11 Texas Dailys recorded “hashmarks” (no measurable audience), according to Nielsen Media Research data.

“2014 has started out great in all six of our markets,” Hurley said. “I just decided it was time to put my issues idea (Texas Daily) on hold and just concentrate on the show that was making a profit, The Broadcast. It is just more challenging and rewarding to create distinct and different local programs, but they have to work in today’s business/profit broadcasting world. We just could not draw the ratings needed to justify what we were spending on The Texas Daily.

H/T Ed Bark