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Published on Monday, 21 February 2011 14:41
Chicago television newscasts are gearing for another big election night tomorrow, as Chicago will be electing a new Mayor for the first time since Richard M. Daley took office in the spring of 1989. Here is look at what the local newscasts will be (or won't be) doing different tomorrow night, after the polls close.
The biggest change will take place on WBBM-TV. There will be
NO CBS 2 newscast at 6:00pm. There will also not be the syndicated "Entertainment Tonight" program at 6:30pm. Instead, WBBM-TV will air the primetime CBS-TV line-up with each show starting one hour earlier. "NCIS" will instead air at 6:00pm, "NCIS L.A." will instead air at 7:00pm, and "The Good Wife" will air at 8:00pm. This has the primetime line-up ending one-hour earlier, at 9:00pm. WBBM-TV will then begin it's election coverage at 9:00pm. The entire news anchor team of Rob Johnson, Kate Sullivan, Bill Kurtis and Walter Jacobson will all take part in this coverage. From 10:00pm-10:35pm, the regular newscast will air, but with it primarily focused on the election news. The newscast is scheduled to end on time at 10:35pm, however if there are close elections going or if an acceptance/concession speech will be taking place soon after 10:35pm, the station will stay with the news, postponing "The Late Show with David Letterman." If breaking news should happen after the newscast ends at 10:35pm, the WBBM-TV newsteam will break into the late night programming with updates.
WGN-TV will have its election coverage begin on CLTV. From 6:00pm-7:00pm, CLTV will have pre-results analysis on "Politics Tonight," hosted by Paul Lisnek. From 7:00pm-9:00pm, the WGN-TV news anchors Mark Suppelsa and Micah Materre will be live from the WGN newsroom on CLTV, joined by Chicago Tribune political commentators Clarence Page and John Kass, along with Tribune editorial cartoonist Scott Stantis. At 9:00pm, the coverage will shift back to airing on WGN-TV and will go on until the election results are decided and breaking news is over, which is guessed to be at 10:30pm. The 9:00pm newscast will also be on WGN America, but that will end at 10:00pm, regardless of the news that comes after.
WFLD-TV will have it's regular newscast begin at 9:00pm with Bob Sirott and Robin Robinson, along with political editor Mike Flannery, but of course, the newscast's focus will be on the election. At 10:00pm, the syndicated rerun of "The Office" will be pushed back to 10:30pm, preempting the syndicated rerun of "The Simpsons." Instead, WFLD-TV will have an additional half hour of its newscast devoted just to the election and breaking news surrounding it.
Both WLS-TV and WMAQ-TV are planning only the regular newscasts that will run from 10:00pm-10:35pm. As with WBBM-TV and WGN-TV, WLS-TV & WMAQ-TV are ready & willing to go overtime, should events warrant.
Of course, none of the local networks are expected to cover the more exciting and fun fictional Mayoral campaign of
fake Alderman Ed Bus or the
write-in votes for WLS-FM legendary DJ Dick Biondi, both of which may be much more enjoyable then the actual results.
