ATLANTA,None — America's most watched television station is debuting its newest newscast, Channel 2 Action News at 4 p.m., on Thursday.
Bill Hoffman, vice president and general manager for Channel 2 WSB-TV, along with Marian Pittman, news director for Channel 2 Action News, delivered the announcement to the station's staff in two meetings.
BEHIND THE SCENES: Launching Action News At 4
"We felt that this was the right time to start the additional newscast," said Hoffman. "It only makes sense to begin serving our viewers and the community with fresh news and information the very next day instead of airing a summer full of Oprah reruns."
Channel 2 Action News Investigates
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Pittman announced that Monica Pearson and John Bachman will anchor the newscast with chief meteorologist Glenn Burns forecasting the weather.
"Monica and John create a dynamic anchor team that's perfect for this additional hour of news coverage," said Pittman. "John joined our staff four years ago, reporting during the week and anchoring on the weekends. During that time he has anchored every newscast. He's a terrific reporter and anchor.
"And, with 36 years delivering news to Atlanta viewers, Monica needs no introduction. She can't wait for this show to start. She really embraces opportunities to reach new audiences and to support the station's news effort in any way. She's one of a kind in local television news."
"We've added more resources in the form of reporters, photographers, editors and writers along with upgrading StormTracker 2 HD, now the most powerful radar in the country," said Hoffman.
"Overall, putting on this new hour of news adds more assets to our capabilities to cover the market's important local news and gives Channel 2 Action News another hour of opportunity to serve viewers with local news when they want it," he added.
Late last year, Channel 2 announced its plans to begin a 4 p.m. newscast when Oprah went off the air. Once that decision was made, the station accelerated its push to acquire the staff and technical resources to support the additional coverage plans.
The pace at which the station ramped up put it in position to launch its newscast on May 26 rather than wait until September when the license to air the show ends.
Channel 2 Action News increased its local newscast coverage in the last year by starting its morning news at 4:30 a.m.
Channel 2 Action News attracts more viewers in each program than any station in the market and consistently wins the local news ratings in every newscast.
About Channel 2, WSB-TV, The ABC Affiliate is part of Cox Media Group and ranks as Atlanta's number one local television station. The station also operates its website, wsbtv.com, its mobile site and runs Retro TV on its digital channel 2.2. About Cox Media Group Cox Media Group, Inc. is an integrated broadcasting, publishing, direct marketing and digital media company that includes the national advertising rep firms of Cox Reps. With $1.8 billion in revenue, the company operations include 15 broadcast television stations and one local cable channel, 86 radio stations, eight daily newspapers and more than a dozen non-daily publications, and more than 100 digital services. Additionally, CMG owns and operates Valpak, one of the leading direct marketing companies in North America. For more information about Cox Media Group, please check us out online at www.coxmediagroup.com.