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NBC-5 will be watching New York as model for local news channel
Could Chicago television support two full-time local news channels?
With Tribune Co. already 15 years into its CLTV cable news operation, the prospect of new competition arose this week.
NBC announced plans to launch a 24-hour local news product in New York on one of WNBC-TV's digital channels while continuing its regular broadcast news programs.
With an expected November start, WNBC's new channel would compete against Time Warner Cable's NY1.
If the plan succeeds by mid-2009, published reports said, NBC would make similar moves at its other stations, including WMAQ-Channel 5 here.
It's one more way traditional news organizations could seek to adapt to the challenges of new technology, slow revenue growth and fragmented audiences.
Frank Whittaker, station manager and vice president of news at Channel 5, said there were "no plans right now" to add a full-time news channel here.
"We will be watching New York to see how things develop," he said. "We're always trying to find new ways to expand viewership. So if something makes sense, we'll take a look."
TRACKING:• • After rolling out in New York and Los Angeles, "LX.TV" is coming to Chicago.
NBC's Local Media Division, which acquired LX Networks earlier this year, is expected to begin airing its upscale lifestyle programming on Channel 5 here, starting right after the Summer Olympics.
Hosted nationally by ex-"Daily Show" regular Mo Rocca, LX's "1st Look" restaurant and bar preview show and "OpenHouse" real estate series will use locally produced material -- all geared to young professionals on the move.
LX was founded in 2006 by former MTV execs Morgan Hertzan and Joseph Varet.
• • Everyone's a winner -- or so it seems -- in the annual Emmy Awards competition via the Chicago/Midwest chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
With the addition of five new broadband categories, the total number of categories has grown to 60. (Who knew there was that much excellence on television?)
Deadline for entries is June 6. The 50th annual Emmys will be Oct. 18 at the Hyatt McCormick Place.
• • ABC News correspondent Chris Bury will be the keynote speaker Monday at the inaugural celebration of DePaul University's College of Communication.
Emceeing the event at the Blackstone Hotel will be Channel 5 anchor Warner Saunders.
• • Sun-Times sports columnist Rick Telander will be a guest all next week on ESPN's "Jim Rome Is Burning" show.
DIALING:• • David Kaplan will feature Cubs pitcher Kerry Wood on the premiere this weekend of "Cubs Confidential," a one-hour interview show on Tribune Co.-owned news/talk WGN-AM (720).
Billed as "an insider's look at past and present individuals in the dugout, clubhouse and front office," the show will air at noon before every Cubs Sunday afternoon home game this season.
• • Don Schwenneker, meteorologist for the 5 p.m. newscast on CBS-owned WBBM-Channel 2, adds hourly weather updates on Lisa Dent and Ramblin' Ray Stevens' morning show on CBS Radio country WUSN-FM (99.5), starting Monday.
At US 99.5, Schwenneker replaces Channel 5's Brant Miller, who shifted to hosting mornings at Citadel Broadcasting's oldies WZZN-FM (94.7).
• • Eddie Volkman, Joe Bohannon and Erica Cobb will broadcast their WBBM-FM (96.3) morning show today from the Dunkin' Donuts at 1750 E. Lake in west suburban Addison.
It's part of the CBS Radio Top 40 station's participation in the sixth annual Rooftop Stakeout to benefit the Special Olympics.
• • Jim Carollo, WGN director of engineering, and Patrick Berger, his Emmis Radio Chicago counterpart, are among the 36 most admired engineers in the country cited by the trade publication Radio Ink.
