ViacomCBS-owned station in Detroit is building a local news station from the ground up. CBS News announced the station there will create a hyper-local news division in 2022.
The Detriot station will have a 24/7 streaming service that provides live local news coverage Monday through Sunday from 4:00 AM to 11:35 PM, for a total hours coverage of 137 hours per week.
“We view this as an unprecedented opportunity to start from scratch at a large-market, network-owned station and build the newsroom of the future – where we focus first on streaming and then have our content flow like water across our linear broadcast, digital and social media platforms,” Wendy McMahon, President and Co-Head, CBS News and Stations, said.
CBS 62 plans to broadcast the live CBS News Detroit newscasts 40 hours per week, covering the news from early morning, midday, early evening, and late periods.
“This is a landmark moment in the history of our station and, for that matter, local news,” Watson said. “I don’t believe there is another station in a large market like ours that has done anything like this, so we are excited to help write a bold new chapter in the history of local news,” Brian Watson, Vice President and General Manager of WWJ-TV and sister station WKBD-TV (CW50).
“My colleagues and I are deeply grateful to Wendy McMahon, Adrienne Roark, and everyone else on the CBS News and Stations and ViacomCBS leadership teams for their incredible support and belief in our mission.”
CBS News Detroit is due to launch in late summer or early fall of 2022 and is beginning the process of recruiting and hiring an entire staff of multi-skilled media members.
Eduardo Razo is the Assistant Content Editor for BNM, which includes writing daily news stories on the news media industry. He can be found on Twitter @eddierazo_ or you can reach him by email at eddie1991razo@gmail.com.
