Sinclair to Expand The National Desk

Sinclair launched The National Desk morning newscast to little fanfare a while back and now the company is looking to expand the product.

The National Desk has been running their morning newscast on68 Sinclair’s stations. TND often is broadcast of the little-watched secondary Sinclair stations across the country.

Now, Sinclair wants to expand The National Desk newscasts to the evenings.

Starting September 27, Sinclair plans to run TND will from 10 p.m. to midnight eastern, and between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. Pacific.

This means that in many markets the Sinclair national newscast will be going up against local Sinclair station’s late newscast.

“Across the board, both in audience research and organically from viewers, we have received exceedingly positive feedback that frequently cites the remarkable, unique value of ‘The National Desk’,” said Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley.

What is interesting to us, FTVLive has heard of no feedback whatsoever in regards to the Sinclair morning show.

We did a story about it launching and since then, I haven’t got a single email, positive or negative about the product.

Sinclair announced that KUTV News Director Mike Garber will oversee The National Desk expansion.

Garber was in charge as top talent fled his leadership at KUTV for other stations, often in the same market. Sources say that Garber’s leadership style is to use intimidation and fear.

“I feel sorry for the people at The National Desk, but thank God he’s leaving here,” said one KUTV employee to FTVLive.

Here is the internal email that was sent to the staff at KUTV and obtained by FTVLive:

Does anyone else find it strange that both Sinclair and Nexstar, who often pushed their commitment to local news, are now both hyper-focused on trying to launch national news outlets?