New Newscast, Who Knew?

According to KVOA (Tucson) Weather Anchor Nicole Costantino, the station is launching a new weekend morning newscast, this weekend.

Some newsroom staffers tell FTVLive that this came as a bit of a surprise to them.

“Management at KVOA hasn’t even officially told the whole staff that they’re launching a weekend morning news to compete directly with KOLD. But it launches this Saturday,” one news staffer tells FTVLive after finding out through the grape vine.

News Director Cathie Batbie did send out an internal memo at the beginning of the month saying that were plans to launch a new weekend morning newscast in February. But, newsroom sources tell FTVLive that nothing was sent out to say it’s officially happening and it is starting in January not February.

Here is memo Batbie sent the staff on January 4th.

KVOA is launching the new newscast to try and cash in on some of the Olympics money that will be flowing into the station.

Also, we know one person that will be very tired after the weekend.

Meleny Gradillas was a part-time Digital Editor at the station, and according to an internal memo, she has now been hired as a Weekend Editor and will work on both the new morning newscasts and the evening and late newscasts.

That means her day will start about 3 AM and end around 11 PM.

And it is a part-time job?