In Effort to Find Viewers, Tampa Station to Move Newscast

If you can't seem to find viewers for morning newscast. Move the newscast.

That's what one Tampa station is trying starting Monday.​

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WFLA News Channel 8 islooking for the best recipe to increase audience numbers, is juggling the time slots of some late-morning programs.

Beginning Monday, talk show “Daytime” will air at 10, followed by entertainment magazine “Extra” at 11 and a newscast anchored by Natalie Shepherd at 11:30.

Shepherd’s newscast replaces the 10 a.m. show anchored by Gayle Guyardo and Rod Carter.

Guyardo and Carter will continue to anchor “News Channel 8 Today” from 5 to 7 a.m., followed by NBC’s “Today” show from 7 to 9 a.m.

“Our reasoning for the programming changes is that the third hour of the “Today” show is a more compatible audience to flow into “Daytime” and that “Extra,” while not a hard news show, may create a stronger audience flow into our 11:30 a.m. newscast,” WFLA-TV news director Don North wrote in an email to The Tampa Tribune.

By assigning Shepherd, a reporter, to anchor, Guyardo and Carter can use the rest of their shifts for reporting without the interruption of another newscast, North said.

“Natalie will start her day later, single-anchoring the newscast and then reporting the remainder of the day,” North said.

“Daytime,” a syndicated talk show produced at WFLA’s RiverBank Studios, moves from its current 11 a.m. slot.

​H/T Tampa Tribune