At 7 p.m., Sept. 1, on Tuesday the launch of News Nation is a prime-time newscast that pledges to return cable news to unbiased reporting. And it aims to take market share from the likes of CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News.
WGN America is the station that brought America such diverse programming as Bozo’s Circus, the Phil Donahue Show, Looney Tunes cartoons, and The Andy Griffith Show. Now it is reinventing itself as a cable all-news network.
Broadcasting behemoth, Dallas-based Nexstar Media Group bought WGN America in August 2019, acquired as part of a $4.1 billion acquisition of Chicago-based Tribune Media. The purchase gave Nexstar control of the nation’s largest local TV station group.
In January 2019, Nexstar announced plans to turn the former superstation into a prime-time cable news network.
Delayed but not derailed by the pandemic, WGN America has assembled a 150-person newsroom. And they have been making practice runs for several weeks of nightly three-hour newscasts from remodeled Chicago studios.
