Competing with established cable news networks such as CNN and Fox, “News Nation” will be broadcast to more than 75 million homes from new studios being built at WGN’s facilities on West Bradley Place in Chicago. The program will air nightly from 7 to 10 p.m. Central time beginning this summer, employing reporters from local Nexstar TV newsrooms across the country to provide content.
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| Sean Compton |
“The opportunity is great,” Sean Compton, executive vice president of WGN America, said Wednesday. “No one else is doing straight news in prime time. They’re all doing talking heads.”
The new network will make Chicago a national news center, Compton said, bringing jobs, providing a platform for local experts to weigh in on stories and highlighting news events from across the country that may “get lost in the shuffle” on other cable news outlets.
Anchors for the national newscast have yet to be named. Nexstar plans to hire 120 new employees in Chicago dedicated exclusively to producing the newscast, Compton said.
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| Jennifer Lyons |
Dominick Stasi, executive producer of WGN-TV’s local newscasts, was named Wednesday to replace Lyons as news director at the station.
Nexstar has been shaking up the Chicago properties it acquired as part of its $4.1 billion purchase of Tribune Media, which created the nation’s largest TV chain, with 197 local stations. The deal moved "Chicago’s very own” WGN-Ch. 9, national cable channel WGN America, WGN-AM 720 and CLTV under the Dallas company’s ownership.
In December, Nexstar pulled the plug on CLTV after nearly 27 years as a local Chicago cable news network, citing increased competition from digital news sites and national cable news networks as factors in the decision.
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