Goodbye Live at Five; schedule shake up at NBC

Wow I guess this is what happens when you grow up: everything you loved either turns to utter shit or vanishes in place of something new. I'm becoming a dusty artifact with ancient memories.

Starting September 10, WNBC will be making a seismic shift on the local television landscape...

Live at Five is gone, with stupid infotainment show Extra taking its place at 5 PM followed by News 4 You at 5:30. NBC will also unveil a new 7PM newscast.

The current incarnation of Live at Five is nothing like its original incarnation from the 1980's and now more of a traditional newscast. For those of you who may not recall the original Live at Five, it was a mix of news, interviews with newsmakers and celebrities, and lifestyle reporting.

David Ushery and Lynda Baquero will move to the 6 PM newscast, Chuck Scarborough will be anchoring the new 7 p.m. newscast solo, and Sue Simmons will only be anchoring at 11 PM still with Chuck. This is a mess.

Channel 4 will also be adding brief hourly news updates between 11 AM and 5 PM.

The just released schedule also gives us official confirmation about the much talked about fourth hour of The Today Show airing in the 10 -11 am timeslot.

My boy Brian Williams' Nightly News will remain at 7:30.

I guess its cool because I'm not home for Live at Five OR the goddamn 6 o'clock news anyway.

WNBC’s Station Manager and Senior Vice President of News, Dan Forman, noted:

“Our news at 7pm meets the needs of viewers coming home from work and is a perfect compliment to ‘NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams,’ which precedes
it.”

It's sad to see Live at Five go but I guess its cool NBC is realising most people aren't home from work yet at 5 or 6 o'clock. Which makes me wonder how the 5 o'clock news came to be. 9-5 has been the working mans hours since the dawn of time, no? Unless people took rocket ships home from work back in the day it would seem the 5 o'clock news was designed to blast housewives who sat home all day watching the soaps back into reality. I'll try to research it for you and report back. 7pm news definitely makes more sense.

Gothamist tries to make sense of it all here, too.