{"id":21207,"date":"2019-04-02T06:00:18","date_gmt":"2019-04-02T11:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.robertfeder.com\/?p=21207"},"modified":"2019-04-02T11:00:29","modified_gmt":"2019-04-02T16:00:29","slug":"30-years-later-abc-7s-morning-show-gambit-now-standard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/2019\/04\/02\/30-years-later-abc-7s-morning-show-gambit-now-standard\/","title":{"rendered":"30 years later, ABC 7\u2019s morning show gambit now the standard"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

<\/a> ABC 7 Eyewitness News This Morning (1990) clockwise from top left: Alan Krashesky, Roz Varon, Jerry Taft, Kathy Brock<\/p><\/div>\n

Thirty years ago local news on morning television in Chicago was pretty much a no man\u2019s land.<\/p>\n

If you wanted to know what happened overnight, whether to wear a coat or carry an umbrella, or how long your daily commute might take, you were better off turning on the radio.<\/p>\n

On April 3, 1989, the game changed with the debut of \u201cEyewitness News This Morning\u201d from 6:30 to 7 a.m. weekdays on WLS-Channel 7.<\/a><\/p>\n

Just four months earlier, the ABC-owned station experimented with two 15-minute newscasts \u2014 one at 6 and one at 6:30 \u2014 but combining them was considered a risky proposition at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe consolidation of our former two, 15-minute news broadcasts into a half-hour will allow us a more comprehensive news presentation,\u201d news director Tom Dolan said in announcing the expansion. Whether it would succeed was another matter.<\/p>\n

The initial team consisted of news anchor Alan Krashesky, an amiable 28-year-old reporter who\u2019d joined ABC 7 in 1982, meteorologist Jerry Taft, and traffic reporter Roz Varon, who leveraged her experience from radio to create a new role for local TV.<\/p>\n

\u201cA morning half-hour newscast in 1989 was innovative in terms of what stations were doing at the time,\u201d recalled Krashesky, who\u2019s now the station\u2019s principal anchor at 5, 6 and 10 p.m. \u201cWhen the morning news first started, it was radio-driven, and the powers that be wondered if anyone would take the time to watch news in the morning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

ABC 7<\/p><\/div>\n

With the addition of Kathy Brock as Krashesky\u2019s co-anchor in 1990 and the show\u2019s expansion to a full hour two years later, everything clicked.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you get up at 2:30 in the morning you really have to like the people you work with,\u201d Krashesky said. \u201cWe quickly learned that team chemistry would be a key part of our success. We genuinely liked each other \u2014 Roz and Jerry \u2014 and a bit later, Kathy joined us. It truly was a blast.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd all of this as we created an identity for a morning newscast that viewers could depend upon to provide the serious news of the day, along with specific timing for traffic and weather \u2014 and also have some fun, whenever appropriate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Today morning news on local TV is big business \u2014 starting as early as 4 a.m. and running as late at 10 a.m. \u2014 accounting for a larger share of revenue than ever before. ABC 7\u2019s \u201cEyewitness News This Morning,\u201d airing from 4:30 to 7 a.m. and leading into \u201cGood Morning America,\u201d is tied for first place in overall households with Tribune Broadcasting WGN-Channel 9 in the Nielsen ratings. \u201cWGN Morning News\u201d leads among viewers between 25 and 54.<\/p>\n

\u201cAdvertiser demand for the morning daypart has never been greater \u2014 not only on ABC 7 but in the entire Chicago market,\u201d said John Idler, president and general manager of ABC 7. \u201cPeople\u2019s lifestyles have changed, and viewers have clearly demonstrated an appetite for getting information earlier in the day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over three decades ABC 7\u2019s front line on the dawn patrol has evolved with a variety of anchors, including Krashesky, Brock, Hosea Sanders, Lauren Cohn, Leah Hope, Judy Hsu and now Terrell Brown and Tanja Babich. The weather front shifted from Taft to Mike Caplan to Tracy Butler (who\u2019s marking her 25th year on the show). But through it all the one consistent cast member has been Varon.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Roz Varon (1989)<\/p><\/div>\n

The Chicago native and Columbia College graduate was working as a radio traffic reporter and air personality on the former WFYR when she made the rounds of local TV stations in 1988 with a proposal to deliver traffic updates tied to the reconstruction of the Dan Ryan Expressway.\u00a0There were no takers.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody was real interested,\u201d Varon once told me. \u201cIt didn\u2019t make sense to me. I thought it was a natural.\u201d<\/p>\n

When she heard that ABC 7 and NBC-owned WMAQ-Channel 5 were planning to start morning newscasts the following year, Varon pitched them again.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody in Chicago had done traffic on TV,\u201d she said. \u201cSo all the people who applied for these jobs were all radio people. None of us had any experience in television news broadcasting. None of us. I didn\u2019t even know how to put together a tape for that kind of an audition. I didn\u2019t have clue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking back on her first day in 1989, she recalled being \u201cunbelievably nervous\u201d but relieved when it was over. Now she thinks of her co-workers as family.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve gone through a lot together. I\u2019ll always be grateful for the support from my ABC 7 family when I was diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer. Nearly 13 years later, they\u2019ve still got my back.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the current team of Brown, Babich, Butler and Varon (or Terrell, Tanja, Tracy and Roz, as they\u2019d prefer to be known), the morning news landscape in Chicago is more competitive than ever. But their mission remains the same.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the morning really sets the tone for the rest of the day,\u201d Brown said. \u201cTanja and I not only want to keep our viewers fully informed, but we also try to give them something special as they begin their day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Monday\u2019s comment of the day:<\/a> Mark Mardell:<\/strong> I know that old fogeys like me love to complain about how things are now vis-a-vis the old days. Jumping on that train, it kills me to see WLS 890-AM, which provided the soundtrack of my youth, be so completely irrelevant. And every move they make sets them further back.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

ABC 7 Eyewitness News This Morning (2019) from left: Tracy Butler, Terrell Brown, Tanja Babich, Roz Varon<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thirty years ago local news on morning television in Chicago was pretty much a no man\u2019s land. If you wanted to know what happened overnight, whether to wear a coat or carry an umbrella, or how long your daily commute might take, you were better off turning on the radio. On April 3, 1989, the... Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21207"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21207"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21220,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21207\/revisions\/21220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}