Morning news returns to Channel 9 on weekends

Morning news returns to Channel 9 on weekends

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Just as Phil Rosenthal tipped last month, Tribune Co.-owned WGN-Channel 9 is getting back into the weekend morning news business.

Channel 9 announced Tuesday that it will air an hourlong newscast at 6 a.m. Saturdays and Sundays, starting the weekend of Oct. 2. Public-affairs and paid-religion programming and infomercials now airing at that hour will move to earlier time slots.

The move marks a comeback for weekend morning news, which first began airing on the station in 1992. Channel 9’s Sunday morning news was canceled in 1994, and the Saturday morning news was canceled in 1998.‚ “We’re a news company and a lot of us have felt deficient not having a weekend morning show,” news director Greg Caputo told Rosenthal. “I know the station tried it several years ago. I don’t know what happened to it, but it obviously went away.”

Anchoring the newscasts solo will be Sean Lewis, who joined Channel 9 in June 2008 after 15 months at cable news sister station CLTV. The Kenosha, Wis., native and graduate of the University of Wisconsin previously was a weekend news anchor and reporter at WWBT-TV in Richmond, Va.

Mike Hamernik will serve as meteorologist.