KNBC’s ‘Today in L.A.’ Goes to an Hour

To combat increasing competition for viewers as the sun rises on Los Angeles, KNBC-TV Channel 4 will expand “Today in L.A.” from 30 minutes to one hour a day, beginning next Monday.

The newscast, which has been airing at 6:30 a.m. for the past two years, will now run from 6 to 7 a.m. NBC’s national news program, “News at Sunrise,” will be moved from 6 a.m. to 5:30 a.m.

KNBC news director Tom Capra confirmed that the move was a competitive response to KCBS-TV Channel 2’s new early morning newscast, which debuted at 6 a.m. last Monday.

“It seems to me that we have the pre-eminent position in the morning and it seems logical to try and keep it,” he said.

KABC-TV Channel 7 has been mulling over the idea of a competing early-morning local newscast for several months, but the station has yet to get such a program off the ground.