TELEVISION - Dec. 3, 1991

News Battle Heats Up: KABC Channel 7 will expand its half-hour early morning newscast to one hour in January and go head to head at 6 a.m. with KNBC Channel 4’s long dominant hourlong news. ABC’s “News This Morning” will be shifted to 5 a.m. KABC’s current half-hour newscast at 6:30 a.m., anchored by Gene Gleason and Marianne Banister, trailed KNBC by about 45,000 area households in the just concluded November sweeps, but earned a far larger audience than newscasts on KCBS Channel 2 and KCAL Channel 9.