Sports and news for Garcia

What does KTTV’s Rick Garcia have in common with Jim Lampley, Pat O’Brien and Keith Olbermann? Like the others, he’ll make the jump from sports reporting to news by becoming a local TV news anchor -- although, in this case, without giving up his sportscaster duties on the Fox-owned station.

Garcia, instead, will perform double duty beginning tonight, replacing Rick Chambers as co-anchor on sister station KCOP’s struggling 11 p.m. newscast. Fox operates both stations.

In June, Fox shifted KCOP Channel 13’s late news to 11 p.m. to avoid competing with KTTV Channel 11’s 10 p.m. newscast, but the experiment has yielded weak ratings against local news on the three major network-owned stations.

Garcia -- who will still handle sports on KTTV, including the station’s NFL football postgame show -- will be paired with Lauren Sanchez, who remains KCOP’s co-anchor.

Chambers, a KNBC veteran before joining KCOP in 1999, has left the station.

-- Brian Lowry