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Shrugging off its early critics and challenged ratings, upstart network NewsNation recently upped its weekday programming to 24 hours a day and unveiled two state-of-the-art new studios in its New York facility. It’s a signal that parent company Nexstar is still bullish on the network as it finds its footing against far more deeply entrenched cable competitors.
In this Talking TV conversation, Cherie Grzech, NewsNation’s VP of news and managing editor, walks through what the recent expansions mean and how the network is managing an increasingly more complex array of collaborating entities including The Hill, also owned by Nexstar.
Grzech shares the value The Hill has brought to NewsNation, how she communicates with Nexstar’s local stations to feed the content pipeline and why she thinks its primetime lineup, while drifting into some familiar cable territory with the addition of Chris Cuomo, remains true to the network’s value proposition of down-the-middle reporting.
Episode transcript below, edited for clarity.
Michael Depp: NewsNation had a big month in April. Veteran anchor Elizabeth Vargas joined the network with a new show on the third. The Hill, a show tapping parent company Nexstar’s widely read political site, debuted on the 24th, as did an expansion to 24 hours of news each weekday. The network also unveiled two new studios at its WPIX headquarters in New York’s Daily News building, from which its evening block of programing now originates.
I’m Michael Depp, editor of TVNewsCheck, and this is Talking TV. Today, I’m with Cherie