News operation
KOMU presently airs 31 hours of locally-produced newscasts each week (with five hours each weekday, 3 1/2 hours on Saturdays and 2 1/2 hours on Sundays). Unusual for its market size, KOMU begins its weekday morning show at 4:30, reflecting a recent trend of television stations airing a pre-5 a.m. broadcast (most stations ranked No. 75 and above in the Nielsen rank usually air morning newscasts at 5:30 or 6 am). KOMU used to be the only station in the area that begins its early-morning newscast this early, but this changed with KRCG having launched a 4:30 a.m. newscast in 2020.
Originally, School of Journalism students generally served as KOMU-TV interns providing behind-the-scenes assistance with production and direction, with some on-air reporting. However, since 1970, most of the station's reporters and photographers have been undergraduate and/or graduate students, who rotate at the station on a weekly and semester basis. In addition, students serve as weekend and substitute anchors, and some of them also work as producers. However, like other commercial outlets, the station does employ paid professional staff as managers, engineers, and sales representatives. The editors and main on-air anchors, as well as most of the producers, are actually School of Journalism faculty members. Due to the large number of unpaid interns, KOMU has a significantly larger news department than is usually the case for a small-to-medium market.
MU has always devoted significant resources to KOMU's news operation, resulting in a higher-quality product than conventional wisdom would suggest for what has always been a small market (it is currently the 135th market, the second-smallest Missouri-based market with three full Big Three affiliates). As a result, it has spent most of its history as the dominant station in Mid-Missouri, according to Nielsen ratings. Historically, KOMU has dominated Columbia and the northern half of the market, while KRCG leads the way in Jefferson City and the southern half. At the turn of the millennium, this pattern had progressed to the extent that the two cities were a single market in name only.[9] In the late 2006 sweeps, however, KOMU lost the lead at 10 p.m. to KRCG—the first time in memory that KOMU had lost any timeslot. However, it still remains a solid runner-up at 10, and leads all other timeslots.
On August 8, 2008, the station became first in the market to offer local newscasts in high definition making Mid-Missouri the third-smallest market in the country to feature local broadcasts in HD.[10][11] On April 23, 2009, KOMU debuted a new set specifically designed for high definition television. Starting July 5, 2010, the station began producing three newscasts for its CW-affiliated third digital subchannel. This includes KOMU 8 News at 9 on The CW every night for a half-hour.[12] The prime time show competes with the KMIZ-produced show on Fox affiliate KQFX-LD.
On September 12, 2011, KOMU-TV started a new weekday 4 p.m. newscast, which replaced The Oprah Winfrey Show; it featured news, events and local weather, and gave viewers a chance to share their opinions on news stories through social media outlets. The award-winning Sarah Hill anchors the hour-long newscast.[13] On January 9, 2012, U_News moved to 11 a.m. and was shortened to a half-hour.[14] On April 23, 2012, the program was reformatted as a traditional newscast and moved once again to noon (the U_News title was also dropped from the newscast); social media involvement in the newscast continued to be included, though in a downscaled form.[15][16]
Like all CW Plus stations in the Central Time Zone, KOMU-DT3 also offered the nationally syndicated morning show The Daily Buzz on weekdays from 5 to 8 a.m. until the show's sudden cancellation by its distributor in mid-April 2015. KOMU operates its own weather radar, known as "Live Doppler 8 First Alert Radar", next to its studios. KOMU's website features a live streaming video feed of all newscasts.
- John Anderson
- Sophia Choi
- Major Garrett
- Phil Keating
- Michael Kim
- Russ Mitchell
- Lisa Myers
- Chuck Roberts
- Alex Rozier[17]
- Richard Schlesinger
- Jon Scott
- Elizabeth Vargas
- Matt Winer
