Los Angeles TV's two local morning news and gab shows plummeted in the May sweeps ratings book, Variety reports. KTTV's "Good Day L.A." was down 32% from last May and KTLA's "Morning News" was down 27%. (More L.A. viewers watch the "Today Show" on NBC and ABC's "Good Morning America.") Michael Schneider of Variety comments on his blog:
"Los Angeles viewers continue to flee the locally produced morning shows...Are viewers tired of Jillian Barberie and Sam Rubin? Are people more tuned into what's going on in the world and nation (Iraq, presidential politics, etc.) and less on what's happening here in L.A.? Perhaps..."
Channel 7 has the top-rated local news shows at 5 and 6 p.m. Channel 11 leads at 10 p.m. Channel 4 rules at 11 p.m.
Jillian is exhausting to watch. When she's on-camera, it's all about HER.
She's very self-centered. She's talked incessantly about her adoptive parents, her anti-depressant drugs, her hair, her makeup, her unhappy childhood, the alimony she pays to her ex-husband baseball player. And her "Extreme Dating" show is terrible.
We don't know nearly as much about Sam Rubin's personal life--and I'm glad about that!
Yes, when Jillian is on vacation, there's a calmness that prevails.
Perhaps the entire lame concept of early morning, mineless local TV dribble is finally run it's course? One can only hope! Makes you long for "Mr. Wishbone".
In these dangerous times where our very freedom and demorcracy is erroding with each passing day; do we really need to know where to buy $2 lipstick? Knowing that Shek 2 is the number one movie in the country has asolutely NO impact on what truly important and meaninful in our lives. Reporting that over 30 million folks dialed-in to vote for their favorite American "Idle" is not really news. The premise that most of these people won't even bother cast their vote in November is a much bigger story!
Don't get me wrong, network morning shows aren't any better. It's really nothing more that bigger crap, with a bigger budget, playing to a bigger audience, in front of a big picture window.
Posted by: virgobro at May 28, 2004 11:45 PMThe other local news competition is daily before sunrise on local LA television (5-6AM). I'll just call it the battle of tight-fitting upper body garmets between female newscasters & traffic reporters. Channels 4 and 2 are in a heated battle for first place, channel 7 is contending but lost a player to channel 2, while channels 5 and 11 are hopelessly lost. I am disappointed in channel 11 and FOX, they have the most potential for trashy journalism and blatent displays of female flesh, but are dismal in this pre-sunrise competition.
Posted by: Roman at May 29, 2004 10:04 AMWell Fox News' morning show has always been known as "skank TV" at my house. i don;t know why anyone would watch that garbage.
Gail Anderson is the best thing on KTLA and when they first began about 10 years ago, it was fresh and funny. It's kinda tired now and Giselle Fernandez, when she was on it about killed it.
Posted by: Joe at May 30, 2004 02:20 PMI actually like Good Day LA and Good Day Live, even with Jillian, but I don't miss her. She's such a narcissist. During the recall election she kept changing the subject interrupting with "I'm Canadian so I can't vote." Therefore nobody else was allowed to finish a sentence whenever the election was brought up. Too much...
I liked all of the substitutes: Constance Marie, Soleil Moon Frye, Lauren Sanchez and Paula Abdul. The only substitute I couldn't stand was Melissa Rivers. Fox, please don't book her again.
In the future I would like to see Carnie Wilson and Jessica Alba co-host.
Posted by: Erin at June 23, 2004 06:34 PMKTLA is a news show along with channel 4 news that really loves to focus in on peoples obesity and then makes fun of it. When there is anything on about fat people I get so angry. I just don'tunderstand it because when anyone sees a fat person the first thing they do is, make comments about how much they eat. My husband and I are both fat and I can tell you that we don't eat all that much. Just because we have big bellys doesn't mean we eat alot. I have bad knees and back and they were that way when I was thin, but it is hard for me to excercise. So I don't lose weight. But I don't want to tune into the news each day just to see a bunch of assholes making fun of over weight people. If you people would report the news in the morning and leave peoples personal lifes or apperance out of it it might be good.
Posted by: Linda at July 1, 2004 04:11 PM

As far as Good Day LA goes.. they need to replace Jillian with Lauren Sanchez. When she filled in for Jillian for a week it was great.
Thats just my $.02
Posted by: bacon at May 28, 2004 01:42 PM