WMAR Debuts Anchorless Newscasts Following Layoffs

WMAR-2 debuted a different approach to its evening news Wednesday, eliminating live anchors from its 7 and 11 p.m. newscasts in favor of prerecorded local stories, national reports and graphics. According to The Baltimore Banner, the newscasts began with weather before moving through prerecorded reports, with graphics replacing the traditional transitions and anchor introductions. Anchor Kelly Swoope, who has been with WMAR since 2003, did not appear during either broadcast. The Banner reported that there were even brief periods of dead air before some commercial breaks.

Baltimore is among roughly a dozen markets where Scripps is initially rolling out the new approach, with the model expected to eventually expand across more of the company’s television stations.

For now, other WMAR newscasts continue to feature anchors, and Scripps has not said whether the anchorless format will eventually expand to additional dayparts in Baltimore.