It looked like someone at KSDK was taking a piss as meteorologist Mike Roberts delivered his forecast during the station’s noon newscast on Tuesday.  While Roberts gave a weather update for Pittsfield, the graphic read “Pissfield” (video above).  And, oops, the station also misspelled “Southwest.”

KSDK — the NBC affiliate in St. Louis — is shuffling their talent lineup, splitting up morning anchors Art Holliday and Jennifer Blome, who have been co-anchoring the broadcast for 22 years.

The station will move Holliday to the newly-launched 4 p.m. newscast, which will take the place of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” on September 12. The newscast — which will focus on “delivering the immediacy of what’s happening” in St. Louis, according to a KDSK statement — will be anchored by Kay Quinn in the studio, with Holliday and Mike Rush contributing as “field anchors.” Holliday will also anchor the station’s noon newscast, currently anchored by Blome, solo.

“It will be a departure for me not being on in the morning with Jennifer,” Holliday said in a statement. “Jennifer and I have shared the anchor desk for over 22 years. She welcomed me to the show in 1989 and became a great friend and colleague.” Read more

In St. Louis, NBC-affiliate KSDK is set to unveil a new programming lineup that includes local news at 4:00 a.m., 10:00 a.m., and 4:00 p.m. As Brian Stelter points out in The New York Times, KSDK is one of many stations across the country that are beefing up local programming and expanding their staffs.

Stelter lists three trends that have led to the gradual rebound of local TV: 1) advertisers have returned; 2) cable and satellite companies are ponying up retrans fees; 3) the downturn shook stations out of convention.

Here’s Stelter…

This is what the rebound in local television looks like. Three years after the business buckled under the weight of the advertising recession, the more popular stations in markets like St. Louis are adding newscasts and in some cases employees — though not as many as were dismissed during the downturn. (Full article)

Two cars collided just feet away from KSDK reporter Ann Rubin as she was wrapping up a live shot on Wednesday during the NBC-affiliate’s 6 p.m. newscast.

The screeching tires and metallic thud of the crash startled Rubin but she was able to maintain her composure and finish the report (video above).

Later in the newscast, KSDK went back to the scene of the fender-bender and reported that no one was injured.

For a handful of markets around the country, Oprah’s farewell is coming a day late.  That’s because severe weather rolling through the midwest and southeast forced local stations to preempt Oprah’s much-anticipated final show on Wednesday in favor of weather coverage.

Oprah fans in St. Louis, Toledo, Little Rock, and Memphis had to wait until today to watch the finale in its entirety.

While KSDK, WTOL, KATV, and WMC may have upset fans, the stations ultimately feel that their audiences were best served with live weather coverage.

“We understand the importance of Oprah’s final show,” WTOL news director Andi Roman told the Toledo Blade on Wednesday, “but when it comes to tornados and severe weather, that’s the biggest factor that we worry about. Our team of meteorologists is on top of making people safe.” Read more

St. Louis NBC-affiliate KSDK unveiled its new, post-”Oprah” programming schedule this week, announcing that it would add three new newscasts to its lineup.

The Gannett-owned station will air “Oprah” reruns through the summer and then start anew in September with a one-hour newscast replacing the daytime icon at 4:00 p.m. In addition to the new 4 p.m. show, KSDK will begin its morning news coverage a half-hour earlier, at 4:00 a.m., and will follow NBC’s “Today” with a new one-hour newscast at 10:00 a.m.

“With the departure of Oprah, it gives our news organization the opportunity to create and deliver a totally new newscast for St. Louis,” said Mike Shipley, KSDK’s news director. “We’re up to the challenge of providing fresh and innovative content for these new local shows.”

“Our new fall lineup reaffirms our commitment that local news is indeed our station’s priority,” said president and general manager Lynn Beall.

“A historic storm deserves historic coverage,” Mike Shipley, KSDK news director, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Tuesday.

With severe winter weather moving into St. Louis this week, stations were “all-hands-on-deck.”

The storm was unpredictable and kept news crews on their toes as it slowly moved into the area on Monday before becoming severe Tuesday morning.

KSDK (NBC), KMOV (CBS), and KTVI (Fox) offered weather updates throughout the day on Monday and then went into wall-to-wall coverage on Tuesday morning, preempting regularly scheduled programming and staying with local news into the afternoon.

“In a situation like this, we staff the same way they do snowplow drivers–12 hours on, 12 hours off,” said Sean McLaughlin, news director of KMOV.