Coverage of Last Year’s Devastating Fires, and the Aftermath, Dominate L.A. Area Emmy Nominations — as PBS SoCal, ABC7, KMEX Lead Tally

PBS SoCal, KABC/ABC7 and KMEX led the tally on Tuesday as the TV Academy announced nominations for the 78th annual L.A. Area Emmy Awards.

The annual ceremony will take place on Saturday, July 25, at the Skirball Cultural Center. As for this year's nominee totals, PBS SoCal landed 29 nominations; KABC/ABC7 received 21, Univision outlet KMEX received 20, Telemundo's KVEA had 18, KNBC/NBC4 landed 15 and Spectrum News 1 had 10.

Per the TV Academy, the Los Angeles Area Emmy Awards "honor locally produced programs in the categories of Crime and Social Issues, Culture and History, the Arts, Human Interest, Sports, the Environment, and Live and Breaking News Coverage."

For the station newscast awards, every TV station that submits is eligible. This year's eligibility period was for the 2025 calendar year, which means many of the news categories were dominated by local coverage of the devastating wildfires that ripped through the region last January.

Last year, PBS SoCal (KOCE/KCET) led the 2025 L.A. Area Emmy awards with eight total, but the other big winner of the night was Telemundo’s KVEA-TV, which took home all three station awards for best newscasts — for daily morning (4 a.m. to 11 a.m.), daily daytime (11 a.m. to 7 p.m.) and daily evening (7 p.m. to 12 a.m.).

Find this year's nominees here.

Big Emmy Winners Include KMEX, Jon Weisman and Variety

Well, how about that. Two of my favorite former Variety colleagues (FYI, you're all my favorites) took home Emmy gold on Saturday night! I've been writing about the Los Angeles Area Emmy awards for years, but this year it truly hit home: Jon Weisman won the Emmy for Outstanding Sports Feature, having served as an associate producer on Time Warner Cable SportsNet L.A.'s "10,000 Wins" (on Access SportsNet Dodgers). And "Variety Studio: Actors on Actors," including executive producer Donna Pennestri (above, right), won the Outstanding Entertainment Programming Emmy on behalf of PBS SoCal.

Meanwhile, Spanish-language L.A. TV won the day in most of the key categories: NBC-owned Telemundo station KVEA won the top prize, the Regularly Scheduled Daily Evening Newscast (7 pm to Midnight) Emmy for Noticiero Telemundo 52 A Las 11 PM. Univision-owned KMEX won the Emmy for best morning newscast (4 am to 11 am) for Primera Edicion. And KMEX's 6 p.m. newscast tied with KVEA's 5:30 p.m. newscast for best daytime news.

KMEX led all stations with 9 awards, also including outstanding editor-programming (Antonio Camberos), outstanding news director (Horacio Cervantes), outstanding sports reporting (Diana Alvarado), outstanding investigative news reporting, outstanding hard news reporting (Antonio Valverde), outstanding light news story- multi-part report, and outstanding serious news story - multi-part report.

KVEA followed with seven Emmys, then Time Warner Cable SportsNet L.A. (six) and KTLA (five). KCBS' Pat Harvey was given the Governors' Award.

L.A. Emmy Nominations: KNBC Leads the Pack, But Time Warner SportsNet Impresses

The Lakers couldn't survive the playoffs, but Time Warner Cable's new local sports channels -- which now carry the team -- are already on their way to Emmy gold.

In their first year of eligibility, Time Warner Cable SportsNet and Time Warner Cable Deportes earned a combined 15 nominations (8 for the English network, 7 for the Spanish channel) in the 65th Los Angeles Area Emmy Award competition, besting chief competitors Fox Sports West/Prime Ticket.

What's more, Time Warner Cable SportsNet also has already been awarded two Emmys, for creative technical crafts. Not bad for two channels that just launched in October -- but clearly carrying the Lakers makes a difference, even in an off year like this one.

The Emmy nominations were less impressive for Fox Sports West/Prime Ticket, which earned a combined 12 nods (5 for Prime Ticket, 4 for both and 3 for Fox Sports West) -- a huge dip from the 22 they picked up last year..

As it seems to do every year, KNBC/4 once again led the pack, with 18 nominations, followed by Univision's KMEX/34 (15), Tribune's KTLA/5 (13), KABC/7 (12), public TV indie KCET (12) and KCBS/2 (9). (The combined KCBS/KCAL duopoly earned 17).

Several of KCET's nominations were for "SoCal Connected," a show that remains in limbo at the station. Somehow the show, for reasons that will need to be explained to me, was nominated in both the "INFORMATIONAL/PUBLIC AFFAIRS SERIES (MORE THAN 50% REMOTE)" and the "INFORMATIONAL/PUBLIC AFFAIRS SERIES (MORE THAN 50% STUDIO BASED)" categories. So which is it, remote-based or studio-based??

The L.A. riots remain a hot topic. KCBS/KCAL's "Eye On Our Community: The L.A. Riots--20 Years Later" was nominated in the "ARTS AND CULTURE/HISTORY" category, while KNBC's "LA Riots: 20 Years Later" was nominated in the "NEWS SPECIAL" competition.

Interestingly, despite Time Warner Cable SportsNet's overall haul, its live Lakers coverage didn't get a nom. In the "LIVE SPORTS COVERAGE" category, Prime Ticket's Clippers basketball coverage will face off with sister Fox Sports West's Kings hockey coverage.

In another bit of an upset, KTLA's Rose Parade coverage, a frequent winner in the "LIVE SPECIAL EVENTS -- PROGRAMMING" category, wasn't nominated there this year. KMEX's "Roses Parade 2012" was, however. And it's going up against another Spanish-language special: Time Warner Cable Deportes' "Launch Show."

Speaking of head-to-head bouts, in the "LIVE SPECIAL EVENTS-NEWS" category, KTLA's coverage of the Endeavour Space Shuttle arrival will face off with KTTV/11's coverage of the same thing. And in the "LIVE COVERAGE OF AN UNSCHEDULED NEWS EVENT" category, KTLA's coverage of the Newtown, Conn., shooting will go up against KTTV/KCOP's coverage of the same event.

A few more categories:

INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING - NEWS
BEHIND THE GATES OF THE GUARD (KNBC)
CALTRANS AND THE GOVERNOR (KCBS)
CALTRANS DRINKING ON THE JOB (KCBS)
EL 34 INVESTIGA: FRAUDE HIPOTECARIO (KMEX)
ILLEGAL ANIMAL TRAFFICKERS (KNBC)

OUTSTANDING SPORTS REPORTING
Michael Eaves (Fox Sports West)
Mario Solis (KNBC)

OUTSTANDING HARD NEWS REPORTING
Ana Garcia, Reporter; Robbi Peele, Producer (KNBC)
David Goldstein, Reporter (KCBS/KCAL)
Joel Grover, Reporter; Chris Henao, Producer (KNBC)
David Ono, Producer, Reporter (KABC)
Antonio R.Valverde, Reporter (KMEX)

OUTSTANDING NEWS FEATURE REPORTING
Pat Harvey, Reporter; Mansan Luc, Producer (KCBS/KCAL)
Dave Malkoff, Reporter (KTLA)
David Ono, Producer, Reporter (KABC)
Norma Roque, Reporter (KMEX)

OUTSTANDING DIRECTOR - NEWS
Gayle Galvez, Director (KNBC)
Todd Griffithe, Director (KTLA)

OUTSTANDING WRITER - NEWS
Daisy Lin, Writer (KNBC)
Nicolette Medina, Writer (KCBS/KCAL)

Besides the two Time Warner Cable SportsNet awards, KNBC also picked up an Emmy in the "SPORTS SERIES-NEWS" category, for "The London Olympics: SoCal Shines at Summer Games."

As usual, any one who entered for the best newscast categories were nominated. And as usual, KABC refused to enter itself in any of the categories (leaving staffers to submit themselves).

This year's Governors Award will go to Univision's "comprehensive, multi-platform" education initiative "Educate, Es El Momento."

All told, 136 nominations were made in 43 categories. The 65th Los Angeles Area Emmy Awards winners will be announced on Saturday, August 3, 2013, at the Leonard H. Goldenson Theatre in North Hollywood.

PREVIOUSLY:

L.A. 2012 Emmy Nominations: Fox Sports West/Prime Ticket and KNBC Lead the Pack (July 2012)

LA Local Emmys: KNBC Extends Its Streak at the Top (August 2012)

L.A. TV May Sweeps: KMEX, KABC dominate, while decent returns for KTTV, KCBS

The Los Angeles TV May numbers are in -- and KABC remains the local English-language news champ, while Univision's KMEX wins the overall crown at 11 p.m.

KCBS, meanwhile, exhibited a nice growth story thanks to its new Paul Magers/Pat Harvey anchor combo, pulling ahead of KNBC to second place at 11 p.m. among viewers (at least in the English language).

KMEX won 11 p.m. with 358,000 viewers, followed by KABC (324,000), KCBS (251,000), KNBC (214,000) and KCOP (70,000 -- trailing "Friends" on KTLA and "The Simpsons" on KTTV).

At 10 p.m., an "American Idol"-fueled KTTV was a dominant first (220,000 viewers), while KCAL (145,000) narrowly beat KTLA (144,000) for second place. Coincidentally -- or perhaps not -- KTLA co-anchor Victoria Recano has left the station, which leaves Micah Ohlman as the station's solo anchor for now.

The traditionally dominant KABC also won the 6 p.m. news race outright, as well as 5 p.m.

In the morning competish, KTTV's "Good Day L.A." and KABC's "Good Morning America" tied for tops (164,000), followed by KNBC's "Today Show" (124,000) and KTLA's "Morning News" (102,000).

In the advertiser-favored adults 25-54 demographic, KMEX is once again first at 11 p.m. (2.4 rating/9 share), followed by KABC (1.9/7), KNBC (1.1/4), KCBS (0.9/4) and KCOP (0.6/2). At 10 p.m., KTTV dominates (1.6/5), followed by a tie between KCAL and KTLA (0.9/3).

Also in the demo, KABC wins at 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. In the morning, KTTV's "Good Day L.A." (1.4/13) is ahead of "Today" (0.7/6), "KTLA Morning News" (0.7/7) and "Good Morning America" (0.7/6).