Los Angeles Local Emmys: Voters Spread the Love as KNBC, KABC Shine

Local Los Angeles Area TV Academy voters spread the Emmy love around this year. After two consecutive years of winning all three major newscast Emmy Awards, KNBC had to settle for just one this year. The station's "NBC4 at 6PM" won the Emmy for outstanding daytime newscast (11 am to 7 pm), while KTLA won for outstanding morning newscast (between the hours of 4 am and 11 am) and KMEX's 11 pm news won for outstanding evening newscast (between 7 pm and midnight).

At the 65th annual Los Angeles Area Emmys, held Saturday night at the TV Academy headquarters in North Hollywood, KNBC still led all outlets, winning eight local Emmys. KABC was second, with seven Emmys -- an impressive haul, given that the station doesn't enter the competition in any major categories. (KABC staff must enter themselves.) In its first year of eligibility, new regional sports channel Time Warner Cable Sportsnet landed five Emmys, tied with KTLA.

Time Warner Cable's new Spanish-language regional sports channel, Time Warner Cable Deportes, also picked up its first Emmy, as its launch show won for "outstanding live special events-programming."

KABC's David Ono continued his streak in the "outstanding hard news reporting" category, but this year there was a tie: He's sharing the award with KNBC's Ana Garcia and Robbi Peele.

KNBC's wins also included ones for news director (Gayle Galvez), news writer (Daisy Lin), investigative reporting ("Illegal Animal Traffickers") and serious news story/single report ("Frankie's Fight for Freedom").

Among other categories, the Clippers' winning season extended to the Emmys, where Prime Ticket won the live sports coverage award for its Clippers games.

Also, the 20th anniversary of the post-Rodney King verdict riots sparked several Emmy-winning programs: KNBC's "LA Riots: 20 Years Later" won for outstanding news special; KCBS/KCAL's "Eye on Our Community: The LA Riots -- 20 Years Later" won for outstanding arts and culture/history program; and KTLA's "The LA Riots: 20 Years Later" won for outstanding crime/social issues Emmy.

And although the fate of KCET's newsmagazine "SoCal Connected" is still up in the air, the program continues to be an Emmy winning machine. The show's awards this year included Emmys for outstanding information segment ("Your Money or Your Life"); outstanding feature segment ("The App Economy") and outstanding informational/public affairs series (more than 50% studio-based). "SoCal Connected" executive producer Bret Marcus, who was laid off in a brutal round of station cuts this past April, won Emmys for those wins, as well as one for "Your Turn to Care," hosted by Holly Robinson-Peete, which won for outstanding informational/public affairs series (more than 50% remote).

KCET's SoCal Connected Launches New Season Tonight

KCET's "SoCal Connected" returns tonight at 8:30 p.m. for its fourth season with stories on the city's dilapidated sidewalks, and the 40-year debate on who's responsible: property owners or the city. The episode will also visit the Carl’s Jr. experimental test kitchen.

SoCal Connected Explores L.A.'s 15-Year NFL Drought

L.A. Times columnist Steve Lopez talks to the players behind L.A.'s latest bid for an NFL team -- and asks whether it's worth it -- in this week's edition of KCET's SoCal Connected. The episode airs on Friday at 8:30 p.m.

Looking at L.A.'s Fast Food Moratorium -- And Its Gourmet Food Truck Explosion

KCET's SoCal Connected is chronicling the latest Los Angeles food trends on this week's show.

Episode, which airs Thursday night at 8 p.m., looks first at whether the City Council's moratorium on new fast food joints has had a positive impact. The results appear to be mixed:

SoCal Connected goes behind the front lines in America’s battle over how to get Americans eating healthier in the story “Food Wars.” Correspondent Angie Crouch heads to South Los Angeles , where a City Council moratorium has kept a freeze on new fast food restaurants for over a year.

South LA—an area plagued by poverty and a shortage of medical services—claims the highest rates of obesity and diabetes in Los Angeles County . But has the fast-food moratorium made a difference in the lives of residents? And how much can—or should—government regulate people’s eating habits?

The program then hits some of L.A.'s fast-growing food trucks:

In “Moveable Feast,” Anchor Val Zavala samples the food from a number of gourmet food trucks, talking to ambitious entrepreneurs eager to turn a profit. Zavala also discusses the surge in food trucks with "bricks-and-mortar" restaurant owners upset by estimates of a 30-40% decline in their businesses when the trucks roll in.

The newsmag, dubbed Los Angeles Magazine’s “Best New Local TV Program” of 2009, airs Thursdays at 8 p.m., Fridays at 8:30, Saturdays at 6 p.m. and Sundays at 6:30 p.m. on KCET.