‘This Week’ to air earlier

There will be no more sleeping in for viewers of “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” come September, when WJLA-TV (Channel 7) moves the Sunday morning public affairs show to an earlier time slot.

The ABC affiliate now carries the program at 11:30 a.m., 90 minutes after it has finished taping in downtown Washington. But when the network revives its weekend version of “Good Morning America” next season, WJLA will bump “This Week” up, and may even show it live at 9 a.m.

This thrills ABC. As network executives see it, by the time WJLA begins its tape-delayed version of “This Week” at 11:30 a.m., most Washingtonians are busy flying kites or making jam or whatever it is they think we do Sunday afternoons.

“Ideally, the weekend ’GMA’ will flow into the Stephanopoulos show,” said Frederick J. Ryan Jr., president of Allbritton Communications Co., WJLA’s parent company.

Viewership for “This Week” has slipped since Mr. Stephanopoulos became host in September 2002. New producer Tom Bettag recently enlivened the program with a looser format, but it remains stuck behind NBC’s powerhouse “Meet the Press” and CBS’ underappreciated “Face the Nation” in the ratings.

An average 66,000 Washington-area households tuned into “This Week” during the February ratings sweep, Nielsen Media Research reports. “Meet the Press” and “Face the Nation,” which go head-to-head at 10:30 a.m., drew 124,000 and 70,000 households, respectively.

Allbritton has a notoriously prickly relationship with ABC, but the two are making nice lately. On Monday, WJLA began airing the network’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” which it has kept off its late-night schedule since its January 2003 debut.

All this means viewers will probably have to keep waiting to get their Sunday morning Kathleen Matthews fix. WJLA may not resurrect her public affairs show “Capital Sunday,” which it pulled off the air last summer for retooling, until its new schedule kicks in.

Remember public journalism?

This column usually laments the lack of substantive reporting in local TV news, so it is nice to report that Paul Wagner’s stories exposing the shabby methods D.C. police use to store evidence have shamed the city into changing its ways.

Mayor Anthony A. Williams, a Democrat, signed legislation last month that requires police to preserve evidence in open homicide cases for 65 years. The mayor thanked Mr. Wagner, a WTTG-TV (Channel 5) crime reporter, during the bill-signing ceremony.

“It’s hard for me to say this … but [reporters] can play a very, very important role in bringing things to light that otherwise would have remained in the background with a lot of pain and suffering and anxiety,” Mr. Williams said.

Free State? Not yet

The Maryland General Assembly failed to approve a bill banning “noncompetes” — labor-contract clauses that prevent TV and radio broadcasters from jumping ship to immediately work for a competitor — before it adjourned Monday at midnight.

The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, the labor union that pushed the bill, may try to revive it next year.

• Call Chris Baker at 202/636-3139 or send e-mail to cbaker@washingtontimes.com.