ORLANDO, Fla. – If you have the News 6 App installed on your smartphone, you may have recently noticed push alerts over the last several weeks for a new digital program.
“We started this project as an experiment (earlier in 2023),” said Julie Broughton, News 6 anchor and meteorologist. “It was a soft launch to just get our footing and figure out what we were trying to accomplish, and in a very short time it’s really turned into something special.”
News 6 was looking for a way to give the people of Central Florida a quick news brief between regularly scheduled shows each weekday afternoon.
“With the power of new technology and digital technology, we were able to plan and produce the idea of a new mini show,” Broughton said. “From concept to our first show took just three weeks.”
The new show is called Take 6, a live afternoon news brief that rolls out each weekday at 12:35 p.m. on both ClickOrlando.com and WKMG’s streaming channel News 6+.
“It’s a unique product on our part,” said Donovan Myrie, WKMG Executive Producer of Digital Enterprise. “With the help of News 6 reporters, each day Julie and I produce an afternoon news brief that focuses on one specific topic. We couple it with the day’s headlines, so our audience also knows what to look forward to later in the afternoon.”
With all the rain falling in Central Florida as of late, many of the episodes of Take 6 have focused on the weather.
“It’s a nice change to do an extended forecast when we have Inconvenient Weather Days,” News 6 meteorologist Candace Campos said. “It’s pretty cool to have the opportunity to have a prolonged conversation with a news anchor about what’s going on right at that moment and what to expect later on. Take 6 also lets us show what’s on the radar right at that moment and lets us catch people up on any changes since our noon show.”
Take 6 is also not produced in the traditional fashion as most of WKMG’s other news programs.
“We do everything from the newsroom and from our desks,” said Broughton. “No studio cameras, no fancy lighting. It’s done live each day with music and graphics mixed from a desktop computer. This is one of the newest technologies we are exploring; so new in fact that WKMG was just recognized with an Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Innovation. Take 6 is a small step, but nonetheless, part of a bigger evolution in continuing to bring authentic programming to serve our community.”
Take 6 can be seen each weekday afternoon at 12:35 p.m. on both ClickOrlando.com and News 6+.
Download our News 6 app for your smartphone to get a daily alert for new shows. And starting this week, viewers can submit questions to the staff that we’ll try to answer each day. To submit a question, fill out the form below.