Channel 7 to Trim ‘Eyewitness News’

There will be less “Eyewitness News” and more “Eye on L.A.” on KABC-TV Channel 7 beginning June 25.

The station is dropping its 6:30 p.m. local newscast effective that night and will move up ABC’s “World News Tonight” from its current 7 p.m. slot. The move means all three network newscasts will be seen at 6:30 p.m. in Los Angeles.

From 7 to 8 p.m., KABC will show back-to-back episodes of “Eye on L.A.” The station eventually plans to broadcast “Inside Edition,” a syndicated tabloid news program produced by King World and shown earlier this season on KCAL Channel 9, at 7 p.m., but a start date has not been announced.

In another move at KABC, Marianne Banister, currently the co-anchor of the station’s 4 p.m. newscast, will take over as co-anchor of the 6:30 a.m. “Eyewitness News This Morning” on Monday. She succeeds Dana James, who has co-anchored the program with Gene Gleason since its inception in April, 1989. James, who has been at KABC for the last 4 1/2 years, left Friday to become an afternoon anchor at KTVI-TV, the ABC affiliate in St. Louis.