News Operation
Since WEAR is principally headquartered in Pensacola, the station tends to focus more on the Florida side of the market as opposed to television outlets based in Mobile that predominantly feature coverage of Alabama. It does operate a bureau in the state on North McKenzie Street/SR 59 in Foley but rarely covers events in Mobile itself. With the purchase of WPMI and WJTC in Mobile, it is unclear if any consolidation will take place with WPMI's news department since both stations primarily focus on the Mobile area.
Back in 1996, sister station WFGX began producing a nightly newscast at 6:30 and 9 called Emerald Coast News originating from studios on Beach Drive in Fort Walton Beach. Each show aired for thirty minutes and the productions specifically focused on Okaloosa County, Florida helping to provide better coverage for WEAR. On December 11, 1998, Emerald Coast News was dropped from WFGX although the bureau currently remains in operation staffed with a reporter working for WEAR.
WEAR is one of only 5 ABC stations in the country to have an hour-long 10pm newscast. Because of this, Nightline is delayed one half hour and starts at 11pm. It began as Channel 3 News Extra but has since evolved into an extension of the 10pm newscast.
WEAR was the first station to launch a 4pm newscast in December of 2007 and was the first station in the Mobile-Pensacola area to upgrade upgrade to high definition newscasts on September 7, 2008. Field video remained "pillarboxed" for almost 3 years, until widescreen, and eventually high definition video began supplementing the newscasts almost 3 years later (Live reports are still in widescreen SD). It would be almost two to three years later for other stations to begin catching up, with WKRG being the next station to launch High Definition newscasts in October 2010 and WALA launching a 4pm newscast in September 2011 (to fill the time left by Oprah which ended production that spring).
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—Sydney Smith (1771–1845)