News Operation
WOFL broadcasts a total of 39 hours of local news a week (seven hours on weekdays, and two hours each on Saturdays and Sundays), the most of any Orlando-area television station; however as is standard with Fox stations that carry early evening weekend newscasts, WOFL's Saturday and Sunday 5 p.m. newscasts are subject to preemption due to sports coverage.
The station premiered a half-hour 10 p.m. newscast in 1998, and became the first independently produced newscast in the Orlando market outside of the "big three" major-network affiliates. WOFL was noted for initially providing "hip" white Ford Mustangs for its news crews. The newscast expanded to an hour in the fall of 1999. In September 2000, the station launched a two-hour morning newscast called Good Day Orlando. The morning newscast expanded to three hours from 6-9 a.m. in 2001. In September 2002, WOFL added a 6 a.m. newscast, dumped the "Good Day Orlando" label for the existing 7-9 a.m. show and started calling all its newscasts "Fox 35 News."
WOFL began competing against the Big Three affiliates in the early evening timeslot with the debut of the 5 p.m. newscast in March 2006, which expanded to seven days a week that fall. A 6 p.m. newscast was added in August 2007 and an 11 p.m. newscast began in January 2008. Unlike many other Fox owned-and-operated stations, the 11 p.m. newscast does not use the NewsEdge title. WOFL's sister station in Ocala, WOGX (channel 51), currently simulcasts all of WOFL's newscasts except for the weekday 9 a.m., 6 and 11 p.m. editions.
On February 9, 2009, WOFL became the third station in the Central Florida area to broadcast news in high definition. In June 2009, WOFL shut down its sports department, making it the only Fox-owned station without a sports department. Sports anchors Kevin Holden and Tom Johnson were resassigned to other positions. In July 2009, WOFL revealed new plans for a new radar called "The Guardian", claiming it will top all weather radars combined with the new radar operating on 1 million watts of power. It was launched on October 27, 2009.
On September 14, 2009, the station rescheduled Fox 35 Morning News to 5-8:30 a.m. and launched an extension of the newscast called Good Day (marking a return of the brand after 7 years), running weekdays from 8:30-10 a.m., anchored by Christine van Blokland, Jacquie Sosa, Amy Kaufeldt, and Heidi Hatch. The 8:30 half-hour was shortly reabsorbed into the morning news; however, on November 8, 2010, the entire morning newscast took on the Good Day name, along with an updated version of their news theme music. Also, in April 2010, the morning news was expanded to 4:30 a.m., expanding the entire morning newscast to 5½ hours each weekday morning and competing against an earlier launched 4:30 a.m. newscast on NBC affiliate WESH (channel 2). In November 2012, the show was re-named. 'Good Day Orlando' to match other FOX affiliates around the country.
In November 2012, FOX 35 updated it's graphics to look more 'serious' and 'trustworthy', picture of the new Good Day Orlando Studio have also been released, which was also used on Election night.
Read more about this topic: WOFL
Famous quotes containing the words news and/or operation:
“To have news value is to have a tin can tied to one’s tail.”
—T.E. (Thomas Edward)
“Waiting for the race to become official, he began to feel as if he had as much effect on the final outcome of the operation as a single piece of a jumbo jigsaw puzzle has to its predetermined final design. Only the addition of the missing fragments of the puzzle would reveal if the picture was as he guessed it would be.”
—Stanley Kubrick (b. 1928)