Newscasts
WPXI occasionally pre-empts programming to report breaking news. Typically, WPXI offers 4½ hours of live newscasts on Channel 11. It offers an 1½ hours on PCNC and 1 hour on WPGH-TV. Previous branding for newscasts include Dateline, WIIC-TV 11 News, News/Watch, Instant News, Steel City News and Newscenter 11.
WPXI was the first station to offer a 5:30 p.m. newscast in Pittsburgh from 1981 to 1984 (titled 5:30 Live); it was then revived in 1987 with the name Channel 11 News First Edition. They were also the first station to offer a 5 p.m. newscast in the early 1990s. The newscast was named Channel 11 News First at 5. WPXI dropped the NBC Saturday morning cartoons in September 1990 in favor of a newscast airing from 8 a.m.-12:30 p.m. The success of the weekend morning news prompted NBC network officials to extend the Today show to weekends. WPXI, however, has since scaled back its weekend morning news. Pittsburgh native Jodi Applegate co-anchored NBC's Weekend Today, but was never seen locally due to WPXI's weekend morning news.
As of January 12, 2006, Sinclair Broadcast Group (owner of Fox affiliate WPGH-TV) and Cox entered into an agreement where WPXI began producing a newscast specifically for WPGH. This agreement, called a "news share", began January 30, 2006. All of WPGH's news staff, except for sportscaster Alby Oxenreiter, were laid off. The 10 p.m. newscast became Channel 11 News on FOX 53 at Ten. Oxenreiter's "Ox on Fox Sports Extra" fills the final 15 minutes of the newscast.
WPXI is known to commission its own theme music from companies, although it has previously used the famous "Move Closer to Your World" theme. It has commissioned "Total Coverage" (its previous package), and after WPXI moved to its new Summer Hill television building, it started using the Tower V.2, ending the NBC collection all together.
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