News Operation
On October 28, 2002, WSMH started up a news department and began airing local broadcasts every night at 10. Known as Fox 66 News at 10, it was powered by Sinclair's controversial News Central operation. Local news originated from WSMH's studios while national news, weather, and sports aired from News Central headquarters in Hunt Valley, Maryland. The station was the first Sinclair-owned property to use the News Central service and marked the first time it had ventured into the local news market. In January 2006, Sinclair announced plans to end its News Central operation due to low ratings and expense. Other company-owned stations in Buffalo, Las Vegas, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, and Tampa were also notified of the decision and had their newscasts either outsourced to other stations or dropped all together.
On April 10, Sinclair announced that CBS affiliate WNEM-TV would begin producing a nightly 10 o'clock show on WSMH known as TV 5 News at 10 on Fox 66. This began airing on April 24 from WNEM's studios on North Franklin Street in Downtown Saginaw. After the final News Central broadcast on April 21, many local WSMH news employees were laid off. It had been expected that some personalities would join the WNEM-produced newscast in the future according to a press release. This was the case for former WSMH reporter David Custer who joined the WNEM news team on May 3. Custer left WNEM and is now a weeknight anchor at NBC affiliate WNWO-TV in Toledo, Ohio. Another member, Jim Kiertzner, joined Detroit's NBC affiliate WDIV-TV.
The final News Central broadcast featured, in its last few minutes, clips from past shows. At the end, the studio was darkened and Kiertzner and his boss left for the last time. Even after WSMH shut down its news operation, Mark E. Hyman's controversial "The Point" editorials continued to air following the end of the WNEM-produced newscasts. Hyman ended his commentaries on November 30. On May 1, 2009, the 10 o'clock news title was re-branded and the broadcast received updated graphics. Every night at 10:45, a fifteen minute sports highlight show called Sports Extra airs. There is also a segment called "Fugitive Files" airing every week on Mondays which is a common segment offered by local news departments operated by Sinclair. Although WNEM upgraded its newscasts to 16:9 enhanced definition widescreen on October 14, 2010, the newscasts on WSMH remain in pillarboxed 4:3 standard definition because this channel lacks a modern master control facility at its separate studios to receive the newscast in widescreen.
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