WSMV-TV - News Operation

News Operation

Beginning in the mid-1970s, WSM-TV developed a strong news division that, in the 1980s, won numerous regional and national awards (Peabody Awards among them) for in-depth and investigative reporting. Mike Kettenring was the news director for much of that period.

In recent times, WSMV has alternated with WTVF for first place in the Nashville ratings. Generally speaking, the station takes a softer approach to news than WTVF. The reverse was true in the 1980s, as WSMV earned awards for hard-hitting investigative stories, while WTVF took a more cautious approach. While WTVF usually leads the way in the city of Nashville itself, WSMV generally leads in Nashville's more conservative suburbs, as well as outlying rural parts of the market, many of whose residents recall readily the station's past association with WSM-AM.

In September 1973, WSM/WSMV decided to fill the 6:30-7 p.m. time slot opened up by the Prime Time Access Rule in 1971 by expanding its 6 p.m. newscast. This has proven so successful that to this day WSMV programs a newscast from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. (although it is now broken up into two 30-minute segments). Upon the success of the WSM/WSMV expanded 6 p.m. newscast (and after years of low-rated syndicated offerings in the 6:30 slot), WTVF followed suit in 1989 by expanding its 6 p.m. newscast to one hour length. WSMV and WTVF are among the very few stations in the Central Time Zone to run news at 6:30 presently (stations elsewhere have attempted it since the 1970s with varying degrees of success). WKRN is the only traditional network affiliate in the Nashville market to run only a half hour of news at 6 p.m., with Wheel of Fortune (hosted by former WSM personality Pat Sajak) airing at 6:30.

During the May sweeps period that began on April 26, 2007, WSMV debuted its own live news helicopter known as Air 4, becoming the second station in Nashville to do so (WTVF's news helicopter Sky 5 debuted a year earlier, in 2006). On September 15, 2008, beginning with the 5:00 p.m. newscast, WSMV became the second Nashville station (behind WTVF) to broadcast local news in High Definition.

On May 26, 2011, WSMV debuted an hour-long 4 p.m. newscast, serving as a replacement for The Oprah Winfrey Show, which ended its 25-year run the day before; this came on the heels of the expansion of other non-news local programming such as More at Midday and Better Nashville, indicating a decreased reliance on syndicated programming.

On March 5, 1973, the Vanderbilt Television News Archive recorded off the air of WSM-TV a special broadcast of The Today Show aimed toward veterans of the Vietnam War returning home to the U.S. Two months later, on May 1, another broadcast of Today was recorded concerning the Watergate scandal. On both of these broadcasts, Pat Sajak, who had recently joined the WSM radio and TV staff, anchored the five-minute cut-in local newscasts. As it was not the general policy of the Archive to record special programs such as these or local Nashville programming, these probably represent the only known broadcasts of WSM-TV news before 1980 or so available for public viewing, prior to the widespread popularity of video cassette recorders in the late 1970s. The only other ones were local cut-ins to NBC coverage of national elections. Because of the equipment at the time, though, the broadcasts were recorded in black and white.

The Archive, prior to the advent of satellite technology in the 1980s, taped all NBC News broadcasts from the airwaves of WSM/WSMV.