WTVT - News Operation

News Operation

WTVT broadcasts a total of 60 hours of local news a week (ten hours on weekdays and five hours each on Saturdays and Sundays), being among the top 5 stations in news airtime in the United States (Miami's FOX affiliate WSVN carries the highest in the country with over 63 hours a week). However as is standard with Fox stations that carry early evening weekend newscasts, WTVT's Saturday and Sunday 5 p.m. newscasts are subject to preemption or delay due to sports coverage.

Until December 2009, WTVT was one of two stations in the market to have two women regularly anchoring a newscast; Denise White and Kathy Fountain anchored the 5 p.m. news until Kathy Fountain's retirement on December 30. Wendy Ryan and Linda Hurtado, anchors of the 5 p.m. news on WFTS, were the other all-female anchor team. The station's morning newscast is Good Day Tampa Bay, which airs weekdays from 4:30–10:00 a.m. and weekends from 6:00–9:00 a.m. The show started on September 12, 1994, three months before WTVT became a Fox affiliate.

WTVT began to adopt its current logo, which is similar to that of the Fox News Channel, on December 12, 2005 as part of NewsEdge at 11:00, although it did not completely switch to it until February 2006. The station was the first Fox O&O to use this logo style, which was gradually pushed to its sister stations as well. However, the current logo retains the numeric "13" which has been part of the station's logos since 1989.

WTVT and WFLA-TV are chief competitors for the number one newscast in the Tampa Bay Area. WTVT currently has the number one spot for Good Day Tampa Bay between 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. and has the number one newscast in the 5 to 6 p.m. timeslot. NewsEdge at 11:00 is statistically tied with WFTS for the lowest-rated newscast for that time period, although WTVT does have a 10:00 p.m. newscast with significantly higher ratings without any competition in the market.

Until 2009, WTVT was also the only station in Tampa Bay to use two news helicopters. The first one, SkyFOX, is a Bell 206 and is painted black. The second, SkyFOX 2, is a Robinson R44 and is painted blue. This helicopter is used whenever SkyFOX is grounded for mechanical reasons. When warranted, both helicopters are used to cover significant news stories. However, this changed in late 2009 when Fox scrapped SkyFOX in favor of a share-lease agreement with WFTS as part of the Scripps/FOX news service. This allows WTVT, WFTS, and WTSP to utilize only one helicopter (Action Air One) to cover news events. .

Starting in March 2007, WTVT began upgrading its main studio. The new set debuted on April 23. Some aspects of the set include a 6' by 8' rear projection screen, a new anchor desk, a whole new weather center, and an area for the Lightning Round and a second anchor desk. There are also several plasma televisions behind the main news desk in the newsroom.

On March 20, 2009, the Florida News Center website received word from sources that Fox has chosen WTVT to produce graphics and media for Fox's owned-and-operated stations, beginning by summer 2009. While the position will create more jobs at WTVT, similar positions at Fox's other stations are likely to be eliminated.

In April 2009, Fox announced that its O&O stations in three markets (Tampa, Detroit, and Phoenix) will undergo a partnership agreement with E.W. Scripps Co.-owned TV stations. This venture will allow stations from both entities to combine news-gathering resources at general media events then distribute the video to participating stations within the market to use in their own reports. This means that some news-gathering resources of WTVT and WFTS will be combined. All other news operations at both stations will remain unchanged. . WTSP joined in on the news service in June 2009 .

On June 30, 2009 starting with its 5 p.m. newscast, WTVT became the fourth broadcast television station in the Tampa DMA to broadcast its newscasts in high definition.