News Operation
Currently, KSNW broadcasts a total of 21½ hours of local news per week (with four hours on weekdays, one hour on Saturdays and a half-hour on Sundays). Despite being the first station to build a semi-satellite network in the western part of the state, KSNW's newscasts have lagged far behind those of rival stations KWCH-TV and KAKE-TV for several decades. In recent years, however, KSN has been battling KAKE for second place in some time slots although both stations trail KWCH.
Although the three KSN satellites originated their own newscasts for many years, their local operations were progressively cut back from the mid-1980s onward. By the start of the 21st century, local news had been reduced to inserts in KSNW's newscasts, and separate identifications had been largely eliminated. In January 2009, KSN acquired Kansas Now 22, a local news rebroadcast channel airing on Cox Communications in the Wichita market, from KAKE, Topeka CBS affiliate WIBW-TV and their owners Gray Television to produce its own news and weather for the cable channel.
On October 31, 2010, KSNW began broadcasting its newscasts in digital widescreen. Although not truly high definition, the news broadcasts match the aspect ratio of HD television screens; this left KAKE as the last remaining Big Five network affiliate in the Wichita-Hutchinson Plus market continuing to broadcast its local newscasts in 4:3 standard definition until July 17, 2011, when it became the second station in the market to begin broadcasting its newscasts in HD (KWCH-DT was the first station in the Wichita market to broadcast its local newscasts in high definition and produces KSCW-DT's weekday morning and 9 p.m. newscasts (and had produced KSAS-TV's 9 p.m. newscast), which are produced through news share agreements with those two stations, in that format). On January 30, 2011, KSNW began broadcasting the weather segments of its newscasts in high definition, with the remaining in-studio segments following suit on July 17 (the same day KAKE upgraded its news productions from 4:3 standard definition to 16:9 high definition). Field acquisition of news stories remained in standard definition widescreen. After outsourced news broadcasts on KSAS (produced by KWCH) were discontinued at the end of 2011 (with the former KSAS newscast moving to KSCW full time), the production of the Fox affiliate's 9 p.m. newscast was turned back over to KSNW starting on January 2, 2012. This broadcast is known as Fox Kansas News at 9 and originates from an updated main set which will have separate duratans indicating the Fox show.
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