News Operation
In the Spring 2007 ratings period, all of the station's newscasts ranked in third place. This is in contrast from the 1970s through the early-1990s, when WAAY was still family-owned. At one point, the station aired weekend morning newscasts but currently does not. On July 16, 2007 at 5, WAAY unveiled a new set and graphics package similar to that of sister stations WWSB and WTXL. Beginning September 13, 2010, its news title became WAAY 31 FirstNews. The station is now using the FirstNews brand and logo in all branding, including commercials for syndicated programming. The station was the first to air a 4:30 a.m. newscast in the market and is the only station in the area airing local news weekday at 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. The channel produced a prime time newscast at 9 for UPN affiliate WHDF during the early-2000s. On September 20, 2010 through a new news share agreement, a second WAAY-produced broadcast at 9 began airing every night on Fox affiliate WZDX. In addition to its main studios, WAAY maintains news bureaus in Decatur (on Lee Street Northeast) and Florence (on North Pine Street within the University of North Alabama campus), and broadcasts each weekday from Bridge Street Town Centre at 4 p.m. The station operates its own weather radar at the main studios called "Live Storm Force 31 Doppler Max".
Also in 2010, after some years of a third-place finish in the ratings, WAAY did something relatively rare for a Central Time Zone station: it cancelled its 6 p.m. newscast, deciding to counterprogram WHNT and WAFF with (first-run) episodes of Jeopardy! It acquired the rights to the long-running syndicated show from WAFF, which had aired it in daytime slots since its inception in 1984. WAAY is thus one of only a few stations in the Central Time Zone affiliated with the traditional networks that allows a full hour of Prime Time Access between 6 and 7 p.m., rather than just a half hour.
On December 12, 2011, WAAY began broadcasting its news programming in high definition, making it the third station in the Huntsville television market to do so behind WAFF and WHNT. The WZDX shows were included in the upgrade.
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Famous quotes containing the words news and/or operation:
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It requires a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding. The only idea of wit, or rather that inferior variety of the electric talent which prevails occasionally in the North, and which, under the name of “Wut,” is so infinitely distressing to people of good taste, is laughing immoderately at stated intervals.”
—Sydney Smith (1771–1845)