WNEP-TV - News Operation

News Operation

The station is best known for its local newscasts which are among the highest rated in the United States. It runs their newscasts under the branding of Newswatch 16. WNEP has led the ratings in northeastern Pennsylvania for most of the last 30 years and according to Nielsen data attracts more viewers than the other stations in town combined. In 2000, the weekday morning program earned shares between 50 and 60 meaning that 50 to 60% of televisions in the market were tuned to this station. Their on-air personalities are well known in the area. Chief Meteorologist Tom Clark has been with the station since 1981 and is one of the region's more popular broadcasters. His wife Noreen does forecasts on the weekend newscasts and has been with the station since 1982. Marisa Burke, a native of nearby Danville, has been with the station since 1984 and now solo anchors at noon and co-anchors the weeknight 6 o'clock newscast with Scott Schaffer. Fox requested most of its affiliates to air local news in 1990. To satisfy this, WNEP began producing a nightly 10 o'clock newscast on the area's affiliate WOLF-TV (then channel 38) in 1991. In November 2009, after being unable to reach an agreement with WNEP on a contract extension, WOLF announced its intention to turn to WBRE to produce an hour long 10 pm newscast beginning January 1, 2010. WNEP then announced that it would begin a 10:00 pm newscast on its sister station WNEP2 on the same date.

Known as Newswatch 16 at 10 on FOX 38, it was the first instance of one station producing a newscast for another. When the FOX affiliation moved from channel 38 to channel 56, the 10 o'clock news switched stations as well. It then became known as FOX 56 News at 10 with a secondary title of Newswatch 16 at 10 on FOX 56. WNEP airs this broadcast from a secondary set at its studios. The station runs a secondary service, known as "WNEP 2" (formerly "Newswatch 16 Anytime" and before that "Newswatch 16 on Adelphia 63"), on its second digital subchannel and area cable systems. This channel currently airs Antenna TV programming along with other local programming. WNEP was the only media outlet in the market to utilize a helicopter, known as "Skycam 16", for news gathering purposes. The helicopter was operational from 1984 until being decommissioned in February 2009. The station airs the Pennsylvania Lottery televised nighttime drawings live seven nights a week and the live Powerball drawing on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

In March 2009, its weekday morning news at 6 added another two hours (7–9 a.m.) seen on WNEP 2. Also in March, the station started up-converting its news programs to 720p wide screen format becoming the first one in the area to make such a change. WNEP announced on August 6, 2009 that they would begin broadcasting a 4:00 pm newscast on September 8, known as "Newswatch 16 at 4" which would have Norm Jones solo anchoring along with Tom Clark doing weather.

It has been announced in early September 2010 that Norm Jones would be leaving WNEP so he can move closer to his home in Milton. Paola Giangiacomo took over Norm as the solo anchor for Newswatch 16 at 4 on September 13, 2010. Norm's last newscast with WNEP was held on September 10, 2010. Jon Meyer took over Norm as the co-anchor with Paola for the 5 and 5:30 newscasts.

On February 10, 2011, starting with the 4 pm newscast, WNEP premiered a new HD-ready set (newscasts remained in widescreen standard definition). On July 9, 2011, WNEP began broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition starting with the 6 pm newscast, becoming the first station in the Scranton–Wilkes-Barre market to begin offering local newscasts in high definition; Buffalo was the largest market without a high definition newscast until August 13, 2011, when WKBW began broadcasting its local newscasts in HD (currently, the Chico–Redding market is the largest market without any stations carrying widescreen newscasts of any kind). In early September 2011, WNEP expanded its 4 pm newscast to a full hour with an additional half-hour at 4:30 pm, with Julie Sidoni anchoring and Chief Meteorologist Tom Clark doing the weather. Paola Giangiacomo resigned from WNEP in September 2011 (Sidoni now co-anchors the 5 and 5:30 newscasts with Jon Meyer, and Trish Hartman has taken her spot for the 7:00 weeknight newscasts with Scott Schaffer).

Since 1994, the station has used an updated version of Al Ham's Move Closer to Your World, which is composed by Cliff Schwarz. From 1981 to 1994, the station used the original theme, which is currently used by ABC affiliates WPVI-TV and WKBW-TV.