WPVI-TV - News Operation

News Operation

The station is famous for pioneering the Action News format, which was used by many stations throughout the United States. When WFIL-TV premiered it on April 6, 1970, the format allowed the news program to have more stories than KYW-TV's Eyewitness News due to strict time limits on story packages. Within a few months, the station surged to first place for the first time in its history. It had previously been an also-ran behind KYW-TV and WCAU-TV, as was the case with most ABC affiliates. Despite channel 6's newspaper roots, it was hampered by the fact that ABC was not on par with CBS and NBC until the early 1970s.

In 1970, Channel 6 stole first place in the ratings in Philadelphia. It has dominated the ratings for most of the time ever since, winning virtually every time slot. Its dominance has only been seriously challenged twice—in the 1980s, when WCAU-TV briefly took the lead at 5 p.m.; and in 2001, when WCAU took first place at 11 p.m. for a few months for the first time in decades. Many top executives in ABC's television station group worked at WPVI. WPVI's longtime anchor Jim Gardner and weatherman Dave Roberts joined the station in 1976 and 1978 respectively, after each had spent time at WPVI's sister station WKBW-TV in Buffalo, New York. Sports anchor Gary Papa joined in 1981 from another Buffalo station, WGR-TV.

The station's newscast has used the same theme music, "Move Closer to Your World" by Al Ham, since 1972. The composition has become as much a part of the Philadelphia consciousness as the Rocky theme and has helped WPVI stay number one in the Delaware Valley for 30 years. The station tried to switch to a fuller, thunderous and authoritative version of the song by the London Philharmonic Orchestra in September 1996, but switched back to the old version after four days of viewer complaints. Also, for over 30 years starting in the late 1970s, Jeff Kaye (of NFL Films) announced the familiar open: "Action News, Delaware Valley's leading news program," as well as rejoins and closings. Even through staff announcing changes for the station in general, Kaye remained the constant voice of Action News. However, as of the mid-2000s, his voice started to show signs of decaying; it got to the point where his newly-recorded opens in late January 2010 were pulled off in less than a week. On June 21, 2010, Kaye was replaced with veteran announcer Charlie Van Dyke, who has been WPVI's station announcer since 2006. Kaye passed away on November 16, 2012.

Years of being in the lead have led WPVI to maintain an "if it isn’t broken, don't fix it" mentality. For instance, it has had the same "6" logo since becoming WPVI, although the logo has been treated differently over the years. For instance, in the early 1990s, WPVI began placing its stylized 6 on top of a blue box, which lasted until 1997 when the station rebranded itself to "6ABC" and began placing a red ABC logo inside the 6. In December 2010, WPVI debuted a revised identity, including an updated logo. The 6 is now placed inside a blue circle, with a black, glossy ABC logo. Grayscale versions of the previous logo remain in use. WPVI has frequently remastered "Move Closer to Your World" to make it sound less dated.

In recent years, attempts have been made to modernize the newscasts. In 1998, it began downplaying its use of chromakey graphics. The magnet board used for weather forecasts gave way to a video screen in 2000 and a chromakey wall in 2005. On February 13, 2006, Action News debuted a revamped and fully modernized set which includes a glass etching background of several historical landmarks in Philadelphia positioned behind the anchor desk, shiftable lighting effects and a computerized Accu-Weather center. WPVI introduced a new HD-capable helicopter in February 2006. Live shots from the helicopter, officially named Chopper6 HD, were shown in high definition. Furthermore, on July 23, 2006, starting with the 6:00 p.m. broadcast, Action News began broadcasting from its studio in full 720p HDTV. The official announcement was made on July 24. All news cameras on Action News are HD. On September 12, 2009, WPVI debuted another new revamped and fully modernized set, wider than the last set at the original round building, with a bigger newsdesk, AccuWeather center and background of glass sketches of the several historic landmarks in Philadelphia (now adding one of the Comcast Center). It also added a touch-screen video wall, the first for any station in the country.

Most of WPVI's on-air staff has been at the station for over ten years, and several for twenty years or more. Jim Gardner has been with the station since 1976 and has been its main anchor since May 1977, the longest tenure as a main anchor in Philadelphia history. Rob Jennings has also been the station's weekend anchor since 1977.

As there is no ABC affiliate or local station based in New Jersey, WPVI cooperates with WABC-TV in the production and broadcast of state-wide New Jersey political debates. When the two stations broadcast a state-wide office debate, such as Governor or U.S. Senate, they will pool resources and have anchors or reporters from both stations participate in the debate. Additionally, the two stations cooperate in the gathering of news in New Jersey where their markets overlap, sharing reporters, live trucks, and helicopters.

After the death of long-time sports director Gary Papa, Channel 6 took eighteen months to name a replacement. In January 2011, Keith Russell was named as the 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. sports anchor, while Jamie Apody was named the 5 p.m. sports anchor, a position vacant since the departure of longtime 5 p.m. anchor Scott Palmer. Russell and Apody split responsibility for the weekday evening sports report during the interim.

In the ABC series Body of Proof (which is set around the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office and produced by ABC's television studio division), WPVI live trucks and microphones with the station's mic flag are seen in a fictional sense, along with fictional press conference news graphics from the station, though none of the station's staff have appeared in the course of the series.

On May 26, 2011, the day after the final episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show, WPVI debuted an hour-long 4 p.m. newscast, which broadcasts from a smaller news desk located next to the main anchor desk that only houses the main anchors of the 4 p.m. newscast and allowing the team to utilize the big board more frequently. The station also introduced Mobile 6, a news vehicle used for reports during the station's early evening newscasts. Along with the expansion of the weekend 11 p.m. broadcasts to an hour in the spring of 2012, this brings the total amount of local news broadcasts seen each week on WPVI to 40 hours and 55 minutes.

On September 15, 2012, WPVI took over production of Tribune Broadcasting-owned MyNetworkTV affiliate WPHL-TV's 10 p.m. newscast from NBC-owned WCAU (which had produced the 10 p.m. newscast since December 2005, after WPHL shut down its own in-house news department). The half-hour newscast is anchored weeknights by the current 4 p.m. news team of Brian Taff and Shirleen Allicot, meteorologist Adam Joseph and sports anchor Ducis Rodgers. The weekend newscasts are anchored by Rob Jennings, meteorologist Melissa Magee and sports anchor Jeff Skversky. WPVI-TV became the third ABC owned-and-operated station to enter into a news share agreement. The others are KGO-TV in San Francisco and WTVD in Durham/Raleigh.