WTVW - News Operation

News Operation

The station currently carries 23½ hours of local newscasts per week (with four hours on weekdays, 1½ hours on Saturdays and two hours on Sundays); in addition to its main studios, WTVW (through WEHT) also operates a news bureau based in Owensboro. Both stations utilize a Doppler weather radar across the street from the Henderson facility. Randy Moore, the station's general assignment reporter and former weeknight anchor, is the longest-serving member of WTVW's on-air news staff, having been with the station since 1980; Moore is now seen on both WTVW and WEHT due to the merger of both stations' news departments, serving primarily as anchor for the 5-7 a.m. weekday newscast on WEHT.

Throughout its history, the station has always carried local news programming. Branded for years as Eyewitness News from 1974 to 1995, its newscasts were retitled as Fox 7 News following the affiliation switch to Fox. When WTVW joined Fox, news programming on the station was expanded to two hours on weekday mornings, along with the addition of a 5 p.m. newscast. Newscasts came and went, with the midday news being cancelled in the late 1990s, later followed by the 5 p.m. and finally, the morning news. This eventually left only the 6 and 9 p.m. newscasts (the 10 p.m. news had earlier been moved into the 9 p.m. slot and expanded to an hour); however, the morning and midday newscasts returned in March 2002. In 2006, the weekday morning newscast expanded to three hours, the midday newscast moved to noon and a 6:30 p.m. weeknight newscast was added to the schedule.

The news branding changed a number of times as well, as Fox 7 First News from 1998 to 2000, WTVW NewsChannel 7 from 2004 to 2005 and finally to Fox 7 WTVW News briefly in 2007, ultimately reverting back to Fox 7 News title each time. Just prior to ending its Fox affiliation in June 2011, the station temporarily referred to its newscasts as News 7 in the last weeks aligned with the network, before being changed to Local 7 News on July 1. After becoming an independent station, WTVW expanded its 6 p.m. newscast to seven nights a week on July 9, 2011 (the program previously ran only on Monday through Saturdays, with the Saturday edition extended to one hour with the expansion), later followed on September 19, 2011 by the debut of a one-hour extension of the morning newscast called Local 7 News Lifestyles.

With the sale of WTVW to Mission Broadcasting and WEHT to Nexstar Broadcasting and the consolidation of their news operations at WEHT's studios, WTVW removed the 5-7 a.m. portion of the morning newscast, shortening it down to two hours starting at 7 a.m. (the 8 a.m. hour retains the Lifestyles format) while the 6 p.m. newscast was shortened to a half-hour at 6:30 p.m. (though the Sunday 6 p.m. newscast remains on WTVW, as WEHT airs ABC programming at that time). Existing evening anchors Randy Moore and Julie Dolan were moved to the morning newscasts on both stations (with Dolan also co-hosting Local 7 Lifestyles with Stefanie Martinez and anchoring the noon newscast until leaving WTVW/WEHT in 2012), while WEHT anchor Brad Byrd began anchoring the 6:30 and 9 p.m. newscasts (co-anchoring at 6:30 with Shelley Kirk until her departure); several other on-air staff members from both WEHT and WTVW were retained as part of the news department consolidation.

Both stations rebranded their newscasts as Eyewitness News (returning the title to WTVW after 16 years) on December 1, 2011; as a result of the consolidation of WTVW and WEHT's news operations, the Evansville market now has only two local news operations amongst three stations, the other belonging to NBC affiliate WFIE (CBS affiliate WEVV-TV cancelled its newscasts in 2001, after a nine-year run). On August 13, 2012, WEHT and WTVW began broadcasting their local newscasts in high definition, with a new news set, HD cameras and forecasting equipment.