Newscasts
On January 11, 1999, WXMI started a news department and launched the market's first primetime newscast, Fox 17 News at 10. It aired weeknights for 35 minutes and weekends for a half-hour. This was unlike FOX which had no national nightly news. The program would expand to a full hour seven nights a week in 2004. On August 28, 2006, the station premiered the Fox 17 Morning News. Originally a two hour-long broadcast, it expanded to four hours on September 15, 2008. On April 17, 2009, it began producing its local news in high definition. It was the first station in West Michigan to have made the upgrade since the newscasts on NBC affiliate WOOD-TV and ABC affiliates WZZM and WOTV were in merely enhanced-definition widescreen (CBS affiliate WWMT became the second to upgrade to HD newscasts on April 16, 2011 and WOOD-TV/WOTV became the third and fourth on October 22, 2011). The planning for the upgrade first started in December 2008. On April 20 during the weekday morning show, the station officially unveiled a new logo, graphics, music package ("The Unexpected" by 615 Music), and set.
The 10 o'clock news now competes with shows that air on MyNetworkTV WXSP-CD and CW affiliate WWMT-DT2. Sports Ticket was a weekly half-hour sports highlight broadcast that used to air Sunday night at 10:30. Blitz is a weekly sports program focusing on high school sports that airs Friday nights at 10:45. During the Fall, it is known as the Friday Football Blitz and during the Winter it is called Basketball Blitz. In Fall 2008, a one-hour edition of Blitz was added Friday nights at 5 replacing The Simpsons and King of the Hill. WXMI is an affiliate of the Detroit Lions Television Network which airs pre-season games as well as the weekly syndicated show The Ford Lions Report during the regular season. Also, since it is outside of the team's local blackout area, it also airs all regular season games produced by NFL on Fox. On September 21, 2009 WXMI debuted Fox 17 News at Six, an hour-long newscast that competes against half-hour newscasts on WWMT, WOOD-TV, and WZZM and their national network evening newscasts. On March 7, 2011 the station began airing a lifestyle program weeknights at 5 p.m. called The One Seven; the final show aired only five months later on August 19, 2011. It was hosted by Michele DeSelms and Tim Doty and featured lifestyle segments, art, entertainment, cooking and some local news. Fox 17 News At Five, an hour-long newscast featuring news, weather, traffic and sports debuted without any promotion on August 22, 2011.
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