WSAZ-TV - News Operation

News Operation

Since 1956, WSAZ's newscasts have featured two news anchors with one at the main studios in Huntington and the other in Charleston. NBC studied the format and used it as the basis for the Huntley-Brinkley Report anchored by Chet Huntley in New York City and David Brinkley in Washington D.C.. All of the big three networks have used this approach at one time or another since then.

WSAZ uses its low-power translator in Charleston to provide viewers with a "split" newscast. Weeknights at 5:30, 6 and 11, the two anchors appear together on screen until a certain point (usually 10–15 minutes into the newscast) when the show will "split." For the last 20 minutes of the newscast, viewers in the 28 counties of the Kanawha Valley who watch channel 16 and Suddenlink will see a newscast targeted specifically to them while viewers in the other 33 counties (as well as satellite viewers) will see a newscast featuring coverage from Kentucky and Ohio as well as West Virginia. WSAZ calls this concept "two-city news." Outside of the previous mentioned newscasts, all shows originate from the Huntington facilities. The weather and sports departments are also based there. In July 1993, WSAZ's weeknight First at Five broadcast was launched.

Largely because of its pioneering status in the state and its unique newscasts, WSAZ is one of the country's most dominant television stations. It has been the far-and-away market leader for as long as records have been kept. WCHS and WOWK have rarely come close, though for a brief period in the late-1990s, WOWK overtook WSAZ for first place in the northern (Charleston) side of the market. This channel also came in a close second to WCHS for a short period in late 2009-early 2010. This was due to lower lead-in numbers originated by The Jay Leno Show. WSAZ has since regained its first place ratings.

Since the station has traditionally been one of NBC's strongest affiliates, the network has been rumored on several occasions to buying WSAZ. However, NBC Universal has recently sold off many of its stations outside the top 15 markets. Huntington/Charleston is currently the 63rd market (the only market in the state in the top 100). Also, Huntington/Charleston has always been a small-to-medium market. NBC has owned only one television station located outside the top fifty markets.

Rumors abounded soon after the Gray Television purchase of WSAZ that WTAP would scrap its news department and simulcast WSAZ's newscasts instead. WSAZ has always covered Parkersburg events anyway and has long been available on cable on the West Virginia side of that market. However, WTAP's broadcasts bring in as much revenue as WSAZ in part because WTAP is the only full-power station in Parkersburg. WSAZ-DT2 airs a prime time newscast every night for a half-hour that is known as MyZTV Ten O'clock News. This competes with an hour-long show on Fox affiliate WVAH-TV which is produced by WCHS. At one point, the second digital subchannel had also aired a weekday morning show at 7 called Your Day on MyZTV but this has since been canceled. It currently repeats WSAZ NewsChannel 3 Today in the 7 o'clock hour and WSAZ NewsChannel 3 Midday weekdays at 12:30.

On January 3, 2012, WSAZ expanded their morning newscast to a 4:30 am start time. The newscast, "WSAZ NewsChannel 3 Wake Up," is the second newscast in this timeslot in the market, following WOWK's morning expansion in May, 2011.

In May 2012, WSAZ had the highest rated nightly news at 6:00 pm of ANY station in the Top 100 TV markets in the United States. The 6 am and 5 pm newscasts ranked # 2 among the Top 100.