News operation
WTWO presently produces 7 1/2 hours of locally produced newscasts each week for WAWV-TV (with 1 1/2 hours each weekday); unlike most ABC affiliates in the Eastern Time Zone, the station does not broadcast any local newscasts in the morning, 6 and 11 p.m. timeslots nor does it air newscasts on Saturdays or Sundays.
When channel 38 signed on as WIIL-TV in 1973, the station produced a half-hour newscast at 6:30 p.m. weeknights, titled the WIIL-TV Evening News. Due to low advertising and budget cuts, the news operation was shut down in 1974; however, the station continued to provide weather updates during the evening hours. News programming returned to the station in 1978, with a single daily broadcast each evening under the News 38 branding; at one point, the station's news staff was largely composed of former employees from WTHI-TV's news department. WBAK discontinued local news programming with the cancellation of its evening newscast in 1981; for the last fourteen years of its tenure as an ABC affiliate, the station only broadcast syndicated programs at both 6 and 11 p.m. However, the station would produce a weekday morning program titled Good Morning Terre Haute, which consisted of interviews and included a weather segment. The station also aired its own public affairs programming; one such program, Valley Point of View, ran until 2004 and was produced by the organization Leadership Terre Haute.
Upon the station's January 1995 switch to Fox, WBAK entered into a news share agreement with WTHI-TV to produce a half-hour prime time newscast at 10 p.m. for the station. The station's morning interview program continued for a short period under the new title Valley Focus on Fox 38, before being canceled in 1996 along with the devotional program Faith To Live By. WTHI terminated the news share agreement after WBAK-TV entered into the JSA with WTWO upon its acquisition by Mission Broadcasting, with the last WTHI-produced newscast airing on the station on December 31, 2003. The station ran syndicated programming at 10 p.m. for several months until WTWO began producing a half-hour prime time newscast in the summer of 2004, titled NewsChannel 2 Prime Edition, utilizing the same anchors as channel 2's weeknight 6 and 11 p.m. newscasts. The 10 p.m. newscast was retitled Fox 38 News at 10 for a brief period beginning in June 2005, before being renamed again to WFXW Prime Edition. At that point, the broadcast began utilizing its own news anchor, as well as a separate set, graphics and music package (the graphics were based on a package that was also used at the time by sister station WTVW, which was originally commissioned for Las Vegas Fox affiliate KVVU-TV). On June 7, 2007, when the title was amended to WTWO Prime Edition on WFXW, the newscast reverted to being produced from WTWO's main news set and utilized its evening anchors.
The newscast was retooled again as Fox 38 News: First at 10 on June 8, 2009, restoring the separate news set, graphics package (this time using one used by many Fox owned-and-operated stations and affiliates) and news music package ("Extreme" by Stephen Arnold Music). It was solo anchored by Leanne Tokars, who anchored the program from 2005 to 2007, before returning to the station in 2009; she left again later in 2010. WFXW also carried rebroadcasts of WTWO's weekday 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. newscasts, both airing on a one-hour delay. The 6 p.m. rebroadcast was dropped after a few months, leaving only the morning news rebroadcast at 7 a.m.
When the station rejoined ABC, WTWO moved its hour-long 5 p.m. newscast, Live at Five, to WAWV-TV.[11] However, the 7 a.m. rebroadcast of WTWO's weekday morning newscast was dropped, as ABC airs Good Morning America in that timeslot (though WTWO does provide local news and weather updates during that program, along with half-hourly news and weather updates seen throughout the day, and a special agricultural-related forecast during AgDay on weekday mornings[12]); the existing 10 p.m. newscast was removed from the station as well, as unlike Fox, ABC provides prime time network programming during that hour,[13] though it was transitioned into the online-only WAWV News First at Ten, a 15-minute program that was streamed on the website shared by WTWO/WAWV until it was discontinued on December 28, 2012; the station otherwise does not carry a newscast in the traditional 11 p.m. timeslot.[11] On September 10, 2012, WAWV launched a half-hour midday newscast at noon on weekdays.
