Preemptions and deferrals
In 1993, WBRZ joined approximately 50 ABC affiliates in not airing the pilot episode of NYPD Blue due to local protests; the station decided on a week-by-week basis, at first, to air or not air episodes but eventually settled with airing episodes (including a rerun of the pilot).
In November 2004, WBRZ, along with many other ABC affiliates in the country, opted not to air the movie Saving Private Ryan when the network broadcast it uncut on Veterans Day. During Hurricane Katrina, the station worked with New Orleans ABC affiliate WGNO (channel 26) to provide coverage of the storm and its aftermath.
WBRZ has aired GMA: The Third Hour (previously The Chew and All My Children) at 11 a.m. on a one-day behind basis (three days behind for Friday's edition) due to the station's longtime noon newscast.
News operation
WBRZ was Baton Rouge's "news leader" in the ratings for much of its early history until the mid-1990s, given its history of always broadcasting on channel 2 (rival WAFB did not move to the VHF band until 1960) and its ties to the Baton Rouge newspapers, The Morning Advocate and The State-Times. The station experienced a ratings decline when Ed Buggs, the first African-American anchor in Baton Rouge, and many of its veteran anchors left the station in the mid-to-late 1990s amidst several format changes. This allowed CBS affiliate WAFB to overtake the lead in local news ratings, after competing with WBRZ for first place throughout the decade.[3]
In 2004, the station dropped its twenty-year slogan of "On Your Side" and started describing their news as "Balanced. Fair. Accurate", which was inspired by Fox News' "Fair and Balanced" slogan. It was also in 2004 that the station introduced a 4 p.m. newscast to the Baton Rouge market after the cancellation of Donny Osmond's version of Pyramid. Today, WBRZ refers to itself as News 2 with the slogan "News You Can Turn To" and has revived "On Your Side" for special interest stories.
On July 29, 2007, WBRZ upgraded its set and news theme and began broadcasting their morning show 2une In and its noon, 4, 5, 6, and 10 p.m. newscasts in high-definition. WBRZ was the second station in the Baton Rouge area and the fourth in Louisiana to broadcast their newscasts in high definition.
On November 17, 2014, WBRZ introduced their new state-of-the-art upgrades set on their 5 p.m. newscasts, while maintaining the news theme "Extreme" by Stephen Arnold Music, which the station has used from 2007 HD upgrade until 2016.[4]
WBRZ airs six hours of news each weekday, with two hours of morning news (2une In), one hour at noon, and half-hour newscasts at 4, 5, 6, and 10 p.m. On weekends, it airs a half-hour of morning news at 9 a.m. and prime time newscasts at 6 and 10 p.m. with a special interest report known as Sunday Journal on Sunday mornings.
On January 15, 2018, WBRZ rebranded its subchannel 2.2 to WBRZ Plus. With this rebrand, the station expanded its prime-time news offerings by extending its 6 and 10 p.m. newscasts to a full hour. The hour-long newscasts air on this subchannel, while the first 30 minutes of each newscast continue to air on WBRZ's main channel. In June 2021, WBRZ also began mixing programming from VSiN with its news programming on WBRZ Plus.[5]
WBRZ was a 2023 recipient of an Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award for its investigative reporting on the Louisiana State Police cover-up of misconduct related to the death of Ronald Greene in 2019. It was the third time the channel received the award, known as the broadcast equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize.[6]
- Sharon Weston Broome
- Kip Holden[7]
- Margaret Orr
- Dallas Raines – chief meteorologist[8]
- Jay Young – news anchor
