News operation
WKBN presently broadcasts 31 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 5 1/2 hours each weekday, two hours on Saturdays and 1 1/2 hours on Sundays).
WKBN established a weekday morning program in 1992. On January 23, 2006, WYFX's First News at 10 on Fox 17/62 (produced by WKBN) became the area's only hour-long prime time broadcast on weeknights while remaining thirty minutes on weekends.
After a rebranding occurred in 2008, the title changed to First News on Fox. For a period, WYFX's broadcast competed with another newscast seen at the same time on MyNetwork affiliate WYTV-DT2 that was produced by its parent ABC station. There is also a two-hour weekday morning show seen on WYFX while WKBN broadcasts CBS Mornings. Known as First News This Morning on Fox, the show is essentially an extension of the CBS affiliate's show offering a local alternative.
In December 2007, the news departments of WKBN and WYTV physically merged. As a result, over forty personnel at WYTV and six at WKBN were laid-off.[17] Under the shared services agreement, this station began producing newscasts on the ABC affiliate from a secondary set at the Sunset Boulevard studios. A previous plan calling for WYTV to build satellite streetside studios in Downtown Youngstown were abandoned due to the consolidation. The current operational status of its Doppler weather radar based at the old facility on Shady Run Road is unknown. The two stations gradually had their on-air looks mirror each other while their respective web sites became identical. New logos for the stations and updated websites debuted in January 2009 including combined operations for sports and weather.
An updated graphic and music theme, created by John Christopher Burns Design, premiered on February 24, 2009, replacing graphics dating back to 1997. The "WKBN" lettering style in its new logo was inspired from the WKBN sign at its historical facility.[18] To differentiate the CBS and ABC affiliates from each other and maintain a separate identity, the stations adopted individual graphic and music packages. Due to the duopoly, WKBN and WYTV maintain separate primary anchors for news, weather, and sports during the week but share most general assignment reporters and video footage. The two initially maintained separate web sites as well, however after LIN Media took over ownership of WKBN-WYFX and operations of WYTV, WYTV's website became a redirect to WKBN's website with only WYTV's station identification information available on WKBN's web site. Recently, WYTV has its own website once again.
On May 6, 2010, the two outlets upgraded their combined news operation to high definition complete with new graphics on WYTV. Local news seen on Fox affiliate WYFX was also included in the change. There are news and weather sharing partnerships with WKBN (570 AM), WNIO (1390 AM), WNCD (93.3 FM), WAKZ (95.9 FM), WMXY (98.9 FM), and WBBG (106.1 FM).
