News operation
WLTX spent most of its history as a distant runner-up to WIS in the market. By the 1970s, it had cut back its 11 p.m. local newscast to a five-minute update. Even that was dropped later in the decade due to low ratings.[38] According to longtime anchor Gene Upright, who also served as channel 19's program director, station officials decided to drop the 11 p.m. update and concentrate on the 6 p.m. dinner-hour newscast shortly before he arrived. Upright said that at the time, WLTX didn't have nearly enough staffers to make a credible effort against WIS in the late news slot. For the next two decades, WLTX competed against WIS at 11 p.m. with syndicated shows, most notably The Andy Griffith Show, which was far more competitive with the WIS 11:00 Report and often finished in second place in its time slot. As late as the 1980s, Upright believed any attempt to run an 11 p.m. newscast would have not only trailed WIS, but also perennial third-place finisher WOLO-TV.[39][40]
WLTX began adding more news updates in the latter years of the tenure of Dick Hall, the news director for 13 years under Lewis ownership. Hall left for WKXT-TV in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1991, wanting to work in a more competitive market.[41] After taking the role in 1993, Carolyn Powell made a concerted effort to add a full schedule of news. As part of that effort, she began gradually scaling up channel 19's news department to a more typical size for a medium-market station, with the eventual intent of making News 19 "a seven-day news operation". Between 1993 and 1995, Powell added five-minute 11 p.m. news updates on weekdays and Saturdays, a 15-minute update on Sundays at 6 p.m., and a full 30-minute newscast at 6 p.m. on Sundays.[42] A full 30-minute newscast at 11, seven nights a week, began airing in March 1996.[43] In conjunction with a revamped format for CBS This Morning, the station began broadcasting a 7 a.m. morning newscast that August;[44] a midday newscast debuted in September 1997.[45]
The Gannett purchase led to wholesale changes throughout 1999. Gannett brought in Rich O'Dell, an executive from WKYC-TV in Cleveland, as general manager and hired a new news director.[46] Longtime WLTX personalities, including Upright and weather presenter Camille Bradford Hugg, moved to new off-air jobs or retired.[47] In August 1999, to accommodate the launch of The Early Show by CBS, WLTX replaced its 7 a.m. morning news with a two-hour broadcast at 5 a.m.[48] At year's end, on December 31, the centerpiece of the strategy debuted on air in the person of former longtime WIS meteorologist Jim Gandy. The previous year, Gannett had hired Gandy as a consultant while he waited out a one-year non-compete clause in his contract with channel 10; when the move was announced, he was widely expected to return to Columbia and forecast the weather on WLTX after the year was up, which proved to be the case.[49][50] Channel 19 also added a Doppler weather radar system to bolster its weather forecasts.[51]
The substantial changes in WLTX's news product did not immediately lead to a ratings boost,[52] but by 2001, WLTX was giving WIS its most credible competition ever, aided by the strong performance of CBS network programming such as Survivor.[53] It beat WIS at noon in two ratings surveys, a first for the market. A 7 p.m. newscast—the first-ever challenge to WIS's popular 7:00 Report—debuted in late 2001 after the September 11 attacks.[54] However, WIS was able to successfully fend off the challenge and keep WLTX in second place, particularly in the 6 and 7 p.m. newscasts.[55] Looking for a further lift, in late 2002, WLTX moved the anchor duo of J. R. Berry and Darci Strickland, both South Carolina natives, from the morning newscasts to the evening newscasts.[56] The move kept WLTX competitive; its ratings remained behind WIS in total households but sometimes pulled ahead in key demographics with desirable younger viewers.[57] One of the few holdovers from the pre-Gannett WLTX was in the area of sports: sports director Bob Shields, who created a regional high school Player of the Week award while at channel 19 and retired from broadcasting in 2010 after 30 years.
WLTX was awarded the prestigious Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award in 2015 for DSS: When the System Fails, its series of reports on the dysfunction of South Carolina's Department of Social Services.[59]
Gandy retired in 2019 after 44 years in broadcasting.[60] That year, Broadcasting & Cable magazine honored O'Dell as its general manager of the year in a non-top-50 market, citing an improvement in the station's ratings that allowed it to break WIS's dominance of the Columbia market. Channel 19 bested channel 10 in early evening news and significantly closed the gap in the late news slot. The station also surged ahead of WIS among adults 25–54; a three-share point deficit among that demographic in 2017 had become a 12-point lead by 2019. O'Dell credited WLTX's piloting of Tegna's "Street Squad" community reporting model as a factor in the ratings boost.[61]
- Matt Barrie – sportscaster[62]
- Joel Connable – reporter[63]
- Natasha Curry – reporter, weekend anchor in the early 2000s[64]
- Ainsley Earhardt – reporter, weekend anchor in the early 2000s
