News operation
For most of its first four decades, WOLO-TV was the third station in what was essentially a two-station market, in large part due to its weak signal. Its local newscasts languished in a distant third place, well behind WIS and WLTX. Despite this, the station was responsible for several firsts in the Columbia area. In 1977, the station hired Elizabeth Snite to co-anchor the station's evening newscasts, becoming the first female news anchor in the market.[17] The next year, it hired the first certified meteorologist in the market, Bob Richards, and introduced the first color weather radar system in the area (in 1978)[18][19] However, these moves failed to rid WOLO of what The State columnist Doug Nye called an "image of comical ineptness" that stuck with the station for decades. According to Nye, this was largely because of Bahakel's frugal approach to running the station; well into the 1990s, it was the only station in the market that did not broadcast in stereo. In the 1970s, channel 25 was notorious for "skimpy news sets and Crayola-style graphics". Its news desk was little more than a cloth thrown over a fruit box. During storms, rain could be heard pelting the roof of the Quonset hut studio inherited from WCOS-TV. For years afterward, according to former operations director Jim Forrest, whenever the station made an on-air mistake, viewers harrumphed, "same old WOLO".[20]
Channel 25 added an 11 p.m. newscast in 1977, after an earlier attempt failed.[21] This second effort at late news lasted until 1986, but never made much headway against WIS. [22] An 11 p.m. newscast was not restored until 1991, ending a five-year period where WIS offered the only late news in the market.[23]
In the second half of the 1990s, the station made several moves, including hiring Jim Blue and Leslie Mattox as its top anchor team, additional morning and 5 p.m. newscasts, and a rebrand as 25 Eyewitness News, to improve its position,[24][25] However, just two months after hiring Blue and Mattox, Bahakel fired general manager Carl Bruce after he refused to be reassigned to WBAK-TV in Terre Haute, Indiana. Bruce's successor fired news director Dale Cox soon afterward. According to Nye, this was one of many cases over the years where Bahakel "tightened the purse strings" just as channel 25 was showing promise. At one point in the 1990s, channel 25 was in danger of falling to fourth place behind syndicated programming on Fox affiliate WACH. During this time, WOLO-TV gained a reputation for instability in management and news leadership; it had five station managers from 1990 to 1998 alone.[26]
In 2002, due to concerns it could not afford to convert WOLO to digital broadcasting, Bahakel migrated the station's operations—including production of its newscasts—to the studio facilities of company flagship WCCB in Charlotte. Newsgathering continued to be based in Columbia, maintaining a news director and three teams of reporters to produce the daily newscasts.[27] With the move, WOLO canceled its weekday morning and weekend newscasts, retaining only the weeknight 6 p.m. and nightly 11 p.m. newscasts, and laid off several Columbia-based employees, including both of its anchors. This was one of the largest-market examples of "centralcasting" (the practice of housing master control and/or other operations for multiple stations out of one facility) in the United States.[28] During this period, WOLO's newscasts remained deep in last place, never drawing more than a tenth of WIS' viewership. After the company's financial picture improved and allowed it to afford more digital conversion costs, in 2005, Bahakel Communications moved production of WOLO's newscasts back to Columbia, from a new purpose-built streetside news studio located across from the State House in the historic Union National Bank Building.[29]
On August 1, 2011, WOLO restored a weekday morning newscast to its schedule after nine years with the debut of an hour-long program at 6 a.m. titled Good Morning Columbia and the return of a noon newscast.[30] In 2015, it hired two former WIS personalities, evening anchor Ben Hoover[31] after his departure from the NBC affiliate back in 2014.[32] and former WIS chief meteorologist John Farley.[33]
By 2022, WOLO had left the Union National Bank Building, which was being eyed for conversion into a boutique hotel; a bar in the building also was forced to leave by the new owners.[34] As of, the station produced 23 1/2 hours a week of local news programming.[35]
- Bob Richards – meteorologist, 1978–1979
