News operation
Largely because of its pioneering status in the state, WSAZ is one of the country's most dominant television stations. It has been the far-and-away market leader for most of the time since records have been kept, usually boasting some of the highest-rated newscasts in the country. WCHS and WOWK have rarely come close. The station came in a close second to WCHS for a short period in late 2009–early 2010 due to lower lead-in numbers originated by The Jay Leno Show. It is one of the few times in memory that WSAZ has lost any timeslot. WSAZ has since regained first place in all timeslots. In May 2012, WSAZ had the highest rated nightly news at 6 p.m. of any station in the top 100 television markets in the United States, with its 6 a.m. and 5 p.m. newscasts ranking number-two among the Top 100. The station has always devoted significant resources to its news department, resulting in a higher-quality product than conventional wisdom would suggest for what has always been a small-to-medium market.
Since 1956, WSAZ's newscasts have featured two anchors, one based at the main studios in Huntington and the other in Charleston. NBC studied the format and used it as the basis for The Huntley-Brinkley Report anchored by Chet Huntley in New York City and David Brinkley in Washington, D.C. All of the big three networks have used this approach at one time or another since then.
From 1995 to 2017, WSAZ used W16CE to provide viewers with a "split" newscast. Weeknights at 5:30, 6 and 11, the two anchors appeared together on screen until a certain point (usually 10–15 minutes into the newscast) when the show "split". For the remainder of the newscast, W16CE viewers and Suddenlink subscribers in the Kanawha Valley saw a newscast targeted specifically to them. The main station's viewers, cable subscribers in the Huntington area, and satellite viewers across the market, saw a newscast featuring coverage from Kentucky and Ohio as well as West Virginia. WSAZ called this concept "two-city news".[10] This ended in 2017 when W16CE was shut down, but the newscasts still feature one anchor based in Huntington and one anchor based in Charleston. Outside of the aforementioned newscasts, all shows originate from the Huntington facilities. The weather and sports departments are also based there. In July 1993, WSAZ's weeknight First at Five broadcast was launched.
Since the station has traditionally been one of NBC's strongest affiliates, the network has been rumored on several occasions to buying WSAZ. However, NBCUniversal has recently sold off many of its stations outside the top 15 markets. Huntington–Charleston is currently the 70th market (the only market in the state in the top 100). Also, NBC has owned only one television station located outside the top 50 markets.
Rumors abounded soon after the Gray Television purchase of WSAZ that WTAP would scrap its news department and simulcast WSAZ's newscasts instead. WSAZ has always covered Parkersburg events anyway and has long been available on cable on the West Virginia side of that market. However, WTAP's broadcasts bring in as much revenue as WSAZ in part because WTAP is the only full-power station in Parkersburg.
WSAZ-DT2 formerly produced a prime time newscast every night for a half-hour, originally known as MyZTV Ten O'Clock News; however, when Gray Television bought full-power WQCW, it moved WSAZ's 10 p.m. news to that station and expanded that newscast to a full hour. WSAZ-DT2 currently only repeats the second hour of WSAZ NewsChannel 3 Today weekdays at 7 a.m.
WSAZ remodeled the Huntington and Charleston newsrooms in late 2010 to prepare for high definition broadcasts. On June 26, 2011, at 6 p.m., WSAZ launched the first high-definition newscast in the Charleston–Huntington market. This was the second station in the state of West Virginia, following sister station WTAP in Parkersburg. Before the transition, the Charleston–Huntington market was the largest without a newscast in either high definition or 16:9 enhanced definition widescreen.
