News operation
The creation of a news operation for channel 61, in the mold of the respected WTIC radio newsroom, was an early and long-held goal for Arnold Chase and his team. At the station's dedication ceremony in 1984, general manager Bruce C. Mayer promised, "As soon as we're ready, and that won't be too long, we're going to present the facts with a first-class news operation in the WTIC tradition." A news studio and newsroom were accommodated in the design of the One Corporate Center studios. However, five years passed before WTIC-TV aired a local newscast, in part because the merger into Chase Broadcasting helped afford the financial backing to make it a reality.
In November 1988, W. Vincent Burke, a former news executive with ABC, was hired to serve as the founding news director.[68] Many anchors expressed interest in presenting the new half-hour 10 p.m. newscast, but even network correspondents were turned down to hire Chase's first choice. Longtime Connecticut news anchor Pat Sheehan, who had recently departed WFSB and was working as an investment banker, agreed to become the face of the new WTIC-TV newscast, meshing with the serious news approach favored by Chase.[69]
The WTIC News at Ten began broadcasting in April 1989. Sheehan was joined by Beth Carroll, who had worked at WWLP-TV in Springfield, Massachusetts, on the anchor desk.[70] In its early years, one of the most substantial areas of investment—and impact on the overall market—for WTIC-TV news was weather forecasting. The station had the first private Doppler weather radar in the state, which it trumpeted after a major severe weather outbreak on July 10, three months after the newscast hit the air.[71] A private weather forecasting business, the New England Weather Service, was then created as an adjunct to WTIC radio and television. This led to a competition among Connecticut television stations to invest in new weather forecasting equipment. Ratings began to rise as well. At the start of 1991, the station expanded its newscast to seven days a week.[72]
Under Renaissance, the 10 p.m. newscast expanded from 30 minutes to a full hour in 1995, with the second half hour originally featuring an in-depth feature segment, patterned after Nightline, known as "Tonight in Connecticut".[73] After two months of low ratings, "Tonight in Connecticut" was dropped in August 1995.[74] Sheehan would call the short life and quick demise of the segment "one of my greatest disappointments"; he left in 1999.[10]
Beginning in the late 2000s, WTIC-TV began to increase its news output beyond late news. A two-hour morning newscast, the Fox 61 Morning News, began to air in 2008.[75] After moving in with the Courant, noon and 6 p.m. broadcasts were added, the first in a flurry of new news offerings in the years that followed: an expanded morning newscast, 4 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts,[76][77] weekend morning news,[78] and a 5 p.m. newscast.[79]
In July 2009, news reporter Shelly Sindland filed both state and federal complaints alleging age and gender discrimination in the station's newsroom.[80] The Courant coverage of this story came under scrutiny. Newsblues, a blog covering the television news business, reported that the newspaper printed WTIC-TV's reaction before it published a story about the complaint,[81] while a blogger who had been a Courant employee at the time noted that he had been told a story had been posted to the website and then removed after a complaint by management.[82] In 2010, the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities found "reasonable cause" in her complaint, a finding the commission made in just four percent of cases it adjudicated in the preceding year.[83]
- Steve Berthiaume – weekend sportscaster, 1993–1996[84]
- Jay Crawford – weekend sportscaster, 1992–1993[85]
