News operation
WTVD presently broadcasts 48 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 7 1/2 hours each weekday, 4 1/2 hours on Saturdays and six hours on Sundays); in regard to the number of hours devoted to news programming, it is the highest local newscast output of any television station in the Research Triangle market. For most of the last four decades, WTVD has been a solid second in ratings across the market, behind WRAL. This is in contrast to most of its ABC stablemates (including sister stations WPVI-TV in Philadelphia and KFSN-TV in Fresno, California), which dominate their markets' news ratings. However, WTVD is still one of the strongest ABC stations in the country.
As with ABC's other owned-and-operated stations, WTVD features forecasts provided by AccuWeather for the weather segments of its newscasts. It operates its own weather radar, called "First Alert Doppler XP", at its transmitter site in Auburn. WTVD has a fleet of regular news vans and trucks as well as a yellow Toyota FJ Cruiser which carries the name "Breaking News One". WTVD also has a helicopter for newsgathering, which it refers to as "Chopper 11 HD". WTVD has also begun to implement a drone for newsgathering, which it dubs as "Drone 11".
Principal anchor Larry Stogner began working with station in 1976 and served as weeknight anchor from 1982 to 2015. On January 23, he announced his retirement after being diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis;[24] he died on October 3, 2016.[25] His co-anchor for much of the 1980s and 1990s, Miriam Thomas, abruptly left WTVD after nineteen years in November 2001. Notable former members of WTVD's news staff include musicians John Tesh and John D. Loudermilk, as well as former Good Morning America co-host David Hartman, ESPN personality Stuart Scott, and Nightline host Byron Pitts.
From 1973 to 1984, WTVD used the Eyewitness News brand for its newscasts, though its format was very similar to the Action News format pioneered by sister station WPVI-TV in Philadelphia. The arrangement was similar to those used at WKBW-TV in Buffalo, New York, and KFSN-TV. For a time, all three stations used the same theme song, "Move Closer to Your World", and a nearly identical opening sequence. WRAL was also using the Action News brand during that time period. It called its newscasts simply WTVD 11 News from 1984 to 1993. WTVD called itself NewsChannel 11 from 1993 to 2000, when it changed back to Eyewitness News. WTVD was among the last stations to use the Cool Hand Luke "Tar Sequence" theme in its broadcasts (which was also used on WRAL for a period in the 1970s). However, the station debuted the theme soon after the Capital Cities/ABC merger and retired it in 1993. Like sister stations WABC-TV, KABC-TV, and KGO-TV, the theme was used only in the opens.
On June 26, 2006, WTVD debuted a new primetime newscast for WB (now CW) affiliate WLFL (channel 22) entitled Eyewitness News at 10 on WB 22. This happened after WLFL's owner, Sinclair Broadcast Group, ended the controversial News Central format on its stations and shut down WLFL's established in-house news department. This newscast ran directly against the WRAL-produced 10 p.m. newscast on WRAZ (channel 50). On September 17, concurrent with WLFL's affiliation switch to The CW, the newscast changed its name to reflect its new affiliation. On April 21, 2008, WTVD became the second television station in the Triangle behind WRAL and the eighth ABC-owned station to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition. The primetime news on WLFL was included in the upgrade. WTVD debuted an hour-long 4 p.m. newscast on May 26, 2011, to fill the void left by The Oprah Winfrey Show, whose long run in that time slot came to an end a day earlier.[26]
On June 27, 2022, it was announced on WLFL's social media accounts that WTVD would no longer produce newscasts for WLFL, and a full hour and a half of The National Desk will fill the 10 to 11:30 p.m. time slot on WLFL, leaving once again WRAZ as the only local station showing news at 10 p.m.[27]
On September 11, 2023, WTVD, along with sister stations WABC-TV and WPVI-TV, launched an additional hour-long newscast at 10 a.m., which took over the time slot previously occupied by Tamron Hall. The newscast is co-anchored by John Clark and Barbara Gibbs with meteorologist Kweilyn Murphy. The broadcast will continue to deliver news in a traditional format, and will also allow more focus to be placed on local newsmakers, and further discussion on topics addressed on Good Morning America and Live with Kelly and Mark.[28]
