News operation
Compared with the other big four stations in the market, KFVS has traditionally covered Southeastern Missouri. The newscasts of ABC affiliate WSIL-TV focus exclusively on Southern Illinois, from studios in Carterville, and it does not even mention the market's other two primary cities (Cape Girardeau and Paducah) in its on-air legal identification. This is despite the fact that WSIL operates a full-time satellite, KPOB, in Poplar Bluff, Missouri. KFVS offers secondary coverage of Southern Illinois from a newsroom on East Plaza Drive in Carterville near WSIL. NBC affiliate WPSD-TV, based in Paducah, focuses more on the Western Kentucky side although that station operates a bureau in Marion, Illinois and barely even covered the northern West Tennessee side of the market.
At one point in time, KFVS produced a nightly prime time newscast on WQTV/WQWQ. Known as Heartland News at 9, the show could be seen for a half-hour and was targeted specifically at a Southeastern Missouri audience.[9] It competed with another broadcast in the time slot on Fox affiliate KBSI which also aired every night for thirty minutes. However, that program was produced by WPSD, so it featured more of a regional summary of headlines since it originated from the NBC outlet's facility in Kentucky. The WQTV/WQWQ newscast was dropped on July 29, 2007.
On October 1, 2010, Heartland News at 9 was brought back after a news share agreement was established with KBSI, which offers a nightly hour-long prime time newscast originating from the KFVS studios. With that addition, this station offers more than thirty hours of local news each week.[10] On October 3, 2010, WPSD brought back its own newscast at 9 p.m. known as The Nine to both of its digital subchannels which is seen every night, except Saturdays, for a half-hour, until it was canceled in 2019. KBSI later debuted its own newscasts in March 2022, outsourced from ABC affiliate KLKN in Lincoln, Nebraska. Heartland News at 9 was moved to KFVS-DT2.
In July 2011, KFVS became the second news operation in the market to upgrade local news production to high definition level. Included with the switch was the debut of a new studio and updated graphics (the KBSI newscast was included in the change).
During weather segments, the station uses live NOAA National Weather Service radar data from several regional sites. This system is known on-air as "First Alert Doppler Network". KFVS also operates its own Doppler weather radar, called "Live StormTeam Radar", that is located on top of the Hirsch building. It is a Collins radar sold by ADC in Bloomington, Indiana, and is the only live radar source in the market since the National Weather Service data seen on rival stations is delayed.
