News operation
In January 2007, WBMM entered into a news share agreement with WAKA allowing the big three affiliate to produce the market's first prime time newscast on this station. Known as CW News at Nine, the weeknight-only broadcast could be seen for thirty minutes and originated from WAKA's studios featuring most of the CBS affiliate's on-air personnel. WBMM would begin to have competition to its outsourced broadcast on January 7, 2008, after Fox affiliate WCOV-TV entered into a news share arrangement with NBC outlet WSFA. That agreement resulted in Montgomery's second prime time newscast at 9 initially seen only on weeknights for 35 minutes. A weekend half-hour edition began in Summer 2008.
On April 16, 2010, WNCF expanded its partnership with the Independent News Network (INN) and launched a half-hour weeknight newscasts at 9 p.m. on WBMM airing in high definition. As a result, this station terminated its outsourcing arrangement with WAKA. Still known by the same title, the show began to be produced at INN's studios on Tremont Avenue in Davenport, Iowa. The news anchor, meteorologist, and sports anchor were provided by the centralized news operation with other personnel filling-in as needed. WBMM maintained two locally based reporters at its studios who contributed Montgomery-specific coverage to the newscast that was taped in advance and then fed to the station through satellite relay.
After WCOV's contract with WSFA expired at the end of 2010, that station entered into another news outsourcing agreement with WAKA to produce a nightly prime time broadcast. On January 1, 2011, WSFA transitioned its prime-time show to its second digital subchannel (then affiliated with the Retro Television Network) resulting in three options for newscasts at 9. A content sharing arrangement would eventually be set up between WBMM and then sister station WLTZ in Columbus, Georgia, to share resources when covering East-Central Alabama since Montgomery and Columbus have coverage areas bordering each other. As a result, additional reporters locally employed by WLTZ were seen during CW News at Nine. After the change in ownership to Bahakel, personnel from the NBC station in Columbus were dropped. At some point in summer 2012, WBMM and WNCF terminated their newscast outsourcing agreement with the Independent News Network in preparation for local news production duties to be assumed by WAKA.
WNCF and WAKA officially debuted their combined local news operation on February 2, 2013. Based out of what was formerly WNCF's studios on Harrison Road, a newly expanded high definition-ready facility features state-of-the-art production capabilities which has allowed WAKA to finally offer local news in high definition. Despite merging with WNCF, WAKA continues to produce a nightly, half-hour prime time newscast at 9 on Fox affiliate WCOV through a pre-existing news share arrangement. As a result, there are no local newscasts currently airing on WBMM. On February 4, this station began airing a reformatted version of WNCF's longtime weekday morning show Good Morning Montgomery (hosted by Alva Lambert, Johnny Green, and Joe Hagler). However, it now airs weekdays from 1 to 2 p.m. on WBMM and is currently known on-air as Good Afternoon Montgomery. The program is similar to a radio talk show with guests interacting with the hosts and opportunities for viewers to call-in. Like all CW Plus outlets in the Central Time Zone, WBMM aired the nationally syndicated morning show The Daily Buzz on weekdays from 6 to 8 a.m.
