News operation
WGAL presently broadcasts 39 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 6 1/2 hours each weekday, 3 1/2 hours on Saturdays, and three hours on Sundays). In addition to its main studios, WGAL operates bureaus in Harrisburg (on Market Street) and York (on South George Street a.k.a. BL I-83/Susquehanna Trail). The station operates the area's only live weather radar at its transmitter site known as "Super Doppler 8". As the only VHF station in the area, it has been the market leader for many years. This may also have to do with its newspaper roots, as is typical for many long-standing market leaders in the United States.[10]
As of 2013, WGAL's dominance is primarily in Lancaster and York counties, which contain the majority of the market's population. Starting in 2012, WGAL began experiencing declines in news viewership, the largest occurring in May 2013[11] That July, WHTM-TV beat WGAL for the first time at 5 p.m. among adults 25–54. WGAL lost ground in other time periods, including at 6 p.m., and fell to a virtual tie with WHTM at noon.
On September 30, 1995, weekend morning editions of News 8 Today premiered. In 2010, a 6 a.m. hour of News 8 Today was added. In February 2010, days before the Winter Olympics, WGAL began using updated tickers for weather warnings, school closings and breaking news to fit 16:9 screens, preventing high definition programming from reverting to 4:3 standard definition when the tickers appeared. Around late October or early November 2010, WGAL's news set was modified with two new flat screen monitors to the left and right of the set, and an additional flat screen monitor was added to the front of the new anchor desk.
On December 13, 2010, starting with its 5 p.m. newscast, WGAL became the first television station in the Harrisburg–Lancaster–Lebanon–York market to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in widescreen standard definition, and also introduced updated on-screen graphics.[12] Before WGAL's switch to widescreen newscasts, the market was the largest Nielsen television market in which all of its stations did not broadcast their local newscasts in either high definition or 16:9 widescreen.
On August 29, 2011, WGAL became the second station in South Central Pennsylvania (behind Fox affiliate WPMT) to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition. The news open was modified to include the station's legacy logos, while the set remained unchanged until newscasts returned to Studio B with a new set on February 5, 2012. As of April 14, 2012, with WHP-TV's upgrade to HD newscasts, all four major stations in the Susquehanna Valley (WGAL, WPMT, WHP-TV and WHTM-TV) now air their local newscasts in HD; however, unlike the other three, WGAL airs only in-studio segments in the format (its field video continues to be presented in enhanced definition widescreen).
On February 4, 2013, WGAL debuted a nightly half-hour 10 p.m. newscast on its then This TV (now MeTV) affiliated second digital subchannel. On August 22, 2016, WGAL debuted an hour-long newscast at 4 p.m. This coincided with the cancellation of The Meredith Vieira Show.
On September 26, 2023, WGAL launched a redesigned, state-of-the-art news set in Studio A, which made its debut at the start of that day's News 8 at Noon.[13]
- Barbara Allen – host, writer, and producer[14]
- Doug Allen – co-host, meteorologist, and weather anchor[15]
- Dave Brandt – sports director, anchor, and host[16]
- Joe Calhoun – chief meteorologist and weather anchor[17]
- Anne S. Herr – host, weathercaster and producer[18]
