News operation
On October 8, 1996, the station established a news department and began airing a nightly half-hour prime time newscast known as Fox News at 10. It was not the time slot's first show in the market, as WMHQ (now WCWN) launched a WNYT-produced broadcast earlier in the year; in 1998, that production was canceled due to a lack of support, leaving WXXA as the only outlet for a prime time show.
Filling a niche in local newscasts, its prime time broadcast was expanded on weeknights to an hour on September 4, 2000, and renamed Fox 23 News at 10. Upon launching the newscast, WXXA was successful in the time slot with high ratings and viewership, though it struggled in other timeslots competing directly with Albany's big three stations.
On January 10, 2000, the station took on the area's big three outlets for the first time with the launch of Fox 23 News at 6:30. This show offered a local alternative to the national news broadcasts seen in the time slot. This was followed on March 26, 2001, by another show weeknights at 6 p.m. that directly competed with the other stations.
A change in upper management led to a realignment of early weeknight shows with the 6:30 p.m. broadcast moving to 5 p.m. in September 2002 and an expansion to an hour. Fox 23 News at 6 would eventually be dropped on June 27, 2003, due to low ratings and a re-focus on the success of its flagship 10 p.m. show by putting a significant investment in its news operation beginning in late 2003. The biggest move was the signing of former WNYT news anchor John Gray. Additional resources and capabilities were added to the station behind the scenes as well as on-the-air.
On April 17, 2006, it was announced WNYA would begin airing an hour-long extension of WRGB's weekday morning show from 7 until 8. This action could be seen as a preemptive move by WRGB to fend off a challenge by WXXA, which had announced its own plans to launch a weekday morning newscast two weeks earlier. The actual launch of Fox 23 News Mornings occurred September 18, 2006, and it initially ran for three hours from 5 until 8. WRGB subsequently moved the sixty-minute extension of its morning show from WNYA to WCWN, and in 2008 began producing a 10 p.m. newscast for that station, giving WXXA its first challenger in the time slot in a decade. WXXA reduced its weekday morning broadcast to a two-hour format (from 6 until 8) in Summer 2009 due to low viewership.
A final addition to newscast offerings on WXXA occurred June 29, 2009, when it launched a half-hour broadcast weeknights at 11 following a national trend by other Fox affiliates. Although Fox 23 News at 10 has remained popular with viewers, its weekday morning show and Fox 23 News at 11 continued to struggle in the ratings against long running newscasts on competing stations. Fox 23 News at 5 (seen on weeknights) was eventually cut to a half-hour for that same reason. In 2012, Fox 23 News A.M. was moved to the 7 to 9 time slot. WXXA was the last remaining news department in the Capital District that continued to broadcast local news in 4:3 standard definition, and it never upgraded to high definition or 16:9 widescreen during the time that the newscasts were produced in-house.
With the consolidation of WXXA with WTEN, the ABC affiliate took over production of channel 23's newscasts. The two stations' reporting staffs were merged immediately following Shield Media's purchase of WXXA was completed.[21] On January 24, 2013, WXXA discontinued its weeknight 5 and 11 p.m. newscasts, in order to focus more on the morning and 10 p.m. newscasts; in an announcement on its Facebook page; the station redirected viewers of the canceled newscasts to the WTEN newscasts in those time slots. The weekday morning (7–9 a.m.) and nightly 10 p.m. newscasts, which do not compete against WTEN's newscasts, remain on the station.[22][23]
On March 23, the consolidation was completed when all newscasts began originating from WTEN's studios produced in high definition. WXXA simulcasts WTEN's weekday morning show from 6 to 7 a.m. From 7 to 9 a.m., WTEN produces a newscast for WXXA as a local complement to Good Morning America. During weather forecasts, the station features live NOAA National Weather Service NEXRAD weather radar data from four regional sites including one locally on Woodstock Road south of East Berne.
