Birmingham Seven). Over the next few years, more newscasts would be added to WIAT's schedule: the station debuted a half-hour newscast at 6:00 p.m. on Monday through Saturday evenings in September 2001, followed by the addition of a two-hour weekday morning newscast in September 2004. Bill Ballard, who succeeded Land as general manager in 2003, brought in Larry Ragan, a seasoned news director who quickly hired WVTM veteran Ken Lass and WBMA meteorologist Mark Prater (formerly the understudy of veteran Birmingham meteorologist James Spann). The station subsequently rebranded its newscasts as News 42, began hiring assignment reporters to present and narrate stories, and gradually eased its limits on story lengths. The ratings for WIAT's newscasts continued to steadily improve over the next several years, allowing it to become more competitive than ever before. Since the early 2000s, WIAT has had a spirited three-way battle with WVTM and WBMA for second place behind long-dominant WBRC, and since 2006, its late-evening newscasts has consistently finished in second place in the 10:00 p.m. time slot. On some occasions, it has even surged all the way to first place—among the few times in the last half-century that WBRC has lost any timeslot. In recent years, WIAT has won many regional and national journalism awards for its reporting; in 2007 and 2008, WIAT won more Alabama Broadcasters Association Awards than any other station, as well as numerous Associated Press Awards. WIAT was awarded the "Alabama Television Station of the Year" award by the Alabama Broadcasters Association in 2010 and 2012, and is the only Alabama television station to have won the award twice. In 2012, the station won 19 awards, more than in any other year in its history, including nine regional Edward R. Murrow Awards (including for "Overall Excellence;" "Best Newscast;" and "Best Breaking News Coverage" and "Best Continuing Coverage" for its coverage of the 2011 Super Outbreak), more than any other station in the country. In October 2005, WIAT assumed production responsibilities of WB affiliate WTTO's half-hour 9:00 p.m. newscast, the WB 21 News at Nine, through a news share agreement; the nightly program was produced out of WIAT's main news set and utilized its evening anchors as well as a modified graphics package. Unable to make ratings headway against WBRC's longer-established – and much higher-rated – prime time newscast (which debuted in September 1996 upon its switch to Fox), WTTO terminated the