and hosted the Sunday morning program UpFront with Mike Gousha, which is a mix of the interview segments familiar to viewers of his former WTMJ program Sunday Night, and local political analysis. Hearst syndicated the show to other stations statewide, and in August 2010 all of the stations involved (along with Milwaukee Public Television, which provided technical assistance with HD production) broadcast a Gousha-moderated forum for the Wisconsin Republican gubernatorial candidates called the UpFront Town Hall Challenge from Marquette's new law building, which was purposefully structured to avoid classification as a traditional debate where either candidate could use the format to "sell" themselves. The format was repeated in October 2010 between the Democratic and Republican nominees for governor and U.S. Senate. WISN has gradually expanded its newscast schedule since 2007, beginning to program hour-long newscasts, starting that year with a Sunday at 10 p.m. broadcast and for a time, an hour-long Saturday 6 p.m. newscast (the 6:30 p.m. half-hour currently features either paid programming, Project Pitch It [a local version of ABC's Shark Tank, which is syndicated to stations throughout Wisconsin] or 12 Sports Saturday). On July 30, 2010, WISN, like most of its ABC-affiliated sister stations under Hearst did on that date, added a one-hour extension of its weekend morning newscast from 8 to 9 a.m. On September 6, 2010, WISN expanded its weekday morning newscast a half-hour early to 4:30 a.m., extending the program to hours. On April 21, 2009, the station began using full-time pillarboxing with the station logo and callsign on the respective sides of the screen for newscasts and other standard-definition programming. Afterwards, the station began to slowly implement 16:9 graphical elements; in March 2010, WISN-TV unveiled 16:9-optimized weather alert graphics to allow programs to continue to be shown in HD rather than force a downscale to a modified 4:3 mode in which the program was displayed in 3:3 (to much viewer complaint over the years, especially with ABC prime time programming), with the weather warnings taking up the remainder of the screen. News tickers and logo bugs were also later upgraded; the only HD news segments until late June 2011 aired on its newscasts the day of the Summerfest "Big Bang" fireworks show, usually scenic and human interest pieces, along with Milwaukee Public Television co-productions. On October 10, 2010, the station began broadcasting its newscasts in 16:9 widescreen standard definition, with the pillarboxes being