WGN-TV's Chicago-originated local newscasts, news specials and public affairs programs, special events and sports telecasts – with the exception of a one-hour simulcast of WGN-TV's morning news program that was carried early weekday mornings during the transitional period – immediately ceased being shown on a national basis the day prior, while WGN-TV itself maintained a separate schedule of local and syndicated programs exclusively catering to the Chicago market. The channel began to focus squarely on acquired programming, including shows held over from its superstation era, and by 2015, began to incorporate a limited schedule of original drama and reality series. Conversion to cable news channel On September 1, 2020, WGN America launched a three-hour-long prime time newscast, NewsNation, which began development in October 2019, when Nexstar management commissioned research from television subscribers that determined a share of survey participants were dissatisfied with opinion-based programming on cable news channels such as CNN (which had previously offered straight news programming within its evening lineup, before shifting further into liberal-leaning personality-based programming in the mid-2010s), MSNBC (which gravitated toward liberal opinion/talk programs beginning in 2008), and Fox News (developed in 1996 with a conservative-leaning format). The program draws partly from the broadcast and digital resources of Nexstar's television stations (including those acquired by Tribune Media, in addition to WGN America, several months prior). During December 2020 and January 2021, Nexstar reached carriage agreements that added WGN America to virtual multichannel television providers YouTube TV (reached on December 1), FuboTV (reached on December 11), Hulu (reached on December 18), Sling TV (reached on December 24, through a broader agreement with Sling parent Dish Network which ended a three-week impasse in which the satellite provider lost access to Nexstar's broadcast stations) and Vidgo (reached on January 14) to expand the channel beyond its existing wireline and satellite distribution footprint, and increase exposure for NewsNation. (AT&T TV had already carried the channel since October 2019). On January 25, 2021, Nexstar Media Group announced it would relaunch WGN America under the NewsNation brand on March 1, cutting all ties with the WGN brand after forty-three years. The name change will coincide with a gradual expansion of its news programming: initially expanding to nine hours per day (from six), the revised news schedule will be fronted by a splintered expansion of the flagship NewsNation broadcast (adding an hour-long early evening edition, alongside the existing and now reduced two-hour