Local in the Morning, this can be seen from 7 until 9 offering a local alternative to the national morning programs that air on the area's big three outlets. WIFR was the first television station in Rockford to upgrade its newscasts to high definition followed by WREX on December 12, 2010. On December 18, 2012, WTVO and WQRF debuted a brand new set, news music package, and graphics scheme that is based on the Eyewitness News branding seen on other Nexstar/Mission television stations. Unlike most ABC affiliates, this outlet does not air a midday newscast during the week. As part of its schedule, MyNetworkTV affiliate WTVO-DT2 offers repeats of local news from the main channel. On April 24, 2013, WTVO and WQRF moved to high definition, becoming the last television stations in Rockford to do so. Ben Hutchison, Matt Rodewald, and Chief Meteorologist Candice King anchored the final standard definition news broadcast in Rockford history. In June 2013, WTVO became the first station in the Rockford market to air a Spanish-language newscast hosted by anchor/reporter Alma Valenzuela and airing on channel 17.2. It began as a 15-minute newscast and was then expanded to a half-hour. The newscast was discontinued in 2017 due to low ratings. Technical information Subchannels The station's digital signal is multiplexed: WTVO's secondary programming service launched on September 22, 2003, carrying UPN. Branded as "Rockford UPN 16", WTVO-DT2 replaced WHPN (now WIFS) in Madison, Wisconsin, on Rockford area cable systems. Access to UPN was actually lost a year earlier in 2002 after a change in WHPN’s ownership prompted an affiliation switch to The WB. That station's new owner, Acme Communications, was a major station group involved in The WB. Since UPN moved to a similar secondary programming service in Madison (known as "UPN 14"), Rockford cable systems imported Chicago's WPWR-TV (now a MyNetworkTV owned-and-operated station) into the market as the de facto UPN affiliate for Rockford until WTVO added "Rockford UPN 16". In September 2006 with the merger of UPN and The WB, WTVO-DT2 joined the other new network debuting at the time (MyNetworkTV) which is actually a sister operation to Fox that is seen on WQRF. As of November 2014, MyNetworkTV-affiliated WTVO-DT2 channel 17.2 began broadcasting in high definition, utilizing the programming service's standard 720p format. Analog-to-digital conversion WTVO shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 17, on February 17, 2009, the original target date