are CW affiliate WISH-TV in Indianapolis and ABC affiliate KCRG-TV in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. For most of the time since the mid-1980s, channel 8 has led the Nielsen ratings in West Michigan. However, for most of the 1990s, it waged a spirited three-way battle for the ratings lead with WWMT and WZZM. One reason is that it is the only major station whose news department equally covers all of the vast Grand Rapids–Kalamazoo–Battle Creek market, WWMT has historically focused on the southern portion of the market (being based in Kalamazoo), while WZZM focuses mostly on the northern portion. WOOD-TV has many firsts in the market. It was the first West Michigan station to broadcast in color. It was the first West Michigan station to use electronic news gathering, in 1975. Five years later, it was the first area station to air live news from outside its studios. In 1983, it introduced the area's first television helicopter to assist in coverage. WOOD-TV's weekday morning newscast premiered in 1984 and aired for a half-hour at 6:30. This was expanded to a two-hour format in 1995 along with the weekday noon and weekend 6 p.m. newscast expanding to an hour. As a result, NBC Nightly News is preempted on weekends. After taking over WOTV's operations, WOOD-TV then began simulcasting some of its newscasts on that station as well as airing specially produced newscasts covering Battle Creek and Kalamazoo. That station had shuttered its separate news department in 1990; despite serving the market's second-largest city, Kalamazoo, it had long been plagued by weak viewership as its reach was limited to the southern portion of the market. Since then, WOTV has largely functioned as WOOD-TV's Kalamazoo/Battle Creek bureau. In 1992, WOOD-TV launched a separate news department for WOTV. However, despite having WOOD-TV's resources behind it, it made no impact in the ratings. LIN TV finally decided to shut down WOTV's news operation permanently in August 2003. Since then, the station has simulcast some of WOOD-TV's newscasts (currently its weekday morning, 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts), but this time without any separate opens or segments. On October 21, 2007, WOOD-TV began offering a nightly prime time newscast at 10 p.m. on WXSP-CD, joining the longer-established 10 p.m. newscast on Fox affiliate WXMI (channel 17) and CW affiliate WWMT-DT2. The entertainment and lifestyle magazine show eightWest premiered on October 5, 2009 and airs weekday mornings at