died in 1986, has a street in the Warehouse District named in his honor). Many of the station's reporters in the early years of its news department included staffers from the Times-Picayune newspaper (including Iris Kelso, who worked at WDSU from 1967 to 1978, before returning to the Times-Picayune). On November 11, 2006, after a remarkable 51 years in New Orleans broadcast television—nearly all of them with WDSU—anchor and former news director Alec Gifford (who died in March 2013) officially announced his retirement from broadcasting. Gifford left the station in December 2006. On December 14, 2008, WDSU entered into a content partnership with Biloxi newspaper Sun Herald, to provide supplementary news and weather coverage focused on South Mississippi. WDSU discontinued its noon newscast on September 11, 2009; three days later on September 14, the station launched an hour-long 4:00 p.m. newscast; this program gained a competitor on September 12, 2011, when Fox affiliate WVUE debuted its own hour-long newscast in the 4:00 p.m. timeslot. On July 10, 2010, WDSU began broadcasting its local newscasts in 16:9 widescreen standard definition, along with the introduction of updated graphics. WDSU is one of now two stations in the New Orleans market that have yet to upgrade production of their local news programming to high definition. WGNO began broadcasting high-definition local news in mid-2011 when it installed a new HDTV control room and studio cameras. WVUE was the first only station in the market that broadcasts its local newscasts in true high definition, having upgraded to HD in April 2007. WWL-TV made the switch to full HD on October 1, 2014. On August 16, 2010, WDSU expanded its weekday morning newscast to 2½ hours, by adding a 4:30 a.m. newscast entitled WDSU News First Edition. On September 3, 2018, WDSU relaunched an hour-long midday newscast, ending a nine-year absence. As of August 1, 2019, WDSU is now one of three remaining Hearst Television stations to have yet to upgrade production of their local newscasts to HD (Albuquerque ABC affiliate KOAT and Louisville CBS affiliate WLKY are the others). Notable current on-air staff Margaret Orr (member, AMS; member, NWA) – chief meteorologist Notable former on-air staff Bernard "Buddy" Diliberto – sportscaster (March 1981–June 1990); deceased Iris Kelso – commentator and features reporter (1967–1978); deceased Mel Leavitt – newscaster/commentator/moderator/historian; deceased Carley McCord – sports reporter; deceased Bill Monroe – first news director; later moderator of NBC's