carried Saints games that were produced as part of the NFL Network's Thursday Night Football package before that moved to a split between NBC and CBS. Thus, the only way the station would carry a Saints game is if they were a wild card or low division winner, and ESPN was chosen to broadcast that Wild Card Weekend game with ABC. This changed with the 2018 NFL season, when CBS' portion of the Thursday night schedule was moved to Fox and NBC's portion, except for the annual NFL Kickoff and Thanksgiving night games, became exclusive to NFL Network. Until 2021, WGNO carried any Saints Thursday night games which are otherwise exclusive to NFL Network. WGNO also airs select New Orleans Pelicans games through the network's broadcast rights with the NBA. News operation WGNO presently broadcasts 22 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with four hours on weekdays, and one hour each on Saturdays and Sundays); in regards to the number of hours devoted to news programming, it is the lowest newscast output out of the New Orleans market's television stations. Unlike most ABC affiliates in large or mid-sized markets, WGNO does not carry a morning newscast on weekends; until 2020, it also did not carry traditional local newscasts in the 5:00, 6:00, and 10:00 p.m. timeslots on weekdays or on Saturday evenings, opting to air the magazine-style news program News with a Twist in those slots. In addition, the station produced the half-hour public affairs program The 411, which airs Sundays at 6:30 a.m. with a rebroadcast later that morning on WNOL-TV. During hurricane coverage, WGNO often partners with other Nexstar-owned stations to supplement WGNO's storm coverage; audio of the station's hurricane coverage is also simulcast on WTIX-FM (94.3), as was the case during Hurricane Gustav in September 2008 (in which WGNO hurricane coverage resulted in the station canceling local segments of the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon, which aired as scheduled on WNOL-TV) and Hurricane Isaac in August 2012. Since it launched its news operation in 1996, WGNO's newscasts have typically placed last among the market's four news-producing stations, similar to that of other former independents and Fox stations that joined a Big Three network as a result of the affiliation switches that occurred between 1994 and 1996. Prior to affiliating with ABC, news programming on WGNO consisted solely of news updates that ran daily from 1971 to the