such as The WB, UPN and The CW. WDSU ended carriage of the show upon the launch of a noon newscast, effectively leaving the program off the station schedule, though it quickly found a new home in the market on WNOL-TV. News operation WDSU presently broadcasts 38 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with six hours each weekday, 3½ hours on Saturdays and 4½ hours on Sundays). The station also maintains a content partnership with Cumulus Media's New Orleans FM radio cluster (KKND [106.7], KMEZ [102.9], WZRH [92.3] and WRKN [106.1]), which also allows the station to simulcast its broadcast audio during hurricane coverage. From the start of its news operation, WDSU's newscasts were the highest-rated in the New Orleans market for many years. For much of the time since the early 1980s, WDSU's newscasts have been in second place among the market's news-producing stations. By the mid-2000s, WVUE overtook WDSU for second place among the market's 5:00 p.m. newscasts; the two stations traded second at 5:00 p.m. until WDSU overtook WVUE in May 2011. In July 2011, WDSU claimed ratings wins in key demographics at 5:00 and 6:00 p.m.—marking the first time in a quarter-century that a station other than WWL-TV had placed first among viewers most sought by advertisers. Newscasts in less competitive time periods of 4:30 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. also scored wins in key demographic categories, as well as in household ratings. Among WDSU's first staffers was meteorologist Nash Roberts, one of the first television weather forecasters in the United States, who drew predicted weather conditions by marker on wall maps (Roberts left the station in 1973 to become meteorologist at WVUE-TV); and Mel Leavitt, who served as the station's original sports director and later as its special events director. The station's news department began in 1955, under the guidance of original news director Bill Monroe (who later joined NBC News, first serving as Washington-based news editor for Today and later as moderator of Meet the Press); Monroe also provided editorials on the station, becoming one of the first stations in the country to provide such segments for television. During the 1950s and 1960s, the station carried editorial cartoons (similar to those commonly found in many newspapers) drawn by cartoonist John Churchill Chase; the twice-daily segments featured his take on major local, national and international news stories with commentary over the illustrated pieces (Chase, who