Archive recorded off the air of WSM-TV a special broadcast of Today aimed toward veterans of the Vietnam War returning home to the U.S. Two months later, on May 1, another broadcast of Today was recorded concerning the Watergate scandal. On both of these broadcasts, Pat Sajak, who had recently joined the WSM radio and TV staff, anchored the five-minute cut-in local newscasts. As it was not the general policy of the Archive to record special programs such as these or local Nashville programming, these probably represent the only known broadcasts of WSM-TV news before 1980 or so available for public viewing, prior to the widespread popularity of consumer-level video cassette recorders in the late 1970s. The only other ones were local cut-ins to NBC coverage of national elections. Because of the equipment at the time, though, the broadcasts were recorded in black and white. The Archive, prior to the advent of satellite technology in the 1980s, taped all NBC News broadcasts from the airwaves of WSM(V). In September 1973, WSM-TV decided to fill the 6:30–7 p.m. time slot opened up by the Prime Time Access Rule in 1971 by expanding its 6 p.m. newscast to one hour. This has proven so successful that to this day WSMV programs a newscast from 6 to 7 p.m. (although it is now broken up into two 30-minute segments). Upon the success of the expanded 6 p.m. newscast on channel 4 (and after years of low-rated syndicated offerings in the 6:30 slot), WTVF followed suit in 1989 by expanding its 6 p.m. newscast to one hour. WSMV and WTVF are among the few stations in the Central Time Zone to run newscasts at 6:30 (stations elsewhere have attempted it since the 1970s with varying degrees of success). WKRN is the only traditional network affiliate in the Nashville market to run only a half-hour of news at 6 p.m., with Wheel of Fortune (hosted by former WSM personality Pat Sajak) airing at 6:30. In the early 1980s, WSMV introduced the Snowbird character, a scarf- and earmuff-wearing anthropomorphic penguin, as a brand for its weather-related school closing reports. Snowbird appears on-air in both animated and puppet form. Snowbird reports are shown on the station primarily in the winter, but the branding is also used for unexpected school closings caused by other natural and man-made events, not necessarily limited to snow and ice. Due to the