News operation WDBJ presently broadcasts 34½ hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 5½ hours each weekday, three hours on Saturdays and four hours on Sundays). Until April 1, 2019, when WDBJ added a half-hour weeknight newscast at 5:30 p.m., it was unlike most CBS-affiliated stations in the Eastern Time Zone when it didn't produce a newscast at that timeslot due to the continued carriage of The Andy Griffith Show. In addition, the station produces the sports program Friday Football Extra (which airs Friday nights following the 11:00 p.m. newscast during the high school football season) and broadcasts Virginia Tech Sports Today (a university-produced program which airs Sundays during the Virginia Tech Hokies football and basketball seasons). In addition to the newsroom at its main studios in Roanoke, WDBJ also maintains newsrooms in Lynchburg/Bedford, New River Valley, Danville, and Lexington. For the better part of the last 60 years, WDBJ has led the news ratings in Roanoke, in particular, WDBJ's 6:00 and 11:00 p.m. newscasts are viewed by an estimated average of 92,000 households within the market. In recent years, however, WDBJ has been in a spirited three-way battle for first with WSLS and WSET. In 2006, WDBJ entered into a news content partnership with its former radio sister, WFIR. In August 2006, WDBJ added an outdoor "Weather Deck" outside of the station's studios, providing a controlled new location for weather and news segments conducted outdoors. In addition to the "Weather Deck", the station also has a "Weather Garden" outside its Roanoke studio; WDBJ often presents feature packages about the "Weather Garden" and offers tips, advice and ideas about common gardening from that area. On August 13, 2007, WDBJ became the only television station in the Roanoke-Lynchburg market to employ four meteorologists as part of its weather staff. WDBJ's weather department also serves as the market's broadcast partner in the WeatherBug real-time automated weather observation network, which offers real-time observation and same-day almanac data from 24 weather stations located around the region within the WDBJ viewing area. On April 22, 2008, WDBJ began broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition; the station also became the first in the Roanoke–Lynchburg market with high-definition weather graphics. In 2012, WDBJ began to phase out the longstanding News 7 branding for its newscasts, shifting to "Your Hometown News Leader: WDBJ 7"–playing on its longtime slogan, "Your Hometown Station." Newscast titles no longer reference