main early evening newscasts at 5:30 and later 7 pm, WLOS went head-to-head with the South Carolina stations (then-WFBC-TV and WSPA-TV) in 1979 and began airing its evening news at 6 pm. Even though the station's focus is western North Carolina, management recognized the station needed a presence in the South Carolina part of the market if it was to lift itself from an overall third-place finish in the combined market. By the late 1970s, the station had a bureau in Greenville, which moved into a new building in 1984; that year, it also set up a news bureau in Spartanburg. The station expanded its news coverage with the addition of a new 5:30 p.m. newscast—in addition to its 6 p.m. report—in 1986, and a morning newscast debuted upon the end of Mr. Bill and Friends in 1988. AnchorMedia also invested in new equipment upon taking over. News programming slowly expanded: by 2008, the station had a two-hour morning newscast, 90 minutes of early evening news, and the 11 p.m. newscast on weeknights, and WMYA aired 6:30 and 10 p.m. newscasts produced by WLOS. In 2022, WLOS debuted a weekly sports show during the football season, Saturday Sports Night, covering regional college football. Notable former on-air staff Mike Bettes – chief meteorologist (now at The Weather Channel) Heather Childers – weekend anchor (1999–2002) David Steele – sportscaster (now with the Orlando Magic) Technical information Subchannels The station's digital signal is multiplexed: Analog-to-digital conversion WLOS discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over VHF channel 13, on June 12, 2009. It had intended to do so on February 17, even after the federal government moved the deadline back four months, but general manager Jack Connors explained that the FCC would have also required the station's analog translators, many of them serving mountainous areas shaded from Mount Pisgah by terrain, to be switched off at that time. The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 56, which was among the high-band UHF channels (52–69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition, to VHF channel 13. Translators WLOS operates 11 translators across the mountains of western North Carolina and upstate South Carolina. These translators serve as low-power, limited-area repeaters that bring the network's signal to towns in deep mountain valleys where the parent signal is blocked by the surrounding terrain. Franklin, NC: W11AJ-D Black Mountain, NC: