As WIAT
In 1997, Park Communications merged with Media General. However, WBMG stayed in the ratings basement with a mere 1% market share, trailing not only WVTM and WBRC but also WTTO and at times even WABM. At one point in 1997, 42 News scored lower ratings than reruns of Sanford and Son.
After only a few months, new general manager Eric Land had seen enough. On December 15, 1997, he fired eight anchors and ten other news staffers, including all of the on-air reporters. On New Year's Day 1998, he canceled all newscasts and fired all of the news staffers except for weekend sports anchor Sam Smith. Over the next month, channel 42 rebuilt its news department from scratch with input from focus groups and market research. During that time, the station showed a countdown clock at 5 and 10 p.m. – the slots where news would air once the product was re-launched. In order to signify a new start, Media General had the station's callsign changed to WIAT, which stood for It's About Time, the station's new slogan (which took effect on February 1). During this time, the station sent coverage of Eric Rudolph's bombing at a Birmingham abortion clinic on January 29 to CBS Newspath, CNN, and to neighboring stations even though it didn't have a news department.
The new format debuted on February 5, 1998—the same day as the start of the Winter Olympics—with a new name, "42 Daily News". Land was seen just before the countdown clock expired speaking to an unseen audience, then throwing a switch that blew up an image of the WBMG logo, with the new WIAT logo emerging. Land later said that even with its AP awards earlier in the decade, the station's research "found that our people were so closely identified with a poorly performing product that we had to create a new brand and start over again". Don Fitzpatrick, a TV news analyst, called the drastic changes an "extremely rare act of desperation".
The transformation of the station's newscast and image was startling. At first, the station did not have any on-air reporters, using crews of photographers with reporters, photographers with field producers, and one-man bands. All stories were narrated by the anchors, much as was the case for most television stations until the 1960s. Strict time limits were imposed on story lengths, leading to segments such as "Top Story in a Minute," "Weather Minute," "Neighborhood Minute," a "2-Minute Drill" sportscast, etc. One anchor manned the anchor desk, while the other read stories from various places on the new set. Al Primo, who created the "Eyewitness News" format at KYW-TV back in 1965, delivered sharp criticism of what he felt was "a product that was generated solely by research and implemented by people who don't know anything about the news business" and "the most disjointed presentation that I have ever seen in my life". Land responded to Primo's scathing remarks by comparing the format to the "Al Schottelkotte News", a longtime staple of WCPO-TV in Cincinnati, for which he'd been a reporter: " was very nontraditional, but jampacked with information."
The new anchor team was mostly made up of talent from out of town (Keith Cate, the first anchor to be seen on the new WIAT, jumped from being the main anchor at WMAR-TV in Baltimore; his reaction to the fast-paced news style was, according to him, "This looks like 'Headline News' gone local"), except for the two-person sports team. Sports director Paul Finebaum's established popularity from his highly-opinionated column in the Birmingham Post-Herald and radio show on WERC sparked some interest from sports fans. However, his sportscasts were often seen as incomplete since he had only two minutes to convey the day's sports. Smith, the only holdover from the old WBMG, left the station after a few months. Later, the station hired its first female sports reporter and weekend sports anchor at Finebaum's urging, Beth Adubato. She left in June 2000.
The timing was chosen for a reason. The Tuscaloosa and Anniston areas, which had been broken off as separate markets in the 1980s, were merged back into the Birmingham market as the result of the 1996 merger of WCFT, WJSU, and WBMA-LP into Birmingham's ABC affiliate, causing it to jump 12 spots on the list of Nielsen markets (from 51 to 39). At the same time, Nielsen converted Birmingham to a metered market in the fall of 1998 for ratings purposes.
Even with the time constraints, WIAT was seen as making a more credible effort at news than ever before. Ratings increased immediately (for the 10 p.m. news, to a 7 share in February from a 1/3 in 1997, partly due to the Winter Olympics) but were still not enough to overtake the competition. Ratings also increased once Birmingham became a metered market, moving to 3 and 4 shares most nights early in the fall of 1998. However, that year the station received its first two Emmy Awards in station history. The station later updated its image to become "News 42". It also began adding reporters, and gradually eased its strict time limits on story lengths.
In 2003, Bill Ballard, who took over as President and General Manager, created a new path for the station which included numerous changes such as stronger programming like Dr. Phil, Jeopardy!, Entertainment Tonight, and later Wendy Williams and a much more aggressive approach to news coverage. The moves which were implemented have dramatically altered the landscape of Central Alabama television. In recent years, its newscasts have waged a spirited battle for first place. The station has also benefited from CBS picking up coverage of Southeastern Conference football in 1996.
In April 2006, Media General bought four NBC owned and operated stations, including WVTM. Since the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) does not allow one company to own two of the four largest stations in a single market, Media General opted to keep the then higher-rated WVTM and sell WIAT to another owner. On August 2, 2006, New Vision Television, LLC announced its purchase of WIAT and sister station KIMT in Mason City, Iowa for $35 million. The sale was finalized on October 12, 2006.
On May 7, 2012, LIN TV Corporation announced that it will acquire the New Vision Television station group, including WIAT, for $330.4 million and the assumption of $12 million in debt. On October 2, the FCC approved the proposed sale to LIN TV. The transaction closed that October 12, resulting in WIAT becoming an intrastate sister station to Mobile's Fox affiliate WALA-TV and Gulf Shores' CW affiliate WFNA, both of which had been purchased by LIN from Emmis Communications seven years before.