WGN-TV presently broadcasts 70 and a half hours of locally produced newscasts each week. News has played an important role on WGN-TV in Chicago since the station's beginnings. From the station's sign-on, WGN-TV produced a nightly late evening newscasts as well as 'Nightbeat', a 30-minute overtime newscast (by the time the program was cancelled in 1983). In 1965, WGN-TV introduced the first news anchor team: Gary Park and Jim Ruddle. On March 10, 1980, WGN-TV debuted the first hour-long primetime newscast in the midwest, when it moved its half-hour 10 P.M. newscast (then titled 'John Drury and Newsnine') to 9 P.M. and expanded it to one hour, relaunching it as 'The Nine O'Clock News'. In 1993, the newscast was renamed as 'WGN News at Nine' (when the station unified the branding of all of its newscasts under the 'WGN News' moniker). In 1984, WGN debuted an hour-long midday newscast as noon each Monday through Friday, originally under the title 'Newscope'. In 1992, the station launched the first foray into weekend morning news with the debut of hour-long 8AM newscasts on Saturday and Sunday (before the weekend morning newscasts returned on October 2, 2010). On September 6, 1994, the then hour-long WGN Morning News debuts. In July 1996, WGN-TV began using a helicopter under the name: 'Skycam 9'. On July 19, 2008, WGN-TV became the third station in the Chicago market to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition. On September 15, 2008, WGN-TV first launched an early-evening newscast as 'WGN Evening News'. The weekend edition of WGN Evening News debuted on July 12, 2014. On October 5, 2015, the station restored a 10PM newscast - which only airs Monday through Fridays - to its schedule after 35 years.