Following the announcement that it would move the station to a new studio facility on Michigan Avenue, Fox Television Stations created an in-house news department for WFLD. The station debuted its first long-form newscasts on August 3, 1987, with the premiere of half-hour newscasts at 7 p.m. (touted as "the news that doesn't get home before you do") and 11 p.m., which aired Monday through Friday evenings; this was followed by the addition of half-hour 9 p.m. weekend editions on August 29. Originally anchored by Kris Long and Robin Robinson Brantley (the latter of whom would remain the station's lead anchor until November 2013), the two programs aired separately for a year until both newscasts were consolidated into a single half-hour program to compete with the 9:00 p.m. newscast on then-independent station WGN-TV in November 1987, at which time the weekend editions were also cancelled due to low ratings. The early newscast was moved back to 7 p.m. by the fall of 1988, and returned to 9 p.m. by the fall of 1989, in anticipation of Fox's expanding prime time schedule.