WRAL-TV Department Heads survey new tower

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Leah Chauncey, David Harbert, Paul Quinn, Al Dunbar and Jim Griffin get a look at one section of the new transmitting tower in 1990.

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WRAL First HD Newscast at State Fair

WRAL-TV led the nation in the development of High Definition broadcasting. On October 13, 2000 WRAL made history by broadcasting the entire 5:00 PM newscast LIVE in HD from the State Fair. The historic newscast was broadcast from a special stage at the North Carolina State Fair in Raleigh. The broadcast came just days after WRAL announced it was purchasing equipment from Panasonic to allow the station to gather all of its news stories in the 1080i format. WRAL was the first in the country to convert its entire news operation into HD. This video documents the historic moment from a behind-the-scenes perspective.

In 1996, WRAL was the first station in the nation to start broadcasting in HD even though most viewers did not have an HD television set.