WRAL began broadcasting from its new all-digital newsroom Jan. 28, 2001, becoming the world's first HDTV newsgathering operation.

You can fully appreciate the WRAL newscasts with a wide-screen, high-definition TV, but you should notice an improvement in picture quality on standard TV sets, too.

Since signing on the air in December 1956, WRAL-TV has been a station of many firsts:

• 1978: Sky 5 was the Triangle's first news helicopter.
• 1995: WRAL OnLine was the Triangle's first TV Web site.
• 1996: WRAL-HD became the first experimental high-definition TV station in the United States.
• 1997: Doppler 5000 was the area's first live, local Doppler radar on TV.
• 2000: WRAL aired the first all-high-definition newscast.

Now, WRAL is the world's first news operation to gather and present high-definition local news on a continuous basis. You can see the WRAL NewsChannel over the air on digital channel 5.2 and on Time Warner cable channel 252. The WRAL WeatherChannel is available on digital channel 5.3 and cable channel 253.