The weekend editions were eventually expanded to three hours on Saturdays (from 7:00 to 10:00 a.m.) and two hours on Sundays (from 7:00 to 9:00 a.m.) on the weekend of September 10–11, 2016, and switching to a two-anchor format (with original anchor Sean Lewis and meteorologist Mike Hammernik being joined by longtime assignment reporter Tonya Francisco as co-anchor) in alignment with the station's other newscasts.
In its place, the station decided to launch a new weekday morning newscast; the WGN Morning News made its debut on September 6, 1994 (debuting on a Tuesday as the station carried The Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon the previous day in the timeslot) as an hour-long newscast from 7:00-8:00 a.m.; it was originally anchored by Dave Eckert and Sonja Gantt, alongside meteorologist Paul Huttner.
[2] Within a year-and-a-half of its debut, the WGN Morning News was gradually expanded in length: first to two hours (retaining its 7:00 a.m. start time) in January 1996, followed eight months later by an additional one-hour extension at 6:00 a.m. that August.
That year, Larry Potash (who remains on the newscast to this day as anchor of the 6:00-10:00 a.m. block) replaced Eckert as co-anchor of the program.
On July 11, 2011, the weekday edition of the WGN Morning News expanded once more with the addition of a half-hour at 4:00 a.m., bringing the program to a five-hour time length.