WKYC-TV
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2007) |
 |
This article or section may require restructuring to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please discuss this issue on the talk page. This article has been tagged since October 2007. |
| WKYC-TV | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Cleveland, Ohio | |
| Branding | Channel 3 |
| Slogan | Report The Facts, Respect The Truth. |
| Channels | Analog: 3 (VHF) |
| Affiliations | NBC NBC Weather Plus |
| Owner | Gannett Company, Inc. (WKYC-TV, Inc.) |
| First air date | October 31, 1948 |
| Call letters’ meaning | KYW Cleveland (nod to former calls of KYW-TV) |
| Former callsigns | WNBK (1948-1956) KYW-TV (1956-1965) |
| Former channel number(s) | 4 (1948-1954) |
| Transmitter Power | 868 kW (digital) |
| Height | 312 m (analog) 296.1 m (digital) |
| Facility ID | 73195 |
| Transmitter Coordinates | |
| Website | www.wkyc.com |
WKYC-TV Channel 3 is the NBC affiliate in Cleveland, Ohio. Originally an NBC owned-and-operated station (in two different periods), it is owned today by Gannett. Its studio is located on the shores of Lake Erie, while its transmitter is located in Parma, Ohio. The station can be easily received in neighboring areas such as Toledo, Ohio, Erie, Pennsylvania, and Youngstown, Ohio. WKYC offers NBC Weather Plus on its digital subcarrier. When atmospheric conditions are right, WKYC's signal can be picked up as far away as Detroit, Michigan and areas of north suburban Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. On October 31, 2008, the channel will celebrate its 60th year on the air.
Contents |
[edit] History
[edit] Early years
WKYC is the only Cleveland station that has never changed its affiliation. It began broadcasting on channel 4 as WNBK, on October 31, 1948. It was an NBC owned and operated station (the fourth one out of five stations launched by the network), and the call letters stood for NBC C(K)leveland. WNBK was the second station in the Midwest to be owned and operated by NBC, as it signed on months after WNBQ in Chicago (now WMAQ-TV). WNBK was co-owned with WTAM radio (AM 1100 and FM 105.7, now WMJI), which NBC had owned since 1930.
Although there was no coaxial cable connection to New York City, AT&T had just installed a cable connection between WNBK, WNBQ, WSPD-TV (now WTVG) in Toledo, KSTP-TV in St. Paul and KSD-TV (now KSDK) in St. Louis; creating NBC's Midwest Network (WTVG and KSTP are now ABC stations). WNBK became one of the originators of programming for the regional network, along with WNBQ.
Two days after signing on, on election night November 2, 1948, WNBK transmitted its coverage of the Truman/Dewey election results to the NBC Midwest Network. On January 11, 1949, WNBK began carrying NBC's New York-originated programming live via a cable connection to Philadelphia. In 1954, the station moved to channel 3 in order to alleviate interference with fellow NBC affiliate WWJ-TV in Detroit (now WDIV-TV).
[edit] KYW years
In 1956, NBC persuaded Westinghouse to sell its cluster in Philadelphia, KYW-AM and WPTZ-TV to the network. In return, Westinghouse would get WNBK and WTAM-AM-FM. NBC badly wanted an "owned and operated" station in Philadelphia, the largest market where it didn't own a station. Westinghouse only agreed to the deal after NBC threatened to yank all of its programming from WPTZ and Westinghouse's other NBC affiliate, WBZ-TV. Westinghouse changed the Cleveland stations' calls to KYW-AM-FM-TV.
Under Westinghouse ownership, KYW-TV began the nation's first one-and-a-half-hour news block in 1959, called Eyewitness, comprised of 75 minutes of local news, combined with the then 15-minute national newscast. Right at the end of KYW-TV's stint in Cleveland, Al Primo joined the station as news director and developed the format made famous on WABC-TV in New York. It also originated a local 90-minute weekday daytime variety talk show in 1961 with a former band singer named Mike Douglas, which went up against WEWS-TV's "One O' Clock Club." Quickly eclipsing that program, The Mike Douglas Show became so popular that Westinghouse decided to carry the program on its other stations in 1963, and eventually to syndicate the program nationwide. Current Fox Television Stations Group chairman and Fox News Channel president Roger Ailes also started his career at KYW as a producer and director for Douglas' show.
The ink had barely dried on the trade when Westinghouse complained to the FCC and the Justice Department about the extortion NBC employed in the Cleveland/Philadelphia swap. In 1965, after a lengthy investigation, the FCC reversed the trade and did not allow NBC to realize any profit on the deal. NBC re-assumed control of the Cleveland stations on June 19. By this time, Channel 3's radio sister had established itself as a ratings powerhouse under the on-air moniker "KY11." Not wanting to tamper with a good thing, NBC changed the calls to WKYC-AM-FM-TV. NBC later sold the radio stations, but they have since established news and weather partnerships with Channel 3.
To this day, KYW-TV has stated that it and KYW-AM "moved" to Cleveland in 1956 and "returned" to Philadelphia in 1965.[1] Some radio and TV staffers who worked at KYW in Cleveland moved to Philadelphia along with the call letters. This included Mike Douglas, Ailes, reporter Tom Snyder, Primo and meteorologist Dick Goddard. However, Goddard left KYW weeks after the move and went to WJW-TV, where he remains to this day. Douglas stayed in Philadelphia until 1977; in fact, WKYC carried his show for many of those years. Other staffers, such as announcer Jay Miltner, remained with WKYC.
WKYC and NBC were unable to keep the Eyewitness News name in Cleveland following the move; it wound up being used on WEWS from 1969 to 1990 and still is used on KYW in Philadelphia to this day.
Another show that made the jump to Cleveland was the award-winning documentary series Montage, produced and directed by Dennis Goulden. This nationally-acclaimed series of over 250 episodes investigated the issues and displayed the lifestyles of the Cleveland community during the 1960s and 1970s.
[edit] WKYC years
[edit] Struggles
For much of the time between NBC's repurchase of the station and the dawn of the 21st century, WKYC's news department was usually a very distant third in the ratings. Part of the reason was that during most of its second stint as an NBC "owned and operated" station, it served mainly as a farm system for NBC. Given Cleveland's status as a mid-major television market, most of the promising reporters or anchors that NBC employed at WKYC could end up be promoted to other higher-profile NBC O&Os, especially flagship WNBC-TV in New York. Most notably, WKYC alumnus (and current Today show weatherman) Al Roker has gone on to a long and successful career with the network.
As a result of this practice, turnover at Channel 3 was very high, and it was unable to establish a cohesive news department, and was unable to successfully compete against either WJW-TV or WEWS-TV in the ratings. Two of the few long-tenured personalities during this time included Joe Mosbrook and Del Donahoo. Both staffers joined WKYC in 1967 (Donahoo from WOW radio in Omaha) and enjoyed long tenures at the station. Mosbrook retired in 2002, while Donahoo was co-host of "Today In Cleveland" with Tom Haley until 1997 and as a feature reporter (under the "Del's Folks" banner) until 2006.
At the same time, WKYC enjoyed several technical advances with NBC's parent company, RCA (and ultimately, General Electric). It was Cleveland's first television station to broadcast full-time in color in 1965, the first to broadcast in stereo in 1985, and the first VHF station to closed-caption their local newscasts for the hearing-impaired in 1990.
From 1973 until 1984, WKYC tried to use the Action News newscast branding several times (later employed by WOIO in an unrelated manner), while also using the music and graphics associated with NBC's O&O stations, which employed the NewsCenter name. On March 19, 1984, the station dropped the Action News name and referred to the newscasts as the current Channel 3 News. Various anchor teams, news sets and imaging campaigns were tried out at the station, usually with little to no success. Doug Adair and wife Mona Scott, Judd Hambrick, Leon Bibb and Dick Feagler all graced the stations' newscasts at one point or another during this time. Finally, after years of sagging ratings and continuing to be one of NBC's weakest major-market affiliates, NBC sold majority (51 percent) control of WKYC to Multimedia, Inc. in 1991.
At that time, Multimedia also operated Multimedia Entertainment (now a part of NBC Universal), producing a number of weekday TV talk shows. As a result, Multimedia-produced talk shows such as The Jerry Springer Show (who himself had come from then-sister station WLWT in Cincinnati), Sally Jessy Raphael, Donahue, The Rush Limbaugh Show and eventually Dennis Prager ended up on WKYC's daily schedule. The station, now no longer owned and operated by NBC, tried to rebuild its news department with an emphasis on local talent and continutity under the tagline "We're building our station around you." WKYC even set up a telephone feedback hotline, dubbed "Talkback 3", intended to field suggestions and comments from viewers.
WKYC did not immediately reap any windfall from longtime CBS affiliate WJW's switch to (and eventual purchase by) Fox in 1994. However, ratings for WKYC's newscasts gradually began to improve towards the end of the decade. The station started to finish in first in assorted timeslots and posted some of the highest ratings books in the stations' history. Gannett purchased Multimedia in November 1995, and acquired the remainder of the station from NBC in 2001.
Even after Gannett's purchase of WKYC, the station continued to suffer. For instance, in September 1999, WKYC expanded its 6 p.m. newscast to one hour. This aggravated viewers because NBC Nightly News was preempted until 7 p.m. This practice was reversed in July 2000 when NBC Nightly News was moved back to 6:30, and the second half hour was used to start a 7 p.m. newscast, which still airs to this day.
WKYC noted another first in Cleveland television history by becoming the first station in Northeast Ohio to broadcast in high-definition in 1999. Soon after Gannett bought full control of the station, it moved from its longtime studios in the former East Ohio Gas building to a state-of-the-art studio on the shores of Lake Erie.
[edit] Ratings emergence
|
|
This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. |
WKYC finally became a factor in the Cleveland television race in 2002, when it picked up the Dr. Phil show and placed it in the 5–6 p.m. slot. This move proved to be very successful for two reasons. First, at 5 p.m., all of the other local stations were broadcasting news, so this gave viewers an alternative. Second, WKYC was able to get many viewers to change channels at the end of WEWS-TV's 4 p.m. broadcast of Oprah to Dr. Phil at 5 (it should be noted that Dr. Phil was a protégé of Oprah's, and that the syndication contracts for both shows disallow them from airing against each other).
During Dr. Phil, WKYC did heavy promotion of its 6 p.m. newscast. With Dr. Phil as a lead-in, the 6 p.m. newscast began to experience sharp ratings increases. Additionally, this helped the 7 p.m. newscast. In early 2004, viewers began turning away from WJW and WEWS's hard-hitting newscasts to the more traditional WKYC. This helped WKYC rise to first place in the news ratings for the first time in decades. All of its newscasts won their timeslots. WKYC even managed to push WJW's popular morning newscast into second place.
This continued until May 2005 when WKYC made two major changes in their newscasts. First, they had reporters lengthen the time of their stories, hoping to provide more detail. Second, in attempt to combat the common viewer complaint that "all news is bad", WKYC started inserting more "happy" stories into their newscasts. The combination of the two resulted in less "real" news and viewers began turning away.
Over the summer of 2005, while Dr. Phil was airing repeats, WKYC lost the top spot at 6 to WEWS. However, WKYC retook the top spot at 6 during the November 2005 sweeps period. Additionally, despite fears due to a weak NBC prime time schedule, WKYC retained its top spot at 11 p.m. which it has held for 17 straight ratings periods. In the February 2006 ratings period, WKYC continued its first place streak by placing first at 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. Its morning newscast was second only to WJW's.
In the November 2006 ratings period, WKYC's airing of Dr. Phil continued to lead at 5 p.m., and its 11 p.m. newscast held on to first place (though by a very slim margin over WOIO); however, it slipped from first to third at 6 p.m. It came in last place at noon (it was the only "Big Four" affiliate station in Cleveland not to air a newscast at that time slot). WKYC's late-afternoon and early-evening slump continued since that time, reaching its nadir to date in the February 2008 ratings period, when both Dr. Phil and the 6 p.m. newscast finished third behind WJW's and WEWS's newscasts. [2]
[edit] Conversion to HD
On May 22, 2006, WKYC became the second station in Cleveland to air news broadcasts in HDTV. WJW was the first station to do so back in 2004. A new music package by 615 Music named The Tower v.3 (co-developed with NBC owned and operated stations WMAQ and WCMH-TV, along with sister Gannett station WXIA-TV) was also introduced.
A new graphics package also debuted, made by the station's in-house graphics department. Sister Gannett stations WUSA, KSDK,KUSA, and WXIA outsourced their graphics to a company named Giant Octopus when they switched to high definition.
[edit] Good Company
WKYC's Good Company program is one of two locally produced mid-morning television shows airing at 10am in the Cleveland television market. The other show being "That's Life" airing on WJW. Good Company is a general interest show which features interviews, cooking, health topics, movie reviews, fashion shows, and other features that resemble WEWS's former The Morning Exchange. This may be partially due to the fact that former Morning Exchange host Fred Griffith is a co-host of Good Company.
The premise for Good Company was actually formed over five years before the program’s debut. After The Morning Exchange went off the air in September 1999, Griffith left WEWS despite the fact that he was offered a new position at the station. In May 2000, Griffith resurfaced at WKYC to host Fifteen Minutes with Fred, a daily segment that took up the second half of the noon newscast. For the most part, the segment featured Griffith interviewing an expert in a certain field.
In May 2002, WKYC briefly expanded Fifteen Minutes with Fred into a 30-minute show airing in the afternoon. The show included the expert interviews, but also added cooking and crafting segments.
At the end of September 2003, WKYC eliminated their noon newscast replacing it with an 11 a.m. newscast called The Midday Report. Along with the new newscast came the premiere of Studio 3, which replaced Fifteen Minutes with Fred and starred Fred Griffith and morning meteorologist Hollie Strano. Studio 3, which aired at 11:30 a.m., featured topics similar to that of the former Morning Exchange. However, ratings for the show were low throughout its entire run.
At the start of the new TV season in September 2005, WKYC needed to fill the hour gap left by the syndicated Life and Style which went out of production. WKYC decided to expand Studio 3 into the one-hour Good Company which airs at 10 a.m. The show is hosted by Griffith, Eileen McShea (the former weekend morning forecaster), Andrea Vecchio (who did the entertainment reports on Studio 3), and Michael Cardamone (a local who appeared on NBC’s Average Joe.)
Many people wondered why WKYC decided to expand the show to one hour despite Studio 3’s low ratings. The truth is that unlike The Morning Exchange, most of the Good Company’s guests are from companies that advertise on WKYC. As part of the contract between the company and WKYC, the company gets commercial air time plus a segment on Good Company in which they essentially promote their product(s). As a result, WKYC profits off of the show regardless of the ratings.
In 2007, WKYC announced that Good Company will remain in the 10 a.m. timeslot with respect to the expansion of the Today show to four hours.
[edit] Cleveland Indians
WKYC signed a ten year deal to become the "free TV" home of the Cleveland Indians starting in the 2006 baseball season. WKYC will air 20 Indians games per year (mostly on weekends). This deal brought the Indians back to over-the-air TV after four years of the team being exclusively on cable. In 2007, WKYC's sister NBC affiliate, KSDK in St. Louis, will be airing Cardinals games on free TV, making both stations the only Gannett-owned NBC channels to air their hometown MLB teams.
However, the bulk of the Indians' games will still be on cable, airing on SportsTime Ohio, a new cable channel that will bring the games and additional Cleveland Indians related programming to viewers. WKYC will be handling the entire production process for SportsTime Ohio from their Lakeside Ave. studios, and as such will share the same graphics and production elements. All games will be broadcast in high definition with Dolby Digital 5.1 audio.
Jim Donovan (WKYC sports director) and former Indian Rick Manning will call the games on Channel 3. Channel 3 will also air a weekly half hour Indians themed program:
- Indians Tonight, a week in review show, Sundays at 11:35 p.m.
[edit] Cleveland Browns
On August 3, 2006, Channel 3 and the Cleveland Browns announced a deal for the station to be the "official" TV home of the team.
WKYC will air all four pre-season games (with Jim Donovan & Bernie Kosar in the booth), as well as having the following Browns themed programs:
- Browns Pregame Huddle - A half hour Sunday morning pregame show (11: 30 am)
- Browns Tonight - A half hour postgame show (Sunday night/Monday morning @ 12:05 am)
- The Point After - A Monday evening half hour round table show (7 pm)
[edit] Coverage in Canada
When atmospheric conditions are right, WKYC's signal can be picked up as far away as Detroit and Windsor. The station is readily available over-the-air to Kingsville, Leamington, and Pelee Island, and was once one of the three stations from Cleveland carried on local cable in those three locations (The others being WEWS-TV and WJW/WJKW-TV, until 2000 when Cogeco displaced Shaw Cable as the cable provider for Essex County.
WKYC was also carried on cable in London, Ontario prior to 1974, on cable channel 3. WKYC was bumped to make room for the newly launched Global Television Network.
[edit] Past slogans
- "Channel 3, Proud as a Peacock" (Local version of the NBC ad campaging, which lasted from 1979-1981)
- "Channel 3, WOW, Be There" (Local version of the NBC campaign from the 1983-84 season)
- "Turn to 3" (starting in early 1984 through the end of the decade and had an accompanying upscale musical jingle by Frank Gari);
- "We're Building Our Station Around You" (from the mid-90s);
- "News That's More Local" (from the early 2000s);
- "Report the Facts. Respect the Truth." (their most recent slogan).
[edit] In popular culture
- In the 30 Rock episode "Cleveland", Liz Lemon is offered a job with the station to host a cooking show.
[edit] Digital channels
| Channel | Programming |
|---|---|
| 3.1 / 2.1 | Main WKYC Programming |
| 3.2 / 2.2 | NBC Weather Plus |
WKYC is currently broadcasting a digital signal on Channel 2, which is difficult for viewers to pick up outside of the surrounding areas of Cleveland. To remedy this, the station is moving its digital signal to Channel 17, but can only do so after WDLI-TV out of Canton turns off their analog signal on February 17, 2009.
| WKYC 3 HD Version/CL 3 is Standard Definition |
Note: DirecTV puts the HD Version in Capital Letters while the standard definition uses the city abbrievation.
[edit] Famous former station personalities
- Dawn Stensland-main anchor at WTXF-TV Philadelphia
- Doreen Gentzler-main anchor at WRC-TV Washington DC
- Mike Douglas
- Tim Conway
- Ron Allen
- Al Roker
- Doug Adair
- Virgil Dominic
- Wayland Boot (Jim Whelan)
- Fred McCleod
- Lisa Colagrossi-WABC-TV New York City
- Chuck Galeti-sports director atWOIO-TV
- Jay Miltner - longtime station announcer
- Jim Mueller
- Joe Conway
- Wally Kinnan
- Judd Hambrick
- Joe Mosbrook
- Jill Beach
- Connie Dieken
- Katherine Boyd
- Leon Bibb
- John Anderson-morning anchor at WTXF-TV Philadelphia
[edit] Current personalities
- Tim White-6, 7, and 11 p.m. Weeknight Anchor
- Romona Robinson-6, 7, and 11 p.m. Weeknight Anchor
- Mark Nolan-Weekday Morning Anchor 5-7 a.m.
- Abby Ham-Weekday Morning Co-Anchor 5-7 a.m.
- Jeff Maynor-Weekend Morning Anchor and 12:00 p.m. Weekend Anchor
- Kim Wheeler-Weekend Morning Anchor and Education reporter
- Chris Tye-Weekend 6 and 11 p.m. Anchor, Reporter
- Lydia Esparra-Weekend 6 and 11 p.m. Anchor
[edit] Weather
- Hollie Strano-(Forecaster(2)/NWA Seal of Approval) Morning and Noon Weekdays
- A.J. Colby-(Meteorologist(1)/AMS Seal of Approval) Weekend Evening
- Betsy Kling-(Meteorologist(1)/AMS and NWA Seal of Approval) Weekday Evening
- Bruce Kalinowski-(Meteorologist(1)/AMS Seal of Approval) Weekday Noon, Weekend Morning & fill in
- Elisa Robin Malinovitz- (Weather Anchor(3)) Fill in
(1)Meteorologist is a person who has a degree or equivalent in Atmospheric Science/Meteorology with an AMS Seal of Approval.
(2)Forecaster is a person with some education and background in weather with an NWA Seal of Approval.
(3)Weather Anchor is a person who has some education and background in weather but is not accredited by either the American Meteorological Association (AMS) or the National Weather Association (NWA).
[edit] Sports
- Jim Donovan-Sports Director
- Joe Brown-weekends
- Dave Chudowsky-reporter/fill in anchor
- Doug Dieken-Browns Analyst
- Tony Grossi-Browns Analyst
- Sam Ratigliano-Browns Analyst
[edit] Reporters
- Bill Safos
- Barbara Gauthier-Morning reporter/Substitute anchor
- Obie Shelton-Morning reporter
- Jennifer Murphy (part time)
- Monica Robins-Medical Reporter
- Dave Summers-Target 3
- Jacque Smith
- Maureen Kyle
- Eric Mansfield (Akron Bureau- 6:30 and 10pm anchor of Akron/Canton News on cable channel 23, produced by WKYC also fill in)
- Paul Thomas-his wife is Betsy Kling, chief meteorologist
- Del Donahoo-Senior Issues reporter
- Carole Chandler-Sullivan (part time)
- Mike O'Mara
- Tom Beres-Senior Political Correspondent
- Vic Gideon
- Pat Butler-Traffic/Transit Reporter
- Tom Meyer
[edit] Historical newscast titles
- The Esso Reporter (1948-1959)
- Today's News (1953-1959)
- Eyewitness (1959-1961)
- Eyewitness News (1961-1965)
- Channel 3 News (1965-1973, generic branding)
- The Sixth/Eleventh Hour Report (1965-1973)
- Action News (1973-1976)
- Action 3 News (1976-1984)
- Channel 3 News (1984-present)
[edit] Previous Logos
 1965-1976 |
 1976-1979 |
 1979-1984 |
 1984-1986 |
 1986-1991 |
 1991-1993 |
 1993-1999 |
 1999-2006 |
 2006-present (alternate) |
 2004-2006 (secondary) |
 2006-present (secondary) |
[edit] External links
- WKYC
- Photos of WKYC's news set
- Query the FCC's TV station database for WKYC-TV
- BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on WKYC-TV
[edit] References
- ^ KYW Newsradio Station History, which details the evolution of the station from Chicago, to Philadelphia, to Cleveland and back to Philadelphia.
- ^ Washington, Julie E. "Channel 8's morning shows win big in February sweeps", The Plain Dealer, 2008-03-30. Retrieved on 2008-05-12.
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||
