| Dayton, Ohio United States |
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|---|---|
| Branding | ABC 22 (general) Dayton's News Source |
| Slogan | It's Where You Live! |
| Channels | Digital: 51 (UHF) Virtual: 22 (PSIP) |
| Subchannels | 22.1 ABC 22.2 TheCoolTV |
| Owner | Sinclair Broadcast Group (WKEF Licensee L.P.) |
| First air date | September 27, 1964 |
| Call letters' meaning | Kathryn Elizabeth Flynn Broman |
| Sister station(s) | WRGT-TV Cincinnati: WSTR-TV Columbus: WSYX, WTTE |
| Former callsigns | WONE-TV (1964-1965) |
| Former channel number(s) | 22 (UHF analog, 1964-2009) |
| Former affiliations | Independent (1964-1965) NBC (1980-2004) The Tube (on DT2, 2006) |
| Transmitter power | 515 kW |
| Height | 351 m |
| Facility ID | 73155 |
| Website | abc.daytonsnewssource.com |
WKEF, virtual channel 22, is the ABC-affiliated television station for the Miami Valley area of Ohio, which is licensed to Dayton. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 51 from a transmitter at their Broadcast Plaza studios near the New Chicago section of the city. Owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group, WKEF operates Fox affiliate WRGT-TV and its MyNetworkTV/This TV second digital subchannel (owned by Cunningham Broadcasting) though a local marketing agreement (LMA). However, Sinclair effectively owns the station due to Cunningham's ownership structure. Syndicated programming on this station includes: Family Feud, Rachael Ray, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Judge Judy, Maury, and The Dr. Oz Show.
Contents |
The station's digital channel is multiplexed.
| Channel | Programming |
|---|---|
| 22.1 | Main WKEF programming / ABC |
| 22.2 | TheCoolTV |
WKEF aired The Tube on DT2 and Time Warner Cable digital channel 723. WKEF and other Sinclair stations dropped The Tube on December 31, 2006. In October, 2010, WKEF began airing TheCoolTV on DT2. On April 12, 2011, Time Warner Cable begain airing TheCoolTV on digital channel 996.
It signed on August 22, 1964 as WONE-TV owned by Brush-Moore Newspapers along with WONE-AM. Conventional wisdom suggested that it would take the ABC affiliation since it was Dayton's third commercial station. Before 1964, ABC programming came to Dayton by way of off-hours clearances on NBC affiliate WLWD (now WDTN). In addition, viewers could watch the full ABC schedules on WKRC-TV in Cincinnati and WTVN-TV (now WSYX) in Columbus both of which decently covered Dayton. Under these circumstances, ABC initially balked at giving even a secondary affiliation to WONE, forcing the station to make a go of it as an independent until late-1965. Another consideration may have been that many Dayton viewers didn't have UHF-capable sets at the time. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had just required television set manufacturers to include all-channel tuning months earlier.
In 1965 however, under new owner Group One Broadcasting, WONE began running ABC prime time shows and sports, plus any daytime shows that WKRC or WTVN preempted or WLWD (until 1971) did not carry. Soon after the station joined ABC, it was sold to Springfield Television Corporation (owner of WWLP in Springfield, Massachusetts) and renamed WKEF.
For many years, WKEF produced the daily children's program Clubhouse 22 hosted by Malcolm MacLeod in the early-1970s with Joe Smith taking over in the mid-1970s. Their cohorts included Duffy the Dog, Stan The Man, and later Dr. Creep (Barry Hobart). The theme song of the program was to the tune of "High Hopes" and included the lyrics "Joe and Duff on Clubhouse 22!" Dr. Creep was also the host of WKEF's weekly horror movie show, Shock Theater. Nationally syndicated conservative talk-show host Mike Gallagher began his broadcasting career at WKEF as a weatherman, sportscaster, and special events host.
By 1978, ABC had become the nation's most-watched network (with shows such as Happy Days) and was unhappy with the Cincinnati–Dayton arrangement. WKRC and WTVN were both preempting decent amounts of daytime programming, late night shows, and some of the Saturday morning cartoons. ABC wanted a station in Dayton that could run its whole schedule and be able to reach Cincinnati and Columbus. It also wanted a station that had local news. Although the station did eventually launch a news department, it was not enough to save its affiliation with ABC.
In late 1979, ABC began talks with WDTN. That station aired on channel 2, giving it at least grade B coverage from northern Kentucky all the way to Columbus. The two sides quickly reached a deal, which called for ABC to move its Dayton affiliation to WDTN when WKEF's contract ran out at the end of the year. The change took effect on New Year's Day 1980. Almost by default, WKEF was then left to take the NBC affiliation. Unlike its ABC deal, WKEF now ran NBC's entire schedule.
Even with the affiliation swap, it remained in the ratings basement. NBC also lost market share in the Dayton/Springfield area to stronger affiliates in Cincinnati (WLWT, who has a city-grade signal in Dayton and a Grade B signal as far north as Piqua) and Columbus (WCMH-TV, who has a Grade B signal in Springfield and as far north as Bellefontaine). Since WKEF already had to compete in its own market with WDTN and CBS affiliate WHIO-TV--two of their networks' strongest performers--it found the going rather difficult.
In 1984, the Springfield Television group (WKEF, WWLP, and KSTU in Salt Lake City, Utah) was sold to Adams Communications. That company broke up the group in the late-1980s selling WKEF to KT Communications in 1989. Neither owner was able to get WKEF out of last place. Even with NBC's powerhouse primetime lineup in the 1980s and early-1990s, it was the third station in what was basically a two-station market.
KT sold WKEF to Max Television (later Max Media Properties) in 1995. KT had invested millions in new equipment, updated the on-air look, and hired almost a completely new staff. Ratings improved but WKEF remained a distant third in the ratings. In 1998, WKEF was sold to Sinclair in a group deal. Sinclair was already managing WRGT-TV, owned by Sullivan, and Sinclair moved WRGT-TV's operations into WKEF's studios. In 2001, Sinclair bought most of Sullivan's stations, but could not buy WRGT-TV because the FCC does not allow common ownership of two of the four highest-rated stations in a market. Also, the Dayton market has only six full-power commercial stations--too few to legally permit a duopoly in any event. Accordingly, WRGT-TV was sold to Glencairn, Ltd. However, this was a sale in name only, as Glencairn's stock was almost entirely owned by the Smith family, founders of Sinclair. This effectively gave Sinclair a duopoly in Dayton. Glencairn, now known as Cunningham Broadcasting, still owns WRGT-TV today as one of several arrangements that has led to allegations of Cunningham being merely a shell corporation for Sinclair. Sinclair has a similar arrangement in Columbus with ABC affiliate WSYX and Fox affiliate WTTE.
On August 30, 2004, WDTN again took the opportunity to sign up with the more popular network, dropping ABC to switch back to NBC. Thus as of August 2004, WKEF became an ABC affiliate again. WKEF now runs the entire ABC schedule. Only a few months after becoming an ABC affiliate again, the station and all other Sinclair-owned ABC affiliates including sister WSYX in Columbus as well as two other ABC affiliates in Ohio preempted the movie Saving Private Ryan. That decision was made due to the network's plan to air the R-rated film unedited, potentially exposing its affiliated stations to FCC scrutiny if viewers complained about the film's graphic violence and coarse language even though some of Sinclair's stations had already shown the film unedited and uncensored a few months earlier. The incident landed Sinclair at the center of a mild controversy fueling the debate over whether the context of such material should be considered in determining broadcast indecency violations.
WKEF discontinued regular programming on its analog channel, 22 (UHF), on June 12, 2009, as part of the DTV transition in the United States.[1] Regular programming remained on its digital channel, 51,[2] which uses PSIP to display its virtual channel as 22. WKEF aired a nightlight message on its analog channel for two weeks following the DTV transition deadline. After that, analog transmissions on channel 22 continued, except now at low power, rebroadcasting WRGT-DT2's MyNetworkTV and This TV programming. Initially, this new low-power analog broadcast operated under Cincinnati sister station WSTR-TV's Dayton translator license, W66AQ (formerly on channel 66). On June 30, 2010, W66AQ's call letters were changed to W22DE. On December 8, 2010, Cincinnati's WCPO-TV moved its digital operations to channel 22, knocking W22DE off the air. The plans for W22DE are currently unknown.
Around November 11, 2010, Sinclair announced that when carriage agreements expired at the end of the year, it planned to pull all of its owned and/or operated TV stations in the United States, including WKEF and WRGT-TV, from Time Warner Cable, in a dispute over "retransmission fees".[3][4][5] Negotiations began between the two parties. On December 31, Time Warner reached an agreement with an out-of-market station, presumably Cincinnati's WCPO-TV, to provide ABC network programming at least through the end of February.[6] Later that same day, Sinclair and Time Warner extended talks for another two weeks, with continued cable carriage of Sinclair's stations, through January 14, 2011.[7] On January 15, 2011, after a 24 hour extension of the previous deadline,[8] Time Warner and Sinclair reached a tentative settlement.[9] After further negotiations, a final agreement was reached on February 2, 2011, keeping WKEF and WRGT-TV on Time Warner.[10][11][12]
During the station's early years, channel 22 had no local newscasts. WKEF established a news department in mid-1972 in response to licensing requirements with two weeknight broadcasts in mid-1972. Mark Pierce was named News Director, with anchor John Getter, sports from Billy McCool, and meteorologist Virginia Bigler. Bigler was granted the American Meteorological Society Seal of Approval based on her weather segments, becoming the second female meteorologist in the United States to receive this. The news department was discontinued after the Xenia tornado in 1974. The final Eyewitness News at 11 was anchored by Paul Douglas (Wilson) who had joined the WKEF staff as an anchor, reporter, and producer in 1973.
Throughout most of the 1970s, WKEF decided against airing its own newscasts possibly owing to low ratings. It relied instead on brief audio-only news updates from newscasters at local radio station WING-AM. It ran these updates at selected times in the morning, afternoon, and evening using a still slide on-screen with a picture of the newscaster. WKEF brought back full news programs in 1979 under the moniker 22 Alive! News with anchors Tom Miller and Jack Marschall.
In 1998, sister station WRGT-TV began airing a nightly 10 o'clock newscast, now known as Fox 45 Dayton's News Source at 10, using WKEF's news team.
On June 12, 2006, WKEF began airing a weekday morning program from 5 to 7, called ABC 22 Good Morning. On the same day, WRGT-TV began airing Fox 45 in the Morning from 7 to 9 a.m. weekdays.[13]
In August 2008, Fox 45 Dayton's News Source at 6:30 was added to WRGT-TV, airing on weeknights against the national news broadcasts on the "Big Three" stations.
In terms of ratings, WKEF's newscasts have always been a distant third place behind WHIO and WDTN. However, on some nights (usually Sundays because of ABC programming) there are times that WKEF is runner-up to WHIO. WKEF did not participate in the wider implementation of Sinclair's now-defunct, controversial News Central format for its newscasts but did air "The Point", a one-minute conservative political commentary hosted by Mark E. Hyman, that was also controversial and a requirement of all Sinclair-owned stations with newscasts until the series was discontinued in December 2006.
As of April 2011, WKEF and WRGT-TV remain two of the three "Big Four" network-affiliated television stations in the Dayton area that continue to broadcast their newscasts in pillarboxed 4:3 standard definition. WHIO-TV, which broadcasts its newscasts in full high definition, remains the only Dayton station that broadcasts its newscasts in any widescreen format. Dean Ditmer, general manager of the stations, announced that WKEF and WRGT-TV would upgrade to HD in 2012 with a new set;[14] the current set has been in use since January, 1995.
Anchors
ABC 22 First Warning Meteorologists
Sports
Reporters
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