WKYC-TV

Encyclopedia : W : WK : WKY : WKYC-TV

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WKYC-TV, "Channel 3" is Cleveland's affiliate for NBC and is owned by Gannett. Its transmitter is located in Parma, Ohio. The station can be easily received in neighboring areas such as: Toledo, Erie, Pennsylvania, and Youngstown, Ohio. When atmospheric conditions are right, WKYC's signal can be picked up as far as Detroit, Michigan.

History

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, and the call letters were derived from NBC C(K)leveland. WNBK signed on a day before NBC's Chicago station WMAQ-TV signed on as WNBQ. WNBK was co-owned with radio station WTAM, which NBC had owned since 1930. Although there was no cable connection to New York, AT&T had just put in place 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 affiliates), and WNBK became one of the originators of programming for the regional network. 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 (now WDIV-TV) in Detroit.

In 1956, NBC persuaded Westinghouse to sell Philadelphia's NBC television affiliate WPTZ along with radio stations KYW and KYW-FM to the network. In return, Westinghouse would get WNBK and WTAM and WTAM-FM. NBC badly wanted an O&O in Philadelphia, one of two top-five markets where it did not own a station. Westinghouse only agreed to the deal after NBC threatened to withdraw its programming from WPTZ and Westinghouse's other NBC affiliate, WBZ-TV. Westhinghouse changed the Cleveland stations' calls to KYW-TV, KYW and KYW-FM.

Under Westinghouse ownership, KYW-TV began the nation's first half-hour television newscast in 1959. It also originated a local 90-minute weekday daytime variety talk show in 1961 with a former band singer named Mike Douglas. 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.

Westinghouse complained to the FCC and the Justice Department about the undue pressure by NBC that had caused the Cleveland/Philadelphia station swap. In 1965, after a lengthy investigation, the FCC reversed the trade. By the time NBC reacquired the Cleveland stations, Westinghouse had already established the AM station as a popular adult contemporary station under the on-air name of "KY11." Not wanting to tamper with a good thing, NBC changed the stations' calls to WKYC-TV, WKYC and WKYC-FM, while the Philadelphia stations became KYW-TV and KYW. Soon afterwards, WKYC-TV became the first Cleveland station to broadcast in color. NBC sold the radio stations in 1972, but kept WKYC-TV.

For much of the time between NBC's repurchase of the station and the dawn of the 21st century, WKYC was usually a very distant third in the ratings. Part of the reason was that during most of its second stint as an NBC O&O, it served mainly as a farm system for NBC, with almost no local talent. Several of its alumni, most notably current Today Show weatherman Al Roker, went on to long careers with the network. However, after years of sagging ratings, NBC sold WKYC to Multimedia, Inc. in 1989. In 1995, Multimedia merged with Gannett. However, WKYC 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. It reaped almost no windfall from longtime CBS affiliate WJW-TV's switch to (and eventual purchase by) Fox in 1994. Even after moving to a new modern studio on the shore of Lake Erie in 2001, WKYC continued to be one of NBC's weakest major-market affiliates.

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, reduced its 6 p.m. newscast back to a half hour, and began carrying NBC Nightly News live again. 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 protège of Oprah's). During Dr. Phil, WKYC did heavy promotion of their 6 p.m. newscast. As a result, the 6 p.m. newscast began to experience sharp ratings increases. Additionally, WKYC began the market's only 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 rated 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 May 2006 ratings period, WKYC held on to first place at 6 p.m. and 11 p.m., but its late evening newscast lost viewership due to a continued weak NBC prime-time schedule. Its morning newscast also lost viewership, resulting in WKYC slipping to second place overall behind WJW from sign-on to sign-off.

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, along with sister Gannett station WXIA) was also introduced. A new graphics package also debuted, made by the in-house graphics department. Sister Gannett stations W*USA, KSDK, and WXIA outsourced their graphics to a company named Giant Octopus when they switched to high definition.

Past slogans have included:

"Turn to 3" (from the mid-80s through the end of the decade and had a accompanying 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).

Good Company

WKYC's Good Company program is the only remaining daily locally produced non-news show in Cleveland. The program 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 at 12:30 p.m. 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.

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.

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 two weekly half hour Indians themed programs:

• Indians Tonight--a week in review show, Sundays at 11:35 p.m.
• Talking Tribe--a roundtable show, Mondays at 7:00 p.m.

Newscasts

Weekdays

• Channel 3 News at Sunrise: 5:00–6:00 a.m., with John Anderson, Carole Sullivan, Hollie Strano - Weather.
• Channel 3 News Today: 6:00–7:00 a.m., with John Anderson, Carole Sullivan, Hollie Strano - Weather.
• Channel 3 News Midday: 11:00–11:30 a.m., with Barbara Gauthier, Hollie Strano - Weather.
• Channel 3 News at 6: 6:00–6:30 p.m., with Tim White, Romona Robinson, Mark Nolan - Weather, Jim Donovan - Sports.
• Channel 3 News at 7: 7:00–7:30 p.m., with Tim White, Romona Robinson, Mark Nolan - Weather, Jim Donovan - Sports.

• Channel 3 News at 11: 11:00–11:35 p.m., with Tim White, Romona Robinson, Mark Nolan - Weather, Jim Donovan - Sports.

Saturday

• Channel 3 News Weekend Today: 9:00–10:30 a.m. , with Jeff Maynor, Kim Wheeler, A.J. Colby - Weather.
• Channel 3 News at Noon: 12:00–12:30 p.m., with Jeff Maynor, Kim Wheeler, A.J. Colby - Weather.
• Channel 3 News at 6: 6:00–6:30 p.m., with Scott Newell, Lydia Esparra, Betsy Kling - Weather, Mike Cairns - Sports.
• Channel 3 News at 11: 11:00–11:30 p.m., with Scott Newell, Lydia Esparra, Betsy Kling - Weather, Mike Cairns - Sports.

Sunday

• Channel 3 News Weekend Today: 9:00–10:30 a.m. , with Jeff Maynor, Kim Wheeler, A.J. Colby - Weather.
• Channel 3 News at Noon: 12:00–12:30 p.m., with Jeff Maynor, Kim Wheeler, A.J. Colby - Weather.
• Channel 3 News at 6: 6:00–6:30 p.m., with Scott Newell, Lydia Esparra, Betsy Kling - Weather, Andy Baskin - Sports.
• Channel 3 News at 11: 11:00–11:30 p.m., with Scott Newell, Lydia Esparra, Betsy Kling - Weather, Andy Baskin - Sports.

Famous former station personalities

• Mike Douglas
• Tim Conway
• Al Roker

External links

• [WKYC]
• [Photos of WKYC's news set]
• [Query the FCC's TV station database for WKYC-TV]
• [Aerial photo of WKYC-TV transmitter from Google Local]

Terrestrial television>Broadcast television in the Cleveland / Akron / Canton market [(Nielsen DMA #16)]
WKYC 3 (NBC) - WEWS 5 (ABC) - WJW 8 (Fox) - WAKN 11 (Jewelry TV) - WDLI 17 (TBN) - WOIO 19 (CBS) - WVPX 23 (i) - WVIZ 25 (PBS) - WAOH 29 / W35AX 35 (A1) - WIVN-LP 29 / WIVM-LP 52 (A1) - WRAP-CA 32 (infomercials) - WOCB-CA 39 (TBN) - WUAB 43 (UPN/My Network TV) (The Tube on DT2) - WEAO 49 (PBS) - WGGN 52 (TBN) - WCDN 53 (Daystar) - WBNX 55 (The WB/The CW) - WQHS 61 (UNI) - WXOX 65 (HSN/America's Store) - WOAC 67 (S@H/JTV) - WMFD 68 (Ind)
See also: Broadcast television stations in the , , , , , and Markets

'''NBC Network Affiliates in the state of Ohio
WDTN 2 () - WKYC 3 () - WCMH 4 () - WLWT 5 () - WTOV 9 () - WHIZ 18 () - WFMJ 21 () - WNWO 24 () - WLIO 35 ()
See also: , , , , , and stations in Ohio

 

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