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EspañolWKYC-TV
'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.
History
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, and the call letters stood for 'NB'C C('K')leveland. WNBK was the first station in the Midwest to be owned and operated by NBC, as it signed on a day before 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).
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 half-hour 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, 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.
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]-- in fact, some radio and TV staffers who worked at KYW in Cleveland moved to Philadelphia along with the call letters. This included Mike Douglas 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.
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.
WKYC Years
Struggles
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 "owned and operated" station, 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 majority control of WKYC over to Multimedia, Inc. in 1989. Gannett purchased Multimedia in 1995, and acquired the remainder of the station in 2001.
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 buliding our station around you." WKYC even set up a telephone feedback hotline, dubbed "Talkback 3," intended to field suggestions and comments from viewers.
Even after Gannett's purchase of Multimedia's share of the station, 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. 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 7pm Newscast, which still airs to this day.
Channel 3 reaped almost no windfall from longtime CBS affiliate WJW'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.
Ratings Emergence
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 protège 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 their 6 p.m. newscast. As a result, 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 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 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).
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.
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.
Currently, 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. The forth hour of ''Today'', which will air nationally through the 10am hour, will air at 11 a.m. on WKYC, while the 11 a.m. newscast will move to 12 p.m., all beginning in September 2007.
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 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.
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 Sunday pre- and post-game shows during the regular season, as well as a Monday night roundtable show.
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.
Past slogans
:"Turn to 3" (from the mid-80s through the end of the decade and had an 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).
Digital Channels
| Channel | Programming |
|---|---|
| 3.1 / 2.1 | Main WKYC Programming |
| 3.2 / 2.2 | NBC Weather Plus |
Famous former station personalities
★ Dawn Stensland
★ Mike Douglas
★ Tim Conway
★ Ron Allen
★ Al Roker
★ Doug Adair
★ Virgil Dominic
Current Personalities
★ Tim White-6, 7, and 11 PM Weeknight Anchor
★ Romona Robinson-6, 7, and 11 PM Weeknight Anchor
★ John Anderson-Weekday Morning Anchor 5-7 AM
★ Barbara Gauthier-Weekday Morning Anchor 5-7 AM and 12:00 PM Anchor
★ Jeff Maynor-Weekend Morning Anchor and 12:00 PM Weekend Anchor
★ Kim Wheeler-Weekend Morning Anchor and Education reporter
★ Scott Newell-Weekend 6 and 11 Anchor
★ Lydia Esparra-Weekend 6 and 11 Anchor
Weather
★ Mark Nolan-Chief Meteorologist Weeknights
★ Hollie Strano-Morning and Noon Meteorolgist Weekdays
★ A.J. Colby-Weekend Morning Meteorologist
★ Betsy Kling-Weekend Evening Meteorologist
Sports
★ Jim Donovan-Senior Sports Anchor
★ Dave Chudowsky
Reporters
★ Bill Safos
★ Jennifer Murphy
★ Monica Robins-Medical Reporting
★ Dave Nethers-Investigative
★ Jacqui Smith
★ Obie Shelton
★ Maureen Kyle
★ Eric Mansfield(Akron Bureau)
★ Kristin Anderson-Her Husband is John Anderson,morning anchor
★ Paul Thomas-his wife is Betsy Kling, weekend evening weather
★ Del Donahoo-Senior Issues reporter
★ Carole Chandler-Sullivan
References
1. KYW Newsradio Station History, which details the evolution of the station from Chicago, to Philadelphia, to Cleveland and back to Philadelphia.
In popular culture
★ In the ''30 Rock'' episode "Cleveland," Liz Lemon is offered a job with the station to host a cooking show.
External links
★ WKYC
★ Photos of WKYC's news set
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