WLWT

WLWT

Cincinnati, Ohio
Branding	WLWT News 5
Slogan	"Leading the way - on-air, on-line, and on the go"
Channels	Digital: 35 (UHF) Virtual: 5 (PSIP)
Subchannels	5.1 NBC 5.2 Me-TV
Owner	Hearst Television (Ohio/Oklahoma Hearst Television, Inc.)
Founded	February 9, 1948
Call letters' meaning	World's Largest Wireless (sister to radio station) Television
Former callsigns	W8XCT (experimental, 1946–1948)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 1 (VHF, 1946–1948) 4 (VHF, 1948–1952) 5 (VHF, 1952–2009)
Former affiliations	All secondary: CBS/ABC/DuMont (1948–1949)
Transmitter power	1000 kW
Height	310.5 m
Facility ID	46979
Transmitter coordinates	39°7′27.3″N 84°31′17.9″W
Licensing authority	FCC
Public license information:	Profile CDBS
Website	www.wlwt.com

WLWT, virtual channel 5, is a television station located in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. WLWT is an affiliate of the NBC television network and is owned by Hearst Television, a subsidiary of the Hearst Corporation. The station's studios and transmitter are located separately in the Mount Auburn neighborhood of Cincinnati.

History

The Crosley/Avco years

WLWT was established by the Crosley Broadcasting Corporation, owners of WLW radio (700 AM), one of the United States' most powerful radio stations. Crosley Broadcasting Corporation was a subsidiary of the Crosley Corporation, which became a subsidiary of the Aviation Corporation (later known as Avco) in 1945. After airing experimentally from 1946 as W8XCT on channel 1, the station began commercial broadcasts on February 9, 1948 on channel 4. The station's studios were housed with WLW in the Crosley Square building, a converted Elks lodge in downtown Cincinnati.

WLWT counts itself as the first station outside the Eastern U.S. (other than network-owned stations) to join the NBC television network as a primary affiliate, but originally carried programming from all the major television networks of the time: NBC, ABC, CBS and DuMont. WLWT later affiliated exclusively with NBC in 1949, after WKRC-TV and WCPO-TV signed on during that year. Following the release of the FCC's Sixth Report and Order in 1952, all of Cincinnati's VHF stations changed channel positions. WLWT was reassigned to channel 5, as the previous channel 4 allocation was shifted north to Columbus and given to sister station WLWC (now WCMH-TV).

In addition to WLWT and WLWC, Crosley also operated stations in nearby markets, WLWD (channel 2, now WDTN) in Dayton and WLWI (channel 13, now WTHR) in Indianapolis. These four inter-connected stations were branded on-air as the "WLW Network", and their call letters were stylized with hyphens to further reflect their connections to each other—the Cincinnati station, the group's flagship, was known as WLW-T.

The three WLW Television stations in Ohio were NBC affiliates, and carried common programming along with WLWI in Indianapolis (an ABC affiliate). Most of these shows were produced at the WLWT studios on Crosley Square, and they included The Ruth Lyons 50-50 Club (later hosted by Bob Braun after Lyons' retirement in 1967), the Paul Dixon Show, and Midwestern Hayride. The programs were syndicated regionally and also appeared on two other stations outside of the Midwest that were owned by Crosley, WLWA (now WXIA-TV) in Atlanta and WOAI-TV in San Antonio.

In 1957, WLWT introduced color television broadcasts to the Cincinnati market. It later became the first station in the nation to broadcast entirely in color, giving the Cincinnati the nickname "Colortown U.S.A." by 1962. For a period during the 1970s, the station's slogan was 5, The Originator, in reference to all of the local programming that was produced by the station.

The Crosley broadcast division took the name of its parent company in 1968, becoming Avco Broadcasting Corporation. Then the FCC enacted in 1969 its "one-to-a-market" rule, which enforced a ban on common ownership of AM radio stations and television stations with overlapping coverage areas under certain conditions while grandfathering some already existing instances. Avco's ownership of WLW radio (a 50,000-watt, clear-channel station) and WLWT, and the Columbus, Dayton, and Indianapolis television stations was initially protected under the new rule. WLWT's channel 5 coverage area covered a large amount of the Dayton and Columbus markets, while WLW radio could be heard throughout much of eastern North America at night.

Later years

In the mid-1970s, Avco decided to leave broadcasting and sold all of its stations to separate buyers. WLWT was the next to last to be sold, going to Multimedia, Inc. (along with Avco-Embassy Television, Avco's production division, and the syndication rights to The Phil Donahue Show) in 1976. As a result, the stations all lost their grandfathered protection, which led to an ownership conflict situation which Hearst-Argyle (predecessor to today's Hearst Television) would encounter two decades later (see next paragraph). The FCC has since relaxed its adjacent-market ownership rules.

The Gannett Company bought the Multimedia group in 1995. As Gannett had owned The Cincinnati Enquirer since 1979 (and remains the newspaper's owner to this day), the company had to obtain a temporary waiver of an FCC cross-ownership rule which prohibited common ownership of a television station and a newspaper in the same market in order for Gannett to close on the Multimedia group. When the waiver expired in December 1996, Gannett opted to keep the Enquirer and swap WLWT and KOCO-TV in Oklahoma City to Argyle Television Holdings II in exchange for WGRZ in Buffalo, New York and WZZM in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a deal which was finalized in January 1997. Argyle merged with the broadcasting unit of the Hearst Corporation to form Hearst-Argyle Television in August 1997. Hearst had owned WDTN in Dayton (the former WLWD) since 1981, but the merged company opted to keep the larger WLWT and sell WDTN the next year. WLWT's licensee name under Multimedia and Gannett ownership, Multimedia Entertainment, Inc., survives to this day as the licensee name for WGRZ. Also in 1995, WKRC-TV and WCPO-TV traded networks, leaving WLWT as the only Cincinnati television station to never change its affiliation.

WLWT briefly aired UPN programming in the early morning hours on weekends during parts of 1998 and 1999 after that netlet was displaced from its previous affiliate WSTR-TV by WB programming, before UPN finally affiliated with the former WB affiliate WBQC-CA later in 1999.

In June 1999, WLWT moved its studios from Crosley Square to the Mount Auburn neighborhood, in a building that once served as the corporate headquarters of WKRC-TV's founding owners Taft Broadcasting. The station found it necessary to move because Crosley Square, with its two-story ballrooms and basement newsroom, was built more for live entertainment broadcasts than a news operation.

In June 2007, WLWT announced that it would partner with WLW (AM) to provide news and weather for the radio station. As a consequence, WLWT's news and weather was heard nationwide on WLW's XM Satellite Radio channel, at channel 173. The agreement with XM ended in the summer of 2008. WLWT and WLW shared news and weather operations for years when they were both owned by Crosley Broadcasting, but eventual separate ownerships of the two stations (WLWT Argyle then Hearst Television - WLW Clear Channel) led to WLW radio using the resources of WKRC-TV for several years until the renewed partnership with its former television sister. The modern WLW-WLWT partnership ended March 31, 2010. WLWT currently provides news and weather to several Cincinnati radio stations.

The transmission tower seen at the beginning of the 1978-1982 CBS sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati actually belonged to WLWT — it was located at the WLWT transmitter on 2222 Chickasaw Street. That red and white tower stood side-by-side with WLWT's current strobed tower until 2005, when it was dismantled.

On July 9, 2012, WLWT's parent company Hearst Television was involved in a dispute with Time Warner Cable, leading to WLWT being pulled from Time Warner Cable and temporarily replaced with Nexstar Broadcasting Group station WTWO of Terre Haute, Indiana; Time Warner opted for such a distant signal like WTWO, as they do not have the rights to carry any NBC affiliate closest to them. The substitution of WTWO in place of WLWT lasted until July 19, 2012, when a deal was reached between Hearst and Time Warner.

Digital Television

Channel	Programming
5.1	Main WLWT programming / NBC
5.2	Me-TV

NBC Weather Plus ceased network operations in late 2008, but WLWT continued to broadcast local weather programming as News 5 Weather Plus on its digital subchannel until June 30, 2011. The subchannel was replaced by Me-TV on July 1, 2011. Me-TV competes with Retro Television Network, which is shown on WBQC-LD subchannel 25.3.

Analog to Digital Conversion

WLWT ended programming on its analog signal, on VHF channel 5, on June 12, 2009, as part of the DTV transition in the United States, and remained on its pre-transition digital channel 35 PSIP is used to display WLWT's virtual channel as 5. WLWT broadcast a nightlight message on its analog channel for one month following the DTV transition deadline.

Cincinnati Reds

See also: List of Cincinnati Reds broadcasters

The Cincinnati Reds baseball team, also owned by Crosley until 1961, broadcasted its games over WLWT from 1947 through 1995. The station also fed the games to a network of stations that covered Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, and Tennessee (and included some of its Crosley-owned sister stations). Citing economic reasons along with pressure from NBC, channel 5 did not renew its contract following the 1995 season. Waite Hoyt was the original play-by-play announcer on WLWT, in a simulcast with WLW Radio. George Bryson, Sr. replaced him in 1956. When Ed Kennedy became the play by play announcer in 1961, he would remain for 11 seasons, working with Frank McCormick for 8 seasons. Also calling games on WLWT included: Ken Wilson, Charlie Jones, Bill Brown, Ray Lane, Johnny Bench, and Joe Morgan.

Newscasts

As of February 2012, WLWT is the station "Leading the Way" in Cincinnati, showing steady ratings growth in its local newscasts the last couple of years. WLWT is now #1 or #2 in all newscasts in the key adult demographics. Its website WLWT.com and mobile application are both #1 in users in Cincinnati.

On April 20, 2013, WLWT became the last Cincinnati news operation to have upgraded its newscasts to high definition. Prior to the upgrade, its newscasts were aired in 16:9 standard definition widescreen. With the switch to HD, they debuted a new set, as well as the new Hearst-mandated standardized graphics and music package (Hearst News Package by Fuze Artz).

The Power of 5 Weather Team

WLWT's team of meteorologists consist of meteorologists Kevin Robinson (AMS), Randi Rico (AMS/NWA), Erik Zarnitz (CBM, and Jennifer Schack (AMS). WLWT bills its radar as the Power of 5 Radar Network. WLWT has access to five radar sites from Fort Wayne, IN, Indianapolis, IN, Louisville, KY, Cincinnati, OH, and Wilmington, OH, which are all NEXRAD Doppler radars from the National Weather Service, with the exception of its Cincinnati radar which is a live radar manufactured by RadTech. WLWT uses Baron Services FasTrac Millennium and VIPIR radar software. In 2008, then-Chief Meteorologist Derek Beasley obtained exclusive rights to use Gibson Ridge Software's GR2Analyst radar software for on-air use, which provides 3D volumetric presentations of National Weather Service Nexrad Level II Data. Doing this allowed WLWT to become one of only a select few television stations in the entire nation to use this software on-air. WLWT bills this radar as the Power of Five XP. The station maintains a weather beacon atop the Radisson Hotel in Covington dubbed the "Weather Lights".

WLWT has the most accurate weather forecast in Cincinnati according to WeatheRate, an independent research company, that tracks every weather forecast, every day, for every station in the Cincinnati market.

WLWT News / Station presentation

Newscast titles

• TV-5 News (1960s-early 1970s)
• The News (early-mid 1970s, 1980-1981)
• TV-5 Action News (mid 1970s-1981)
• Action 5 News (1981–1984)
• NewsChannel 5 (1990–1992)
• WLWT Eyewitness News 5 (1998–2004; also currently used by sister station KOCO-TV in Oklahoma City)
• News 5 (1984–1990, 1992–1998 and 2004–2013)
• WLWT News 5 (2013-present)

WLWT Station slogans

• We're The Team (1980–1983)
• First. Fast. Accurate. (1998–2004)
• Where The News Comes First (2004–2008)
• Straight to the Point (2008–2009)
• Leading the Way On Air, Online, On The Go (2011–present)

This film, television or video-related list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it with reliably sourced additions.

WLWT On-air staff

Current on-air staff

News 5 Anchors

• Lisa Cooney – weekday mornings "News 5 Today" (4:30-7:00 a.m.) and weekdays at noon
• Mike Dardis - weeknights at 5:00, 5:30, 6:00 and 11:00 p.m.
• Todd Dykes – weekday mornings "News 5 Today" (4:30-7:00 a.m.)
• Courtis Fuller – weekends at 6:00 and 11:00 p.m.; also weeknight reporter
• Jonathan Hawgood – weekend mornings "News 5 Today" (5:00-8:00 and 10:00-11:00 Saturdays + 5:00-5:30, 6:00-8:00 and 9:00-10:00 a.m. Sundays)
• Sheree Paolello – weeknights at 5:00, 5:30, 6:00 and 11:00 p.m.

Power of 5 Weather Team

• Kevin Robinson (AMS Seal of Approval) - chief meteorologist; weeknights at 5:00, 5:30, 6:00 and 11:00 p.m.
• Randi Rico (AMS and NWA Seals of Approval) – meteorologist; weekday mornings "News 5 Today" (4:30-7:00 a.m.) and weekdays at noon
• Erik Zarnitz (CBM) - meteorologist; weekends at 6:00 and 11:00 p.m.
• Jennifer Schack (AMS Seal of Approval) – meteorologist; weekend mornings (5:00-8:00 and 10:00-11:00 Saturdays + 5:00-5:30, 6:00-8:00 and 9:00-10:00 a.m. Sundays)

News 5 Sports team

• Ken Broo – sports director; weeknights at 6:00 and 11:00 p.m.
• George Vogel – sports anchor; weekends at 6:00 and 11:00 p.m.

News 5 Traffic

• Kyla Woods - traffic; weekday mornings "News 5 Today" (4:30-7:00 a.m.)

News 5 Reporters

• Laura Borchers – general assignment reporter
• Terry Daniels – general assignment reporter
• Kristy Davis - general assignment reporter
• Brian Hamrick – general assignment reporter
• Karin Johnson – general assignment reporter
• John London – general assignment reporter
• Alison Montoya – general assignment reporter
• Andrew Setters – general assignment reporter
• Amy Wagner – general assignment reporter

Hearst Television Washington Bureau

• Sally Kidd – Washington Bureau reporter
• Nikole Killion – Washington Bureau reporter
• Laurie Kinney – Washington Bureau reporter

Notable WLWT former staff

• Jerry Springer (anchor and commentator, November 1982-January 1993; now host of his own talk show and the game show "Baggage" on GSN, former host of "America's Got Talent" on NBC, and the British version of "The Moment of Truth")
• Norma Rashid (anchor, 1982-April 2000). During the late 80s/early 90s, co-anchored the number one nightly newscasts with Jerry Springer,
• Michael Collins (circa 1983-circa 1993) anchor and reporter. Had his own segment of special assignments and interviews, sometimes with a slightly humorous bent, called "Michael Collins' World" in the late 80s/early 90s.,,,
• Thom Brennaman (Sports, mid-'80s to early '90s, also did Reds play-by-play during this period, now with Fox Sports)
• J. D. Hayworth (Sports, 1986–1987,[5] went to KTSP-TV (now KSAZ-TV), Phoenix, then Congress; currently talk show host at KFYI, Phoenix.)
• Bill Hemmer (Sports 1980s, later hosted CNN Mornings, now co-host of "America's Newsroom" at Fox News Channel
• Greg Hoard, Sports journalist and commentator
• Charlie Luken Anchor, 1993-1999.
• Steve Physioc (Sports, early 1980s, now sports announcer for Fox Sports Net)
• Anne Marie Tiernon (anchor, 2000–2004, now evening anchor at WTHR, Indianapolis)
• Solomon Wilcots (Sports, 1990s, later at ESPN, now with CBS Sports)

External links

• WLWT.com – News 5 Official Website
• Chronomedia
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WLWT
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on WLWT-TV