WDTN

{{Infobox broadcast}} may refer to:

• Template:Infobox broadcasting network
• Template:Infobox television channel
• Template:Infobox television station

WDTN, channel 2, is the NBC-affiliated television station for the Miami Valley area of Ohio that is licensed to Dayton. Its transmitter is located in the Frytown section of the city. Owned by the LIN TV Corporation, the station has studios on South Dixie Drive in the Moraine section of Dayton. Syndicated programming on WDTN includes: Inside Edition, Jeopardy!, and The Doctors. The station's master control is located at sister station WISH-TV in Indianapolis, Indiana. WDTN's logo is very similar to ones used by KMID, WPRI-TV, and WNAC-TV.

Digital television

The station's digital signal on UHF channel 50 is multiplexed:

WDTN-DT

WDTN-DT broadcasts on digital channel 50.

Digital channels

Channel	Name	Programming
2.1	WDTN-HD	WDTN / NBC programming HDTV
2.2	WDTN-SD	WDTN / NBC programming SDTV

Analog-to-Digital Conversion

After the analog television shutdown scheduled for June 12, 2009 , WDTN-TV will remain on its current digital channel 50 and will stop transmitting on channel 2 using PSIP to display WDTN-TV's virtual channel as 2.

WDTN will continue to broadcast their analog signal, no date for the digital signal transition has been set.

History

The license for what is now WDTN was granted to the Crosley Broadcasting Corporation of Cincinnati, which was a subsidiary of the Aviation Corporation (which later became Avco), on March 3, 1947. It was the first broadcast television license granted by the FCC to the Dayton television market. However, due to several delays, it did not actually go on the air until March 15, 1949 (20 days after CBS affiliate WHIO-TV began broadcasting). The station originally signed on with the callsign WLWD (identified on-air as "WLW-D"). From its start, WLWD was affiliated with NBC. The station also carried programming from DuMont and ABC. The first program shown on WLWD was the Texaco Star Theater with Milton Berle. WLWD's offices, studios, and studio-transmitter link KUQ-43 were established at 4595 South Dixie Highway in the Dayton suburb of Moraine. It was in a building that had previously housed a skating rink. The studios and offices remain there to this day. WLWD lost DuMont in 1955 a few months before that network shut down. It lost ABC in 1965 (though it cleared some ABC daytime programming until 1971 as a secondary affiliate) when then-independent WONE-TV (now WKEF) picked up ABC's prime-time programming.

Even before 1965, WLWD had little need to carry ABC programming since Cincinnati's WKRC-TV and Columbus' WTVN-TV (now WSYX) both decently covered the Dayton area. Avco's broadcasting division continued to operate under the Crosley Broadcasting name until 1968, when it took on the name of its parent company. In 1976, Avco decided to exit broadcasting. It sold WLWD to Grinnell College who changed the call letters to the current WDTN. The WLWD callsign is now used by an FM station licensed to Columbus Grove, Ohio serving the Lima market area with a rhythmic hits format. The station became a sole ABC affiliate in 1980. The next year, the Hearst Broadcasting bought the station. In August 1997, Hearst's television group merged with Argyle Television Holdings II to form Hearst-Argyle Television. Argyle had purchased Cincinnati's WLWT that January. WDTN's city-grade signal covers most of the Cincinnati area while WLWT's city-grade signal reaches most of the Dayton area. At the time, the FCC normally did not allow common ownership of two stations whose coverage areas overlapped but would not even consider granting a waiver if the overlap was between city-grade signals.

As a result, Hearst-Argyle opted to keep WLWT and trade WDTN together with WNAC-TV in Providence, Rhode Island to the Sunrise Television Group for WPTZ in Plattsburgh, New York, WNNE in Hartford, Vermont, and KSBW in Salinas, California. Ironically, both stations were owned by Crosley / Avco (of which WLWT was the flagship) for nearly three decades. Under Crosley / Avco ownership, they were grandfathered. The sale was finalized on July 2, 1998. Sunrise merged with LIN TV four years later. On August 30, 2004, in a reversal of the 1980 switch, WDTN became an NBC affiliate for the second time to take advantage of NBC's then stronger programming. Ironically, several months after the affiliation shift, ABC's programming overtook NBC's and has remained since. On May 18, 2007, LIN TV announced that it was exploring strategic alternatives that could result in the sale of the company. In early-June, WDTN's website (along with those of several other LIN-owned stations not affiliated with Fox such as WNDY-TV, WWHO, WAND, WWLP and WLFI-TV) underwent a redesign. The web addresses were then operated by the Local Media Network division of WorldNow for a little over a year until October 2008, when LIN relaunched most of its station Web sites through Fox Interactive Media. Prior to the WorldNow contract, they were powered by Web-Pros.

Programming

During its first stint as an NBC affiliate, channel 2's main specialty was local programming and news. This provided an alternative not found anywhere else. Across town, WHIO signed on a few weeks earlier with a similar format (along with CBS programs). Dayton received clear pictures from stations in Cincinnati (45 miles to the south) and Columbus. Game show host and announcer Johnny Gilbert hosted his own local daytime variety / talk show immediately after the local airing of WLW Television's Paul Dixon Show in the mid-1960s. Phil Donahue (former news anchor and radio talk show host at WHIO) began hosting a talk show on WLWD in 1968 that was more issue oriented (greatly reducing the station's program budget). Donahue's show went national in 1970. Since most programs on the regional network WLW Television originated from WLWT in Cincinnati, it was the first time WLWD was the originator of a program. Aside from Paul Dixon's morning show, other Cincinnati-based programming that aired on WLWD included The 50-50 Club hosted by Ruth Lyons (later by Bob Braun after Lyons' retirement in 1967) and the Saturday evening country music program Midwestern Hayride. Due to this heavy programming schedule, many network programs from NBC and ABC were recorded on film as a kinescope for later airings. On rare occasions when a program was unavailable (sometimes due to network technical difficulties or if fill time was available before or after a network sportscast) a half-hour series entitled Star Performance, consisting mostly of dramatic pilot episodes from the 1950s, would air. Fifteen minute mini-documentaries or newsreels would also air as a time filler under the title Miniature Theater. By the mid to late-1970s, ABC had become the leading network. Dayton's ABC station WKEF was only a part-time affiliate. It ran that networks's primetime shows, sports, weekend cartoons, and any other ABC programming pre-empted by Cincinnati's WKRC.

ABC was searching for stronger affiliates in order to cement its status as the leading network in the country so it approached WDTN for a deal. On January 1, 1980, WDTN and WKEF swapped affiliations. Under the deal, WDTN agreed to run any ABC programming that was being pre-empted by WKRC but was exempt from running the afternoon soap operas after 2 P.M. In place of One Life to Live and General Hospital, WDTN ran cartoons and off-network sitcoms. NBC's programming would go to less desirable WKEF. By the late-1980s, the cartoons and sitcoms made way for first run talk shows like Oprah Winfrey (at 4 P.M.), Montel Williams, and Jerry Springer. WDTN would begin its talk block at 2 P.M. during the week. In 2000, Time Warner Cable (Dayton's largest cable system) dropped the Cincinnati network affiliates to make room for new cable channels. As a result, ABC soap viewers could no longer see One Life or General Hospital while over-the-air viewers could still pick them up on WCPO-TV (which had become Cincinnati's ABC affiliate in 1996). As a result (in the Fall of 2000) General Hospital was added to WDTN's schedule. But One Life To Live would be pre-empted another 2 years. In 2002, after LIN TV acquired the station, One Life To Live was added to the schedule as well. After that, WDTN ran ABC's entire schedule until it returned to NBC in 2004. Veteran announcer and former radio personality Charlie Van Dyke is the current voice heard on WDTN's station IDs, news intros, promos, and other voice over work.

News operation

File:Wdtn open.png

WDTN's nightly 6 o'clock news open.

For most of its history, WDTN's newscasts have been a solid runner-up to market leader WHIO. In the 1970s and 1980s, WDTN used the "Eyewitness News" branding. On August 18, 2007, WDTN began to produce a nightly 10 o'clock newscast on CW affiliate WBDT. Also in 2007, 2 News won the "Edward R. Murrow Award for Overall Excellence" for the second straight year. WDTN has an Emmy award winning news operation. The station maintains a news partnership with several area newspapers. The station is known for their "Turn to 2" segments which viewers can contact reporter Kennan Oliphant if they need help with consumer issues. In addition to their main studios, WDTN operates two news bureaus. The Springfield Bureau is on West Main Street. The other one is on South Detroit Street in Xenia‎. The station operates their own weather radar that is known on-air as "Live Doppler 2X". It is located on the west side of Dayton. The station is also a WeatherBug affiliate. The weather team has a blog on their website for viewers that gives an inside eye of what happens behind the scenes at the "Storm Team 2 Forecast Center".

Newscast titles

• Eyewitness News (1977-1984)
• TV-2 News (1984-1989)
• 2 News (1989-present)

Station slogans

• Dayton's New NBC (2004, used shortly after the switch to NBC)
• On Your Side (2006-present)

News team

Anchors

• Dan Edwards - weekday mornings
• Pam Elliot - weekday mornings
• Marsha Bonhart - weekdays at Noon, 5:30, and 6
• Mark Allan - weeknights at 5, 6, 10, and 11
• Michelle Kingsfield - weeknights at 5, 10, and 11
• Libby Kirsch - weeknights at 5:30
• Kennan Oliphant - weekends and investigative reporter

Storm Team 2

• Brian Davis (AMS Seal of Approval) - Chief seen weeknights
• Jamie Jarosik (NWA and AMS Seals of Approval) - weekday mornings and noon
• Erik Zarnitz (AMS Seal of Approval) - weekends
• Carl Nichols (NWA and AMS Member) - fill-in

Sports

• Jack Pohl - Director seen weeknights at 6, 10, and 11
• Neil "Hutch" Konerman - weekends and sports reporter

Reporters

• Sonu Wasu - Springfield Bureau
• Jim Bucher -seen weekday mornings starting at 5:30 and weeknights at 10
• Karrie Rossmiller - weekday morning traffic
• Dave D'Marko
• Chelby Kosto
• Megan O'Rourke
• Jordan Burgess
• Holly Samuels

Station alumni

• Carl Day
• Mike Schell, evening anchor and reporter More
• Mandi Sheridan, reporter
• Bob Hocks, meteorologist during the 1980s (now is a substitute meteorologist at WCPO in Cincinnati)
• Chris Bradley (now at WBNS/Ohio News Network in Columbus,OH)
• Matt Stewart (now reporter/weekend anchor @ KCTV)
• Rodney Dunigan (now reporter WTVF Nashville)
• Jana Katsuyama, weekend anchor/reporter (now at KTVU Oakland/San Francisco)
• Randi Rico, a superb meteorologist (now at WLWT)[1]
• Len Berman (now at NBC Sports and WNBC)
• Donna Jordan, anchor (went to WHIO, now retired)
• Dave Calabro, sports (now Sports Director at WTHR Indianapolis and Indianapolis Motor Speedway Announcer)
• Coleen Sullivan, weekday anchor (formerly was dating Charles Spencer, brother of the late Princess Diana) Now @ KEYT
• Dan Spehler, anchor/reporter (now at WRTV 6 in Indianapolis)
• Howard Nathan, anchor/investigative Reporter
• Kristi Piehl, reporter
• Guy Fogle, sports anchor
• Glen Barbour, reporter
• Dan Patrick, sports anchor (formerly at ESPN and ESPN Radio)
• Julie Chen, reporter (now at CBS News)
• Scott Arnold, reporter (now at WTVF)
• Fran Charles, sports anchor (now at NFL Network)
• Jim Baldridge, reporter 1970-1972 (Went to WHIO to become lead anchor for many years)
• Inga Hammond, reporter (known as Allison Hammond @ WDTN) (now at Golf Channel)
• Jodine Costanzo, reporter (now at WPXI)
• Jack Hicks, lead anchor, former Sunrise Anchor (now retired)
• Kathy Hart, anchor/reporter (now at WKEF/WRGT)
• Karen Schimmoller, morning news anchor
• Sam Yates, morning news anchor (formerly @ WHIO)
• Omar Williams, long time sports director(retired in 1996, passed in 2008)[2]
• Kris Long, anchor/reporter (now at KPSP, Palm Springs, CA)
• Bruce Pompeani, anchor/reporter(worked at KDKA-TV Pittsburgh from 1997-2005, now works in advertising).
• Tony Pann, meteorologist(now works for WUSA9 in the DC/Maryland area).
• Mike Gallagher, sports anchor/reporter, conservative radio talk show host
• Ken Kettering, sports anchor/reporter
• Joan Khoenle, anchor/reporter (Now known as Joan Peabody, works in Media Relations with Walt Disney World)
• Mark Viviano, sports anchor/reporter(now sports director at WJZ-TV, Baltimore)
• C.K. Elston, staff announcer, retired
• Ed Hamlyn, news director and 6 and 11 pm news anchor, retired
• Dewey Hopper, staff announcer and host of "The Weather Outside with Dewey" during 6pm newscast and Saturday morning children's program "Janie and The Genie", retired
• Bob Breck, first staff meteorologist (August 1973 - April 1978); now at WVUE, New Orleans
• Dave Bohman, former reporter/Weekend Anchor; Currently Investigative/Consumer Reporter, KRQE/KASA, Albuquerque, NM
• Molly Hughes, evening anchor (now at KCNC in Denver)
• Brad Woebkenberg
• Johnny Gilbert (announcer on Jeopardy!)
• Phil Donahue
• Myrt Price, reporter (now at WOIO, Cleveland, OH)
• Laura Borchers, reporter for WLWT Cincinnati, OH
• Chuck Gillespie, weather specialist (now radio personality, WLZT-FM, Columbus, OH)
• Jim Blue
• Mark Giangreco, sports anchor (now sports director at WLS-TV, ABC O&O in Chicago)
• Bobby "Scoop" Phillips, reporter/ cameraman (retired 2009)

External links

• WDTN "Dayton's NBC"
• WBDT "Dayton's CW"
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