Diemazz

WLWT
Cincinnati, Ohio
Branding	News 5
Slogan	Where The News Comes First
Channels	Analog: 5 (VHF) Digital: 35 (UHF)
Affiliations	NBC NBC Weather Plus (DT2)
Owner	Hearst-Argyle Television, Inc. (Ohio/Oklahoma Hearst-Argyle 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)	1 (1946-1948) 4 (1948–1952)
Former affiliations	All secondary: CBS (1948-1949) ABC (1948-1949) DuMont (1948-1949) UPN (1998-1999)
Transmitter Power	100 kW (analog) 1000 kW (digital)
Height	295 m (analog) 310.5 m (digital)
Facility ID	46979
Transmitter Coordinates	39°7′27.3″N 84°31′17.9″W / 39.12425, -84.521639
Website	www.wlwt.com

WLWT, also known as News 5, is a television station in Cincinnati, Ohio, broadcasting locally on VHF channel 5 as an NBC affiliate. The station is owned by Hearst-Argyle Television. Despite often having been the highest-rated news station in the Cincinnati area in the past, WLWT had been lagging behind rivals WKRC-TV and WCPO-TV in recent years. As of 2006, however, the station has been seeing a turnaround in the ratings. Several former and current members of WLWT's news staff have been associated with politics, including Jerry Springer, Charlie Luken, Tom Atkins, J.D. Hayworth and Courtis Fuller.

History

WLWT was established by the Crosley Broadcasting Corporation, owners of WLW radio, one of America's most powerful radio stations. Crosley Broadcasting Corporation was a subsidiary of the Crosley Corporation, which became a subsidiary of the Aviation Corporation (later Avco) in 1945.

After airing experimentally from 1946 as W8XCT (channel 1) [1][2], the station began commercial broadcasts on February 9, 1948. The station originally carried programming from NBC, ABC, CBS and DuMont, but became solely an NBC affiliate in 1949 after WKRC-TV and WCPO-TV signed on respectively. WLWT was the 1st affiliate outside New York to join NBC. For many years, the station's IDs and advertising used a hyphen in its callsign ("WLW-T"), but that was dropped in the mid-1960s. The hypenated "T" referred to Television as did WLW-C (now WCMH) for Columbus, WLW-D (now WDTN) for Dayton and WLW-I (now WTHR) for Indianapolis, which made up the tri-state's only interconnected network. Crosley also owned WLW-A (now WXIA) for Atlanta, Georgia and WOAI-TV in San Antonio, Texas. "WLW Television" boasted a million dollars worth of talent resulting in such programs as "The Ruth Lyons 50-50 Club" (later hosted by Bob Braun after Lyons' retirement in 1967), "The Paul Dixon Show", and Midwestern Hayride. WLWT was the originator of these programs when its studios were located in the former Elks Building(re-christened "Crosley Square") in downtown Cincinnati when the station first took to the air. For a period during the 1970s, the station's slogan was, "5, The Originator" in reference to all of the local programming that was and had been produced by the station.

The broadcast division continued to operate as the Crosley Broadcasting Corporation, until it took the name of its parent company in 1968, becoming Avco Broadcasting Corporation. When the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) enacted in 1969 its "one-to-a-market" rule, which enforced the ban on common ownership of two or more television stations with overlapping coverage areas while grandfathering some already existing instances, the common ownership of WLWT, WLWC, WLWD and WLWI was among those combinations which were grandfathered under the new rule. But in the mid-1970s, Avco decided to leave broadcasting and sold all of its stations to separate buyers, with WLWT (along with Avco-Embassy Television, Avco's production division) going to Multimedia, Inc. in 1976. As a result, the stations all lost their grandfathered protection, which led to an ownership conflict situation which Hearst-Argyle 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 late 1996, Gannett opted to keep the Enquirer and swap WLWT and KOCO-TV in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma to Argyle Television in exchange for WGRZ-TV in Buffalo, New York and WZZM-TV 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, forcing the newly-merged company to sell off WDTN (the former WLWD, which Hearst had owned since 1981) the next year.

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.

It is one of two Cincinnati stations to have never changed its primary affiliation; the other is WXIX-TV.

In June 2007, WLWT announced that they would partner with WLW radio to provide news and weather for that station. WLWT provided news and weather for the station for years when they were both Crosley stations, but eventual separate ownerships of the two stations led to WLW radio using WKRC-TV for news and weather resources. As a consequence, WLWT's news and weather will also be heard nationwide on WLW's XM Satellite Radio channel, at channel 173.

Digital television

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

Digital channels

Analog-to-digital conversion

After the analog television shutdown scheduled for February 17, 2009^[1], WLWT will remain at channel 35 ^[2] using PSIP to display WLWT's virtual channel as 5. NBC Weather Plus ceased network operation in late 2008.^[3]

The Power Of 5 Weather Team

WLWT's team of meteorologists consist of Chief Meteorologist Derek Beasley (AMS/CBM) & (NWA), meteorologist John Bateman (AMS) & (NWA), meteorologist Eric Green (AMS/CBM), meteorologist Randi Rico, and newly hired Valarie Abati (formerly of WXIX-TV and KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh). All five meteorologists have degrees in meteorology; Derek Beasley (University of Oklahoma), John Bateman (Rutgers University), Eric Green (St. Cloud State University), Randi Rico (Ohio University), and Valarie Abati (Penn State). WLWT bills their 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 their Cincinnati radar which is a live radar manufactured by RadTech. WLWT uses Baron Services FasTrac Millennium and VIPIR radar software. In 2008 WLWT obtained exclusive rights to use Gibson Ridge Software's GR2Analyst radar software for on-air use, which provides 3-D volumetric presentations of National Weather Service Nexrad Level II Data. WLWT bills this radar as the Power Of Five XP.

WLWT also has historically had a high rate of chief meteorologist turnover - it has had six chief meteorologists in the past ten years: Tom Burse, Dave Fraser, Angelique Frame, Byron Webre, Jim O’Brien and Derek Beasley.

WLWT airs NBC Weather Plus on digital channel 5.2.

Cincinnati Reds on WLWT

The first Cincinnati Reds was broadcast in 1947 on W8XCT, which in February 1948 became WLWT-TV. WLWT was the flagship station of the 5 state Reds Television Network from 1948 thru 1995. After 47 years of broadcasting Reds games, WLWT did not renew its contract, citing economic reasons along with pressure from NBC [3]. Waite Hoyt was the original announcer on WLWT, a simulcast with WLW Radio. George Bryson 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[4]

See Also List of Cincinnati Reds broadcasters

Newscasts

News 5 is WLWT's news operation. The team is led by Sandra Ali, Sheree Paolello and Derek Beasley as Chief Meteorologist. It is popular in Cincinnati for its Target 5 investigations.

Trivia

Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into appropriate sections or articles. (August 2008)

• The transmission tower seen at the beginning of CBS's popular sitcom, WKRP in Cincinnati, actually belonged to WLWT — it was located at the now-former WLWT transmitter on 2222 Chickasaw Street. [5]
• WLWT sponsors an annual race in the Automobile Racing Club of America, a stock car racing series similar to NASCAR, at Kentucky Speedway. The station simulcasts the live coverage from the Speed Channel.
• WLWT is the only Cincinnati station to remain with its primary affiliation (NBC) since sign on,
• WLWT's branding used to be "Eyewitness News 5" until 2004. In the 1970s the news was called, Action 5 News and for a brief period, "The" News.

Notable WLWT Alumni

• Jerry Springer (anchor, now host of his own talk show, host of "America's Got Talent" on NBC, and the British version of "The Moment of Truth")
• Norma Rashid [ on Medical Disability due to rare stress induced Heart Condition.]
• Candice Hunter(evening anchor, now at the ABC 22/FOX 45 duopoly in Dayton,OH)
• Pete Scalia(traffic, now at WKEF/WRGT in Dayton,OH)
• Felicia Ferguson
• Pat Barry(weather) (now on WXIX)
• Charlie Luken
• Tom Burse Chief Meteorologist SNN6 Sarasota
• Jim O'Brien (Chief Meteorologist from 2004-2007, Now Morning Meteorologist at WXIN in Indianapolis)
• Mike Nichols (weekends and reporter) from 2001-2004.
• Bill Hemmer (Sports 1980's Later Hosted CNN Mornings, now co-host of "America's Newsroom" at Fox News Channel)
• Thom Brennaman (Sports 1980's Later joined his father Marty as announcer for the Cincinnati Reds)
• Kristen Cornett (weather 2001-2006) then worked with NBC Weather Plus, now weekend weather at KMOV, St. Louis
• Peter Grant (anchor til late 1960s)
• Toria Tolley (reporter 1980s, went to CNN 1990)
• Ann Reskin (midday news anchor 1980s;)
• Frank Pierce (weather, 1960-1972)
• Tony Sands (chief meteorologist, mid 1950's-mid 1980s)
• Ken Torrey (meteorologist, 1972-1978)
• Steve Horstmeyer (meteorologist 1977-1989, went to WKRC-TV (1989-2008), now chief meteorologist at WXIX-TV)
• Mel "Martin" Dibble (1914-2002) Established morning show format; worked with Rod Serling
• Steve Physioc (Sports, early 80's)
• Solomon Wilcots (Sports, 1990's)
• J. D. Hayworth (Sports, 1986-1987,[6] went to KTSP-TV (now KSAZ-TV), Phoenix, then Congress; currently talk show host at KFYI, Phoenix.)
• Steve Douglas (anchor, 1970-1976; killed in a lightweight plane accident in 1976)
• Tom Atkins (anchor, 1966-1977)
• Betsy Ross (anchor, now sports reporter on WXIX)
• Byron Webre (chief meteorologist, now chief meteorolgist at KEYE-TV, Austin, Texas)
• Anne Marie Tiernon (anchor, 2000-2004, now evening anchor at WTHR, Indianapolis)
• Emily Longnecker (reporter, now at WTHR, Indianapolis)

References

External links

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

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