WEWS-TV
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WEWS-TV, channel 5, is the local ABC network affiliate in Cleveland, Ohio. Its studios are located on Euclid Avenue in downtown Cleveland, with its transmitter located in Parma, Ohio. Since September 3, 1990, the station has been known on-air as NewsChannel 5. WEWS-TV's signal is picked up in places such as Youngstown, Akron, Canton, and reaches as far as Toledo. When atmospheric conditions are right, WEWS has been picked up as far away as Detroit, Michigan.
WEWS has been owned by The E. W. Scripps Company (formerly Scripps-Howard) since its inception; the call letters denote the initials of the parent company's founder. The station is the oldest in Cleveland to maintain the same channel position, ownership and call letters since their sign-on.
History
Origins of WEWS
WEWS first went on the air on December 17, 1947[1] as the first licensed television station in Ohio. Its first broadcast was of a Christmas pageant run by the station's corporate cousin, The Cleveland Press.[1] In short order, WEWS became the most modern television station in America. Its staff included capable producers Jim Breslin and Betty Cope (the latter of whom would become president of WVIZ in 1965).
In October 1948, WEWS, still Cleveland's only television station, broadcast the 1948 World Series games played in Cleveland between the Indians and the Boston Braves.[1] The telecasts were fed to stations throughout the midwest (but could not fed to Boston or the east since there was not yet a coaxial cable connection east of Cleveland).
WEWS was originally a CBS affiliate with secondary ABC and DuMont affiliations, but it lost the CBS affiliation to WJW-TV in 1955 (after Storer Broadcasting used its influence with CBS to land the affiliation). It lost the DuMont affiliation when that network ceased operations.
Notable Local Programming
In its early days as an ABC affiliate, the station had to produce its own shows in the afternoon due to a lack of ABC network programming in that day part. WEWS had a lot of shows to offer, a tradition that would continue for many years.
Early Shows
Among the local programming offered during the 1950s and 1960s was news analysis from Dorothy Fuldheim, children's programming featuring the "Uncle Jake" character played by Gene Carroll and the "Captain Penny" character played by Ron Penfound, and exercise programs with Paige Palmer.
Alice Weston had the one of first live television cooking shows, and Barbara Plummer was "Miss Barbara" for a generation of young viewers on the local version of Romper Room. The most popular show was the Gene Carroll show which began in the 1950s and ran well into the 1970s. The program aired every Sunday at noon. The show showcased the local talent of Cleveland area.[1]
WEWS also offered a 90-minute afternoon variety show The One O'Clock Club weekdays hosted by Bill Gordon and Dorothy Fuldheim.[1] The program was so popular that competitor KYW-TV (now WKYC-TV) was prompted to organize a competing variety show which was the beginning of The Mike Douglas Show.
"Upbeat"
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, WEWS produced two programs that enjoyed national exposure through syndication. The first program was Upbeat. Considered by some to be one of the most significant early rock and roll TV variety shows, Upbeat featured a live audience, a group of dancers and live (or lip-synched) performances by the big names of the era.[1]
Artists who appeared on Upbeat included Aretha Franklin, The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, Otis Redding, Stevie Wonder and hundreds of others. In fact, Redding's final appearance ever came on the show on December 9, 1967. The next afternoon, his twin-engine airplane crashed in the icy waters of Lake Monona in Madison, Wisconsin, killing all but one of the eight passengers on board.
The program began locally as The Big 5 Show, and the name was changed to Upbeat when it went national, altogether running from 1964 to 1971. The host was local station personality Don Webster. At its peak, Upbeat was seen in over 100 television markets.
"Polka Varieties"
The other program seen throughout the country was "Polka Varieties," an hour-long program of polka music.[1] "Polka Varieties" ran locally on Sunday afternoons from 1:00 to 2:00 from 1956 to 1975, and was syndicated during its later years to 30 television markets. The program featured various popular Polish, Italian and Bohemian-style bands.
America's Polka King Frankie Yankovic was the original band to perform on the show. Other bands included Richie Vadnal, George Staiduhar, Markic-Zagger, and Hank Haller. Original host Tom Fletcher was replaced by Paul Wilcox, whose presence became an indelible part of the show.
The Cavaliers Television Network
In 1970, WEWS became the broadcast rights holder of the Cleveland Cavaliers. Channel 5's partnership with the team continued until 1973, when the Cavaliers moved to then-independent station WUAB (channel 43).
The Morning Exchange
One program in particular, The Morning Exchange, which ran from 1972 until 1999, changed the face of morning television. It was the first morning show to utilize a "living room" set, and the first to establish the now familiar concept of news and weather at the top and bottom of the hour. During its peak in the 1970s, nearly 70% of all TV sets in Cleveland were tuned to the program. The format also served as a basis for ABC's Good Morning America.[1]
Newscasts
WEWS started covering news events soon after it went on air. The winter after it went on air, Cleveland experienced a blizzard, and for the first time WEWS had extended coverage for hours. During the early and mid-50s, WEWS's first newscasts and weather reports were delivered by Tom Field.
Dorothy Fuldheim
In 1959, Dorothy Fuldheim, who had been with the station before it even went on air, began to formulate her own newscast in response to the new 30-minute newscast on KYW, the first half-hour newscast in the country.[citation needed] Fuldheim utterly hated hard-hitting newscasts such as the one KYW had created.[citation needed]
Instead, Fuldheim centered her newscast around her interviews, a general overview of the news, and her commentaries (during which the very opinionated Fuldheim frequently inserted her own opinions about the stories). Fuldheim was the first female in the United States to have her own television news analysis program.
"Eyewitness News"
With the arrival of the 1970s, WEWS changed the format of its newscasts slightly to a version of Eyewitness News. Fuldheim was now joined by John Hambrick as a co-anchor. In 1970, Dave Patterson joined Hambrick on the early news cast and then became co-anchor on the 11PM newscast in 1971. Ted Henry, who joined WEWS in 1972 as a behind-the-scenes producer, got his start on the air later in the 70's as a weekend weatherman. (In later years, Henry would admit that he, not knowing the slightest about forecasting, simply made up the forecast every day.[citation needed])
1972 was also the year that Bill Jacocks, said to be Cleveland's first regularly scheduled African-American anchorman,[2] joined WEWS. Jacocks started as Assistant Public Affairs Director and became weekend anchor in January 1975. For a solid decade (1975-1985) Jacocks remained the one constant weekend anchor while many co-anchors came and went. Among those doing their first Cleveland co-anchor stints with Jacocks were Tim Taylor and Wilma Smith.
"Catch 5"
Further into the decade, the station commissioned musician Frank Gari to create a promotional campaign song. Catch 5, as it was known, caught on in Cleveland.
The Catch 5 promo highlighted the new anchor team on Eyewitness News. Hambrick and Patterson continued to anchor the newscasts until Hambrick left for California in 1975. This era marked the start of dominance for the WEWS news programs that lasted until well into the 80's. Fuldheim’s role decreased as she only presented her interviews and commentaries on the air. Don Webster presented the weather and Gib Shanley was the sports director. At that time, Ted Henry became the weekend anchor, and then a year later in 1975, co-anchor on the weekday evening newscasts with Patterson. (Henry continues to be lead anchor to this day.)
"Live on Five"
WEWS's news department underwent another major change in 1982. Previously, the 5 p.m.-6 p.m. spot was occupied by The Afternoon Exchange, the afternoon companion to The Morning Exchange. That year, the program adopted a new format, and was renamed to Live on Five.
The broadcast was originally hosted by Wilma Smith and Don Webster, and retained many elements from The Afternoon Exchange, such as interviews, movie reviews, health reports, and some cooking segments. Added to the mix were frequent news reports by Ted Henry. While the actual Eyewitness News broadcasts kept the Catch 5 theme music, Live on Five used a version of Hello News (also composed by Frank Gari) with a Catch 5 signature as its theme music. With that, the Catch 5 promo was replaced with a Hello Cleveland promo.
In 1986, WEWS dropped the Catch 5 music altogether, and adopted Gari’s Good News music package while Live on Five used the original version of Hello News (without the Catch 5 signature). Finally, in 1987, Live on Five became much more news-oriented, and the Hello news theme and image campaign were dropped & used an upbeat verson of "Good News"
NewsChannel 5
In 1977 weekend anchor Tim Taylor left WEWS for weeknight anchor duties at "NewsCenter 8", WJW-TV, where he remained for 28 years. As NewsCenter 8 became more and more successful throughout the 80s,[citation needed] WEWS began facing competition for the first time in years. According to Ted Henry,[citation needed] towards the end of the 80s, management felt that the station could produce a better newscast and overcome WJW by using a format other than Eyewitness News. An outside source was brought in and concurred that the station could do a better job in news production by adapting a new format. The analysis added that the Eyewitness News format gave nothing to viewers which suggested that its news was any better than the other stations'.[citation needed] With this in mind, WEWS began developing a format which would involve the production of full newscasts at the regular time slots, and in addition, mini-newscasts at the top of every hour, even overnight. This concept was dubbed “The 24 Hour NewsSource” as a way to suggest that WEWS was better than other stations since it produced a newscast every hour. In 1990, the new format was put into place and the station began identifying itself as NewsChannel 5.
From 1990 until 1993, WEWS and WJW continued battling for the top rated spot. In 1993, WEWS launched a successful campaign called "Together" which reminded viewers of the station's commitment to Cleveland through news and programming since its 1947 launch and that that same commitment was present today. The campaign also slightly toned down the newscasts by making them less hard-hitting. As a result, WEWS once again emerged as the market leader in news.[citation needed] In 1994, WJW became a Fox affiliate and adopted a more hard-hitting format for its newscasts, leading to many of its viewers changing channels to WEWS.[citation needed] Meanwhile, WKYC and WOIO (the new CBS affiliate) failed to present much substantial competition at all. However, WJW soon began regaining viewers due to the fact that it was able to produce longer local newscasts since FOX had less programming than the other networks. In response, WEWS began promoting its news division as "The Most Watched News Team in Ohio" in hope that the bandwagon effect would keep viewers tuned to its newscasts. In 1997, WEWS began to lose more viewers,[citation needed] this time to WKYC, when former WUAB anchor Romona Robinson moved to WKYC. At this time WEWS discontinued its hourly “24 Hour NewsSource” updates.
To try to prevent more viewers from leaving, WEWS got a new set and a new newsroom in 1998 and adopted "On Your Side" as its slogan (which it currently still uses). More noticeable, however, was the dropping of the station's longtime “Circle 5” logo. That year, WEWS also became the first TV station in Cleveland to launch a website NewsNet5.
WEWS retained the top spot until 2001,[citation needed] when WJW began resurfacing as the leader once again. Additionally, Live on Five, which dominated the 5 p.m. hour for years, suffered dramatically because at the end of WEWS's 4 p.m. broadcast of Oprah many viewers switched to WKYC's 5 p.m. broadcast of Dr. Phil. This in turn resulted in many viewers watching WKYC's 6 p.m. newscast,[citation needed] which caused further ratings declines at WEWS. It should be noted that WEWS had the chance to broadcast Dr. Phil (as WEWS is loyal to the show's syndicator, King World) but turned it down in order to keep Live on Five on the air. WEWS decided once again to change its format to compete. In September 2002, WEWS adopted a harder-hitting format that mimicked many of the elements of WJW’s newscasts. It also dropped its weekend morning and weekend noon newscasts. When the station failed to regain viewers, WEWS saw that an even bigger change was needed.
In January 2004, a completely different NewsChannel 5 debuted to compete with WJW. The format was unlike any previous Cleveland newscast.[citation needed] Rather than staying at the main anchor desk, the anchors moved around the set reporting stories while standing, sitting at small tables, or in front of a “video wall.” This was all complemented by a set made up mostly of flat screen TVs flashing the new NewsChannel 5 logo. On screen, stories would transition with flashy graphics and swooshing sounds. By this time, however, WJW had lost its number one spot to the more traditional WKYC. Therefore, the newscast WEWS created to compete with WJW now was competing against a completely different type of broadcast.
Due to the new style, WEWS experienced sharp ratings declines.[citation needed] As a result, in June 2004, Lynn Heider, WEWS's news director since 1998, resigned. She was replaced by John Butte who by that August eliminated many of the flashy graphics, swoosh sounds, and anchor movement from the newscasts. Butte also significantly expanded the length and content of the sports segments on all of the newscasts. Slowly, WEWS began to regain some viewers. In May 2005, WKYC lost its market dominance in the ratings and thus WEWS's ratings improved. In August 2005, Ric Harris, station general manager and vice president since 2001, left WEWS for a position with NBC's digital media sector. On February 8, 2006, Scripps named John Butte the permanent general manager and vice president of WEWS. Scripps cited the fact that as the news director, Butte helped WEWS grow stronger as part of the reason for the decision. Butte is the eighth general manager of WEWS.
In the November 2006 ratings period, WEWS came in third in the mornings, while its 6 p.m. newscast came in a very close second behind WJW. Its 11 p.m. newscast placed last in its timeslot. In 2007, WEWS began celebrating its 60th year on the air. On January 7, 2007 at 11:00 p.m., WEWS began broadcasting newscasts in High Definition, following the lead of other Cleveland television stations WJW and WKYC.
In August 2007, Kimberly Gill came to Newschannel5 to co-anchor Good Morning Cleveland with Paul Kiska. This was the first time since the departure of Adam Shapiro, that GMC has had two permanent anchors. They, along with Susanne Horgan and Trisha Skidmore complete the Good Morning Cleveland Team.
WEWS reporters and camera personnel ride in Saturn Vues with the station's logos on them.WEWS also uses a Bell 206 helicopter for aerial and traffic coverage.The helicopter looks like WABC-TV with the Circle 5 logo on it. In the air, it is a blue color.
Logos and Imaging
From sometime in the 1960s [3] to about 1998, WEWS' logo was known as the "circle 5," a variant of the circle 7 logo associated mainly with large-market ABC owned-and-operated stations. The only real change to the logo came in 1995, when it was slightly tilted to the right. The original "5" logo is still used by sister station WPTV, the NBC affiliate for West Palm Beach, Florida, though they too modified their circle 5 logo with the debut of their high definition newscast.
Although WABC, and KABC are O&O by ABC and WEWS is owned by Scripps Howard (as well as WXYZ, a former ABC O&O), WEWS decided to harmonize their graphics and theme to ABC O&O standards to coincide with their debut of high-definition newscasts. In January 2007, WEWS returned to a slightly modified, more angular version of the old "circle 5" logo - this time with the current silver-and-blue color scheme similar to ABC O&O station logos and WXYZ. [4]
WEWS also now uses Frank Gari's Eyewitness News 2007 theme music like ABC O&O stations, even though that branding has not been used since 1990. KABC-TV Los Angeles and WABC-TV New York City use also the same theme for their newscasts. In addition to this, WABC-TV, KABC-TV, and WEWS-TV all share the same graphics, idents and news introduction sequences.
This harmonizing of station imaging is not necessarily new, as WEWS once incorporated ABC's "Still the One" slogan into their Catch 5 campaign. Throughout the 70s and 80s, the original "Circle 5" logo would also be used as a subsitution for the "Circle 7" logo in promotional sequences commissioned for ABC O&Os. In addition, Ernie Anderson - one of ABC-TV's promotional voices and a legendary figure in Cleveland television history - was WEWS' imaging voice for the opening sequences of "Eyewitness News" - duties that he shared with ABC O&Os WABC-TV and KABC-TV, both of which employed the same branding and intros.
Coverage in Canada
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 WKYC-TV and WJW/WJKW-TV, until 2000 when Cogeco displaced Shaw Cable as the cable provider for Essex County. WEWS may have also been on cable in London, Ontario.
Digital Channels
| Channel | Programming |
|---|---|
| 5.1 / 15.1 | Main WEWS Programming |
Personalities
Anchors
- Paul Kiska - Co-Anchor Good Morning Cleveland
- Kimberly Gill - Co-Anchor Good Morning Cleveland
- Alicia Booth - Co-Anchor NewsChannel5 @ Noon
- Lee Jordan - Co-Anchor NewsChannel5 @ Noon & "Live on 5"
- Leon Bibb - Co-Anchor "Live on 5"
- Ted Henry - Co-Anchor NewsChannel5 @ 6 & NewsChannel5 @ 11 "On the Nightbeat"
- Danita Harris - Co-Anchor NewsChannel5 @ 6 & NewsChannel5 @ 11 "On the Nightbeat"
- Tracy Carloss - Co-Anchor NewsChannel5 Weekend Evenings
- Curtis Jackson - Co-Anchor NewsChannel5 Weekend Evenings
The Power of 5 Meteorologists
- Mark Johnson (AMS/NWA) - Chief Meteorologist - "Live on 5," NewsChannel5 @ 6, & NewsChannel5 @ 11 "On the Nightbeat"
- Suzanne Horgan - Good Morning Cleveland & NewsChannel5 @ Noon
- Jason Nicholas (AMS/NWA) - NewsChannel5 Weekend Evenings
- Jeff Mackel - Weekend Mornings & Fill-In
Sports
- Andy Baskin - Sports Director
- Terry Brooks - Anchor/Reporter
- Sue Ann Robak - Anchor/Reporter
- Reggie Rucker - Browns Analyst
- Gib Shanley - Commentator on Sports Sunday
Reporters
- Lorna Barrett
- Joy Benedict- Good Morning Cleveland
- Alicia Booth - Anchor/Health Reporter
- Jonathan Costen - Akron Bureau Reporter
- Lee Jordan - Anchor/Health Reporter
- Pete Kenworthy - Akron Bureau Chief
- John Kosich - Afternoon Helicopter Reporter
- Angie Lau - Consumer Specialist
- Debra Lee - Education Reporter
- Carolina Leid- Newschannel5 @ 11 "On the Nightbeat"
- Jack "Air" Marschall - Morning Helicopter Reporter
- Joe Pagonakis - Troubleshooter
- Ron Regan - Investigator
- Trisha Skidmore - Traffic/Transit Reporter--Good Morning Cleveland
- Duane Pohlman - Chief Investigator
- Alicia Scicolone
Past Personalities
Some WEWS TV news personalities have made it to national and international news channels.
- Orlando Salinas - WEWS reporter from 1995-2002, he went to the Fox News Channel and now heads and reports from the Fox News Channel Miami-Florida Bureau
- Liz Claman - WEWS reporter/anchor from 1992-96, she went to CNBC and hosted CNBC's Morning Call with Michelle Caruso-Cabrera and Mark Haines until August 2007.
- Stephanie "Sissy" Schaefer - WEWS reporter/anchor from 1999-2006. She left in September 2006 for NBC-TVs iVillage Live show, which premiered on December 2006. On the iVillage show, she was named Sissy Schaefer. Due to the show being canceled and moved to Chicago with new hosts, Schaefer returned to Cleveland TV in September 2007 as a morning co-anchor on WJW.
- Court Stanton - Booth Announcer into the early 1970's, one of several voices most associated with WEWS. Voice of Upbeat.
- Ralph Gunderman - Booth Announcer into the late 1970's, Gunderman became one of the country's top free-lance voice-over announcers for the NBC-TV network. One of the off-camera voices of Polka Varieties.
- David Mark - the last full-time Booth Announcer in Cleveland, leaving WEWS in 1990 and the last off-camera voice of Polka Varieties. He became the promotional voice of many Fox and UPN-TV network stations across the country, as well as becoming one of the country's major free-lance and voice-over announcers.
- Bill Ward - Booth Announcer for several years in the 1970's and one of the off-camera voices of Polka Varieties, moved to Los Angeles to become a free-lance announcer, then returned to Cleveland where he became the announcer for WJW/WJKW-TV and a major free-lance announcer.
References
See also
External links