WEWS-TV

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WEWS (Channel 5) is the local ABC network affiliate in Cleveland, Ohio. It has been owned by the E. W. Scripps Company since its inception; the call letters denote the initials of the parent company's founder. Its transmitter is located in Parma, Ohio. Since the 1990s, the station has been known on-air as NewsChannel 5.

History

WEWS first went on the air on December 17, 1947 as the first television station in Ohio. Its first broadcast was of The Cleveland Press Christmas pageant (not surprisingly, Scripps-Howard owned The Cleveland Press). 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).

File:WEWSearlycard.jpg

Early station identification slide

WEWS was originally a CBS affiliate, but it lost the affiliation to WJW-TV in 1955 (after Storer Broadcasting purchased WJW and used its influence with CBS to land the affiliation). 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.

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.

WEWS also offered a 90-minute afternoon variety show The One O'Clock Club weekdays hosted by Bill Gordon and Dorothy Fuldheim. The program was so popular that competitor KYW-TV was prompted to organize a competing variety show which was the beginning of The Mike Douglas Show.

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. Artists who appeared on Upbeat included Aretha Franklin, The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, Otis Redding, Stevie Wonder and hundreds of others. 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.

The other program seen throughout the country was Polka Varieties, an hour-long program of polka music. 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. The original host was Tom Fletcher, but Paul Wilcox hosted the show for most of its run.

The station would often pre-empt a few daytime morning ABC shows until the late 1980s.

Since the early 1990s, WEWS has run most of the shows on ABC's lineup.

The callsign was changed from WEWS to WEWS-TV on July 24, 1979 [1].

The Morning Exchange

One program in particular, The Morning Exchange, which ran from 1972 until 1999, changed the face of morning television. The Morning Exchange was the first morning show that used the "Living Room" set. The format also was 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 was so successful that ABC used the Morning Exchange as the pilot for the nationally broadcast Good Morning America, replacing the struggling A.M. America. The format quickly caught on and soon GMA topped the Today Show on NBC.

WEWS continued to air the Morning Exchange from 7 to 9 AM instead of Good Morning America until 1978. In 1978, WEWS began airing one hour of GMA from 7 to 8, and then aired the Morning Exchange from 8 to 10. Slowly, however, as GMA went through different presenter lineups, ratings declined and viewers began moving back to Today, which had by this time taken the same format as GMA.

ABC struggled with advertising because it could not pitch to sponsors that the show was broadcast in the top 25 markets. The only market not broadcasting the full show was Cleveland. Therefore, in 1994, ABC stuck a deal with Scripps Howard, giving the company a large kickback in exchange for broadcasting the full 2 hours of GMA.

That move was devastating to the Morning Exchange. It was pushed back to 9-11 AM, thus totally missing the commuter rush-hour crowd. Additionally, the show's original target audience, stay-at-home women, had nearly disappeared since the show's original debut as more women entered the workforce.

In 1997, WEWS began airing Live with Regis and Kathy Lee from 9-10am and the Morning Exchange from 10am-12noon. However, it was interrupted half way through with the then 30-minute Martha Stewart show.

In 1998, major changes occurred when the show's title was changed to "Today's Morning Exchange" and reduced to one hour. Fred Griffith, who hosted the show since 1972 was "demoted" to a simple field reporter and energetic weathercaster Mark Johnson took his place, along with former FOX 8 in the Morning host Robin Swoboda.

In 1999, WEWS announced that after 27 years, the Morning Exchange would be going off the air. The last program featured "MX Moments" from over the years as well as live hookups with some of the hosts of morning shows that used the MX format, including Good Morning America and Live with Regis. When Charles Gibson of GMA came on, he told Fred Griffith, "How very odd," referring to the fact that the Morning Exchange helped to create Good Morning America and now essentially, GMA led to the downfall of MX.

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.

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 Channel 3, the first half-hour newscast in Cleveland. Instead of going with a hard-hitting format (which WKYC was already using), 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.

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. Ted Henry, who joined WEWS in 1972 as a behind-the-scenes producer, presented the weather segment. (In later years, Henry would admit that he, not knowing the slightest about forecasting, simply made up the forecast every day.)

Catch 5

Further into the decade, station executives began to formulate the idea of promoting the newscasts with a jingle, much in the same way of what other types of products were doing. As such, in 1974, they approached Frank Gari, a singer during the 1950s and 60s and composer of numerous jingles, to write a promotional campaign for the station. To complement the jingle, Gari also agreed to produce a related musical theme for the newscasts, while the station shot the video segments itself to accompany the campaign. Later that year, Catch 5, Gari's first news music package and television image campaign, debuted on the station with huge success. Catch 5 caught on in Cleveland, and WEWS became the market's number-one news station.

The Catch 5 promo highlighted the new anchor team on Eyewitness News. Hambrick continued to anchor the news, now joined by Dave Patterson. 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, lead weekday anchor with Patterson. (Henry continues to be lead anchor to this day.)

Live on Five

WEWS's news department underwent another major change in 1984. Previously, the 5pm-6pm 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.

NewsChannel 5

Over the next few years, Ted Henry anchored Eyewitness News alone. Meanwhile, WJW’s NewsCenter 8, which was launched in 1977, began to creep into the #1 spot in the ratings. WEWS decided that a new approach was needed to regain the top spot. In 1990, the Eyewitness News format was dropped, and the station began identifying itself as NewsChannel 5. The main concept behind NewsChannel 5 was “The 24 Hour NewsSource.” This concept had WEWS not only producing full newscasts at the regular time slots, but also mini-newscasts at the top of every hour.

For the first half of the 1990s, WEWS and WJW competed fiercely for the number-one position. That, however, changed in 1995, when WJW became a Fox affiliate and and adopted a more hard-hitting format for its newscasts, leading to many of its viewers changing channels to WEWS. Meanwhile, WKYC and WOIO (the new CBS affiliate) failed to present much substantial competition at all, resulting in WEWS returning to the top spot.

WEWS got a new set and a new newsroom in 1998. More noticeable, however, was the dropping of the station's original “Circle 5” logo.

WEWS retained the top spot until 2001, when WJW began resurfacing as the leader once again. 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. 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.

By August 2004, WEWS removed many of the flashy graphics, swoosh sounds, and anchor movement from their newscasts. Slowly, WEWS began to regain some viewers. In May 2005, WKYC tried to put more “happy” stories on their newscasts and began suffering in the ratings. By July 2005, WEWS had the second highest morning show, top noon show, top 5PM newscast, and top 6PM newscast.

Currently, WEWS has the following newscasts:

• Monday - Friday:
  • 5:00-7:00am: Good Morning Cleveland
  • 12:00noon-1:00pm: NewsChannel 5 at Noon (the second half is a combination of news and general interest)
  • 5:00-6:00pm: Live On Five
  • 6:00-6:30pm: NewsChannel 5 at 6
  • 11:00-11:35pm: NewsChannel 5 at 11

• Saturday and Sunday
  • 6:00-6:30pm: NewsChannel 5 at 6
  • 11:00-11:35pm: NewsChannel 5 at 11

In addition, these weekend sports shows air:

• Saturday:
  • 11:35pm-12:00mid: McDonald's Sports Saturday: Tribe Edition

• Sunday:
  • 11:35pm-12:00mid: Toyota Sports Sunday

Contact Information

Address:
3001 Euclid Avenue
Cleveland, Ohio, 44115

References

• Station History from WEWS Website

External links

• WEWS
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