WJW
Encyclopedia
WJW, channel 8, is a Fox
-affiliated television station in Cleveland, Ohio
. WJW is owned by Local TV LLC, a subsidiary of private equity firm Oak Hill Capital Partners. Its studios are located northeast of downtown Cleveland, near the shore of Lake Erie
, and its transmitter is located in Parma, Ohio
.
Digital channels >
Channel
Video
Aspect
Programming
8.1
720p
16:9
Main WJW programming / Fox
8.2
480i
4:3
Antenna TV
As part of the analog television shutdown and digital conversion was completed, WJW shut down its analog transmitter on June 12, 2009, and moved its digital broadcasts back to channel 8.
WJW is a charter affiliate of Tribune Broadcasting
's new digital multicast channel Antenna TV
, which is carried on digital subchannel 8.2. The network, airing classic sitcoms from the 1950s to the 1990s during the afternoon, evening and late nights, with movies during the morning hours, is carried on Local TV-owned stations in other markets as well as stations owned by the network's parent company Tribune Broadcasting.
in West Palm Beach, FL), owned by the Empire Coil Company, a wartime
manufacturer of radio coils and transformers (http://home.comcast.net/~kptv/History/history.htm). In its early years, WXEL was a primary DuMont
affiliate, and later became a secondary provider of ABC
programs, sharing that affiliation with WEWS (channel 5). WXEL also carried a number of CBS programs that WEWS declined to air.
WXEL also carried an affiliation with the short-lived Paramount Television Network
, and in fact was one of that network's strongest affiliates. The station aired such Paramount Network programs as Hollywood Wrestling, Bandstand Revue, and Time For Beany. During the late 1950s, the station was also briefly affiliated with the NTA Film Network
.
Following the 1952 release of the Federal Communications Commission
' s Sixth Report and Order, a realignment of VHF channels in the Midwest forced WXEL to move to channel 8 on December 10, 1953. Its former channel 9 allocation was moved to Steubenville
and given to a new station, WSTV-TV (now WTOV); the switch took place only two weeks before WSTV-TV went on the air.
In 1954 Empire Coil sold two of its television interests—WXEL and KPTV
in Portland, Oregon
, the United States' first UHF station—to Storer Broadcasting
. George B. Storer, the company's founder and president, was a member of the board of directors of CBS
, and used his influence to take the CBS television affiliation from WEWS in March 1955. Storer changed channel 8's call letters to WJW-TV on April 15, 1956, to match sister station of WJW radio (AM 850, frequency now occupied by WKNR
; and FM 104.1, now WQAL
). The WJW stations later moved into the former Esquire Theater building at 1630 Euclid Avenue, near Playhouse Square.
, previously at WAKR
radio in Akron
, worked for WXEL starting in 1949. Freed hosted an afternoon movie and performed live commercials for several years before he became the self-titled father of "rock and roll
" while as an evening host on WJW radio, before moving on to radio jobs in New York City
. Soupy Sales
, then known as Soupy Hines, had a weekday variety program called Soup's On where he started his pie-in-the-face routines.
The station also broadcast a popular and unique 11:00 p.m. newscast, The Sohio Reporter, featuring a Western Reserve University
speech professor named Warren Guthrie who delivered the entire newscast from memory, speaking directly into the camera long before the days of the teleprompter
. In 1960, WJW-TV became the broadcast rights holder of the Cleveland Indians
. Channel 8's partnership with the team continued until 1979, when the Indians moved to then-independent station WUAB
(channel 43). WJW also carried Indians games that were part of the CBS, and later, Fox network packages of Major League Baseball
games.
In 1964, WJW-TV was one of the first stations to use a two-man news anchor team, Joel Daly
and Doug Adair
, in the studio together. The newscast was called City Camera News, and reporters were equipped with Polaroid cameras
to photograph news events, so that pictures could be quickly broadcast when they returned to the studio. Station programming also featured Adventure Road hosted by Jim Doney, which presented filmed travelogues narrated by the filmmakers. Daly and Adair reigned as Cleveland's top news team until 1967, when Daly was hired away by WLS-TV
in Chicago
. Adair remained at channel 8 until the early 1970s, when he joined WKYC-TV
(channel 3), which was then owned by NBC
. Later in 1964, WJW-TV was the first full CBS affiliate in Ohio, and the first Cleveland TV station, to start local color broadcasts.
One of the most memorable programs produced by WJW-TV was the Friday late night horror movie hosted by "Ghoulardi
", a character created by Ernie Anderson
. Wearing a bad fright wig and phony beard and a pair of sunglasses with only one lens, he interacted with the movies and created an on-going patter and rehearsed skits during the movie breaks. The program began in February 1963 and created a generation of fans who could recite catch phrases such as "Turn Blue", "Stay Sick", "Camera Four" and "Ova Dey." Before Ghoulardi, Anderson had a weekday morning program on channel 8 starting in 1961 called Ernie's Place with sidekick Tim Conway
(then credited as "Tom Conway"), that included live skits reminiscent of Bob and Ray
.
When Anderson left for lucrative voice-over work in Hollywood in September 1966, Friday night movie hosting was inherited by Hoolihan and Big Chuck: "Hoolihan" being Bob Wells
, who did the station weather forecasts as "Hoolihan the Weatherman"; and "Big Chuck" being Chuck Schodowski, a station engineer who had risen to director and had appeared in some of Ghoulardi's skits. After Bob Wells departed channel 8 in September 1979, his position was filled by local jeweler and little person
John Rinaldi, who had also previously performed in skits on the show. The program was renamed as the Big Chuck and Lil' John Show, and it continued airing on Friday nights before moving to Saturday nights in the early 1990s. The show ended its run on June 16, 2007, as Chuck Schodowski retired after a 47-year career at channel 8. At the time of its conclusion, the Big Chuck and Lil' John Show had been the only locally produced television show in the Cleveland market that was primarily entertainment, that is not news or informational.
At the same time, the station hired former WKYC-TV and NBC Radio news anchor Virgil Dominic as its news and public affairs director (a position which he held until 1983 when he became the general manager for WJKW/WJW until his retirement in 1995), and also began to pump considerable money into its news operation. The name of the newscasts even underwent a transition as well, going from City Camera News to Newscenter 8 around the summer of 1977. Within a year, channel 8 had overtaken longtime leader WEWS as the highest-rated news station in Cleveland – a lead it kept for almost 20 years. On September 16, 1985, it regained its historic "WJW-TV" calls as WJW radio changed its call letters following another ownership transaction (The "-TV" suffix was dropped in 1998, making WJW one of three television stations with a three-letter callsign, along with KGW
in Portland, Oregon
and WIS
in Columbia, South Carolina
, to have omitted the suffix since the 1990s; KOB
in Albuquerque, New Mexico
dropped the suffix in 2009).
After Storer Broadcasting was bought out by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts in 1985, the station underwent a series of ownership changes. KKR sold the stations to Gillett Communications
in 1987; shortly thereafter, SCI Television was spun off from Gillett to take over the stations after Gillett's bankruptcy. New World Communications
purchased WJW-TV and the other SCI Television stations in 1993. Like most of its sister stations, channel 8 pre-empted portions of the CBS schedule, usually the late morning daytime shows. In the 1990s, WJW-TV and its fellow New World stations prepared to launch their own morning newscasts, and as a result, channel 8 began to pre-empt CBS This Morning as well. The station also gained notoriety in 1993 by being one of the few CBS affiliates to tape-delay the Late Show with David Letterman
by half an hour in favor of Murphy Brown
reruns. Despite the preemptions, CBS was generally satisfied with WJW, which was one of the network's strongest affiliates.
, WJW-TV swapped affiliations with WOIO
(channel 19), taking that station's Fox affiliation. WJW's outgoing CBS affiliation went to WOIO. The station expanded its news production to over 40 hours a week. It initially filled local non-news time with such programming as low budget syndicated first-run talk/reality shows and off-network sitcoms. The major reason for Fox and New World's deal was that CBS had lost the rights
to air the National Football Conference
of the National Football League
to Fox
. However, the Cleveland Browns
were part of the American Football Conference
, which was on NBC
at that time. As a result, WJW only is guaranteed up to two Browns games each year, whenever they host an NFC team in the afternoon, but only if they sell out - the 1994 game against the Arizona Cardinals
did not sell out, neither did the 1995 games against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers
or Green Bay Packers
, and thus were blacked out locally. Since the opening of Cleveland Browns Stadium
, however, all games have sold out - the only interconference home game for the Browns not aired locally on WJW in that era was the 2003 game against the St. Louis Rams
, which aired on WEWS-TV
as part of ABC's Monday Night Football
. Since 2006, WJW has been the over-the-air home for Browns games aired on cable channels.
However, both Cleveland viewers and WJW realized a major weakness with the new affiliation in April 1995 at the time of the Oklahoma City bombing
. When the news broke, all of the other stations in Cleveland were able to switch to national network coverage of the attacks. At the time Fox had no centralized news division, and WJW was only aligned with CNN for external feeds and some international news coverage. WJW was able to send reporter Martin Savage to Oklahoma City to cover the attack; his coverage would lead to his hiring by CNN later that year to co-host a relaunched morning show. But, unlike all other stations that had network coverage, WJW could offer only limited recap coverage of the events on their newscasts.
Later that year, WJW dropped its "Newscenter 8" branding and adopted a hard-hitting format under the phrase "ei8ht is News" for the title of its newscasts. The "ei8ht" logo was itself a revival an old WJW logo used from 1966 until 1977. However, in many people's minds the phrase was used on the station a little too often (one Plain Dealer story even started, "some viewers [are] squawking that 'ei8ht is enough', already"), and even more people moved away from WJW's newscasts. The "ei8ht is News" branding ended upon Fox's purchase of the station, after which it was replaced by "Fox 8 News."
One triumph for WJW was the morning newscast. Without a national morning show, WJW could produce an all-local 3.5 hour morning newscast. Many Cleveland viewers preferred the local show over the other stations' national broadcasts. This was especially true since WEWS' long-standing Morning Exchange was preempted until 9 a.m. around the same time of the Fox/CBS switch. With the exception of a brief period from late 2004 through early 2005 when it was titled Good Day Cleveland, Fox 8 News in the Morning has constantly been Cleveland's top rated morning newscast since the time of its debut.
In 1997 Fox bought New World Communications, making WJW a Fox owned-and-operated station. Fox added stronger syndicated shows as well as stronger off-network sitcoms to the programming mix. In news programming, the station retook the top position from WEWS in 2001. By mid-2002, all of WJW's newscasts placed first. This continued until January 2004, when viewers began turning away from WJW's hard-hitting style to the more traditional WKYC-TV. Even Fox 8 in the Morning lost its top spot to WKYC's morning newscast for about two months. As a result of the overall decline, WJW replaced long time 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. lead anchors Wilma Smith and Tim Taylor with Bill Martin and Stacy Bell at 10 p.m., hoping the two would attract a younger audience to the program. The change paid off for channel 8, and today its newscasts frequently rank number-one in the important 18-49 demographic.
In 2006, WJW also debuted its new website - MyFox Cleveland, which follows a format that is also used by other Fox-owned stations. This lasted until the end of January 2009 – several months after Fox Television Stations sold the station and seven others – when WJW and six other former Fox O&O stations which previously used the myFox interface (plus co-owned NBC television affiliate WHO-TV
in Des Moines, Iowa
) launched redesigned Web sites through Tribune
Interactive. This was a result of a management agreement between Local TV and Tribune Broadcasting
, forming a separate division (controlled by Tribune) called Community Television (which became the licensee for seven of the former Fox O&Os), which operates all of the television stations owned by Local TV (until late June 2009, WBRC
in Birmingham
continued to use the myFox interface for its website even though that station is now a sister station to Raycom Media
-owned WOIO and WUAB
). Although its former radio sisters had dropped the WJW calls some years before, Fox dropped the -TV suffix from channel 8's legal callsign shortly after it assumed full ownership of the station (it had been minority owner of New World since the 1994 affiliation switch) although the station continued to use the -TV suffix on-air for several years afterward.
On December 22, 2007, the News Corporation announced that it had entered into an agreement to sell WJW-TV and seven other Fox-owned stations to Local TV LLC, a subsidiary of private equity firm Oak Hill Capital Partners. The sale was closed on July 14, 2008. Early in 2009, WJW began clearing the entire Fox network schedule—including Weekend Marketplace
-- as it does to this day. The station was handed Weekend Marketplace partly due to a lack of a weekend morning newscast at the time, and partly because WBNX had declined the two-hour infomercial block. Local TV LLC had prior to the Fox acquisition a majority of its stations as CBS affiliates. There was significant talk that WJW would go back to CBS, partially due to CBS's much higher ratings and its holding the broadcast rights to the National Football League
's Cleveland Browns
and the Browns' rivals in its conference, and that CBS would stipulate that WJW would go to CBS in the deal. However, Fox locked in a long-term deal for Local TV LLC to keep the sold Fox O&O's as Fox affiliates.
During Fox ownership, WJW was the only (fully) network owned-and-operated station among the "Big 4" networks in the Cleveland area, and was the only Fox-owned station to carry a historic 1920s three-letter call sign
. It remains the only Fox television affiliate in existence to carry such a three-letter call sign.
For instance, Howard Hoffman was the first on-air voice heard at WXEL's sign-on in 1949. Handling a myriad of duties such as newscaster, weatherman and live booth announcer, Hoffman stayed at the station until October 1986. Hoffman's successor, Bill Ward, joined then-WJKW in 1984 and would serve as WJW's main booth announcer until March of 2011.
Cleveland City Hall beat reporter Bob Cerminara and field reporter Neil Zurcher, both of which joined WJW in the late 1960s, stayed until the early 2000s. Zurcher is most famous for the "One Tank Trips" travel series that began in the late 1970s, highlighting vacation destinations close to home due to the energy crisis at that time (the feature continues to this day with different staffers, and Zurcher himself continues a similar feature biweekly in newspaper The Plain Dealer's Automotive advertising section, with an accompanying book series and weblog); he departed the station in August 2004. Feature reporter Gary Stromberg had been with channel 8 since 1977. He announced his retirement on April 1, 2008. Gary has since written two books. Aren't You That News Man? shares stories of his years at Channel 8. Every Tiger Has a Tale presents the life stories of 48 amazing graduates of Cleveland Heights High over the decades. Sports anchor John Telich has been at WJW for 30 years (beginning in 1981).
In addition, Dick Goddard
has been chief weatherman since 1966, joining the station after spending the previous five years at WKYC-TV, then known as KYW-TV. Following the reversal of a 1956 station swap with NBC, Westinghouse reacquired WRCV-TV in Philadelphia and moved the KYW-TV
calls there. Goddard went along with nearly all of Westinghouse's former Cleveland staffers, but came back to Cleveland after only a few months. Goddard has said that he joined WJW-TV due to the fact that CBS carried Cleveland Browns
games through its contract with the National Football League
(rights to which were ironically lost to WKYC in 1970). Goddard later became the team's statistician
, a position he still holds. On February 24th, 2011 Dick Goddard turned 80 years old. The station presented a special party live on air during the 6 p.m. newscast. In May 2011, he marked 50 years of being on the air in the Cleveland market.
Tim Taylor
joined WJW-TV as consumer reporter in the summer of 1977, having been hired away from a similar role at WEWS. The following year, Taylor became Judd Hambrick
's partner on the station's 6 and 11 p.m. evening newscasts. He was one of the station's top anchormen, serving alongside several female anchors (including Tana Carli, Denise D'Ascenzo, Robin Swoboda, Denise Dufala and Wilma Smith) until his retirement on December 23, 2005. Taylor's 27-year run as an anchor at WJW was the second longest in Cleveland television history, behind WEWS' Ted Henry. One month prior to Taylor's retirement, a special feature was broadcast during Fox 8 News in the Morning which reunited him with what was quoted as one of "Cleveland's most successful news teams" during the 1980s—Taylor, Swoboda, Goddard and former sports anchor Casey Coleman
. In many people's eyes (as well as high ratings to back it up), this news team led Newscenter 8 to number one in the Cleveland market. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOXYzglk_14)
Taylor's replacement on the 6 p.m. newscast was Lou Maglio, another long-time Cleveland TV newsman. In November 2006, it was announced that Robin Swoboda was returning once again to host a new hour long show in the morning (originally titled That's Life, then known as The Robin Swoboda Show, which lasted from 2007-2011 before being revamped as New Day Cleveland with new hosts). In September, 2007, Stefani Schaefer, also a popular Cleveland newscaster, returned to WJW to co-anchor the morning newscasts.
by Cleveland Browns.com senior writer Vic Carrucci, and a player interview with WJW sports reporter Allie LaForce
.
From the time WJW affiliated with Fox in 1994, the station has put more emphasis on its local newscasts keeping a newscast schedule very similar to a CBS, ABC or NBC affiliate. Local newscasts were expanded to 3½ hours (and eventually to 4, then 5, and presently 5½ hours as of January 3, 2011) on weekday mornings, plus the extension of the 5 p.m. newscast by a half-hour, and the moving of the 11 p.m. newscast to 10 p.m. In December 2004, WJW became the first station in the Cleveland market (and the third station in the United States) to produce local news in high definition. This made WJW the only Local TV-owned station to have already been airing high-definition newscasts prior to Local TV's purchase of the station since the upgrade was made while it was still owned and operated by Fox. Unlike several of WJW's Local TV stablemates, most of WJW's field video is still shot in widescreen standard definition as of June 2011.
In 2007, SkyFox HD debuted. WJW used a Eurocopter Ecureuil Astar 350 Helicopter. WJW had the fastest TV helicopter in Cleveland (all the other Cleveland stations owned Bell 206
helicopters), but due to budget cuts in late 2008, WJW had to get rid of SkyFox HD. After a tornado touched down in Wooster, Ohio on September 16, 2010, the station resumed sporadic usage of the chopper. In February 2011, SkyFox was refurbished with a new paintjob, and resumed weekday morning traffic reports with Kristi Capel
. However, it reverted to shooting video in 16:9 SD.
In the February 2006 ratings period WJW's newscasts placed first in the morning, second at 6 p.m., and first at 10 p.m.. WJW also had the highest rated newscast at 5 p.m., but it still fell behind WKYC's broadcast of Dr. Phil
. In the November 2006 ratings period, WJW's morning newscast continued its dominance over its competitors, while its other newscasts remained very competitive in their timeslots. WJW's remodeled news set officially debuted on July 16, 2007. Along with the new set, WJW adopted a new graphics package, new music (OSI Music's Fox Affiliate News Theme), and a new logo (which had been on some promotional items months prior to the revamp), similar to what has become standard on the other Fox-owned stations.
In the February 2008 ratings period, WJW's newscasts finished in first place in all of their timeslots except for its noon newscast, which finished third behind the noon newscasts of WEWS and WOIO. WJW's 5 p.m. newscast even managed to win its timeslot, knocking WKYC's airing of Dr. Phil (which had been winning the timeslot until recently) down to third place behind WJW's and WEWS' 5 p.m. newscasts.
On July 12, 2010, WJW began a weeknight, half-hour 7 p.m. newscast, making it the second station to air news in Cleveland in that time slot, behind WKYC, which had a ten-year head start. On January 3, 2011, WJW began airing their weekday morning newcasts at 4:30 a.m., WKYC expanded its morning newscast into that timeslot that same day (ABC affiliate WEWS was the first station in Cleveland to do 4:30 a.m. newscasts in November 2010). On September 10, 2011, WJW launched a weekend morning newscast on Saturday and Sunday morning: a two-hour Saturday morning newscast from 8-10 a.m., and two hour-long Sunday morning newscasts at 8 and 10 a.m., which will air around Fox News Sunday
; WJW became the second station in the Cleveland market with weekend morning newscasts, the first being WKYC.
weekday mornings, Lou Maglio weeknights at 6 and 10 p.m., Wilma Smith
weeknights at 5 and 6 p.m., Bill Martin weeknights at 5, 7, and 10 p.m., Tracy McCool weekday mornings and noon, Stefani Schaefer weekday mornings (7-10 a.m.), Bill Sheil weekend evenings (also lead investigative reporter), and Mark Zinni weekend mornings.
The Fox 8 weather team features Chief Meteorologist Dick Goddard
(AMS
Seal of Approval) weeknights at 6 and 10 p.m., André Bernier (AMS Seal of Approval) weeknights at 5, 7, and 10 p.m., Angelica Campos Wednesday-Friday mornings and noon as well as weekend evenings, Scott Sabol (AMS Seal of Approval) weekday mornings and Monday-Tuesday at noon, and AJ Colby (AMS Certified Broadcast Meteorologist
) weekend mornings.
The Fox 8 sports team includes sports director John Telich weeknights, Dan Coughlin (co-host of Friday Night Touchdown during high school football season), reporter Allie LaForce
, and Saturday sports anchor P.J. Ziegler.
WJW's field reporters include Elisa Amigo, Val Berry (fill-in traffic), Kristi Capel
(traffic, also co-host of New Day Cleveland), Kenny Crumpton (morning feature reporter), Kevin Freeman, Stacey Frey, Dan Jovic (web, also co-host of Friday Night Touchdown during high school football season), Annette Lawless, Todd Meany, David "Mossman" Moss (entertainment, also co-host of New Day Cleveland, and host of Hollywood and Dine), Dave Nethers, Melissa Reid, Maria Scali, Jack Shea, Suzanne Stratford, Lorrie Taylor (investigative/consumer), Emily Valdez, and Autumn Ziemba.
and Youngstown, Ohio
; Erie, Pennsylvania
; and as far north as Kingsville
, Pelee Island, and Leamington, Ontario
. When atmospheric conditions are right, WJW's signal can be picked up as far as Detroit and Windsor, Ontario
; during the 2003 North America Blackout, Detroit-area viewers were able to tune in WJW's analog signal, when the blackout silenced adjacent WXYZ-TV
(channel 7) and Windsor's CBET
(channel 9).
The station was once one of the three stations from Cleveland carried on local cable in Kingsville, Pelee Island, and Leamington. (The others were WEWS and WKYC-TV, until 2000 when Cogeco
displaced Shaw Cable as the cable provider for Essex County
.) WJW was also seen on cable in London, Ontario
until the 1970s. On October 16, 2009, the Windsor Star
notified readers that digital subchannels of the Detroit and Toledo stations would be added, while the Cleveland stations (such as WJW) and some Toledo stations would have to be dropped from the listings to make room for them, starting with the next issue of the TV Times, released the next day. The only Cleveland local station remaining in the Windsor-area TV Times is WUAB.
After WJW moved from CBS to Fox, WJW served as the de facto Fox affiliate in much of the Youngstown-Warren market until Youngstown's WKBN-TV
(a longtime CBS affiliate) put WYFX-LP
on the air in 1998.
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
-affiliated television station in Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...
. WJW is owned by Local TV LLC, a subsidiary of private equity firm Oak Hill Capital Partners. Its studios are located northeast of downtown Cleveland, near the shore of Lake Erie
Lake Erie
Lake Erie is the fourth largest lake of the five Great Lakes in North America, and the tenth largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also has the shortest average water residence time. It is bounded on the north by the...
, and its transmitter is located in Parma, Ohio
Parma, Ohio
Parma is a city in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States. It is the largest suburb of Cleveland and the seventh largest city in the state of Ohio...
.
Digital television
The station's digital signal is multiplexed:Aspect ratio
The aspect ratio of a shape is the ratio of its longer dimension to its shorter dimension. It may be applied to two characteristic dimensions of a three-dimensional shape, such as the ratio of the longest and shortest axis, or for symmetrical objects that are described by just two measurements,...
720p
720p is the shorthand name for 1280x720, a category of High-definition television video modes having a resolution of 1080 or 720p and a progressive scan...
16:9
16:9 is an aspect ratio with a width of 16 units and height of 9. Since 2009, it has become the most common aspect ratio for sold televisions and computer monitors and is also the international standard format of HDTV, Full HD, non-HD digital television and analog widescreen television ...
480i
480i is the shorthand name for a video mode, namely the US NTSC television system or digital television systems with the same characteristics. The i, which is sometimes uppercase, stands for interlaced, the 480 for a vertical frame resolution of 480 lines containing picture information; while NTSC...
Antenna TV
Antenna TV is an American digital broadcast television network, primarily featuring classic television series from the 1950s to the 1990s, along with some feature films. It is owned by Tribune Broadcasting, a division of the Chicago-based Tribune Company...
As part of the analog television shutdown and digital conversion was completed, WJW shut down its analog transmitter on June 12, 2009, and moved its digital broadcasts back to channel 8.
WJW is a charter affiliate of Tribune Broadcasting
Tribune Broadcasting
The Tribune Broadcasting Company is a group of radio and television stations located throughout the United States which are owned and operated by the Tribune Company, a media conglomerate based in Chicago, Illinois and named for the flagship Chicago Tribune newspaper.- History :Tribune Broadcasting...
's new digital multicast channel Antenna TV
Antenna TV
Antenna TV is an American digital broadcast television network, primarily featuring classic television series from the 1950s to the 1990s, along with some feature films. It is owned by Tribune Broadcasting, a division of the Chicago-based Tribune Company...
, which is carried on digital subchannel 8.2. The network, airing classic sitcoms from the 1950s to the 1990s during the afternoon, evening and late nights, with movies during the morning hours, is carried on Local TV-owned stations in other markets as well as stations owned by the network's parent company Tribune Broadcasting.
Early years
The television station launched on December 19, 1949 on channel 9 as WXEL (unrelated to the current WXEL-TVWXEL-TV
WXEL-TV is the Public Broadcasting Service member public televisionstation serving South Florida, and is licensed to West Palm Beach. WXEL is owned by Barry University, a Catholic university based in Miami; despite the Catholic-based ownership, WXEL shows no religious programming...
in West Palm Beach, FL), owned by the Empire Coil Company, a wartime
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
manufacturer of radio coils and transformers (http://home.comcast.net/~kptv/History/history.htm). In its early years, WXEL was a primary DuMont
DuMont Television Network
The DuMont Television Network, also known as the DuMont Network, DuMont, Du Mont, or Dumont was one of the world's pioneer commercial television networks, rivalling NBC for the distinction of being first overall. It began operation in the United States in 1946. It was owned by DuMont...
affiliate, and later became a secondary provider of ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
programs, sharing that affiliation with WEWS (channel 5). WXEL also carried a number of CBS programs that WEWS declined to air.
WXEL also carried an affiliation with the short-lived Paramount Television Network
Paramount Television Network
The Paramount Television Network was a venture by American film corporation Paramount Pictures to organize a television network in the late 1940s...
, and in fact was one of that network's strongest affiliates. The station aired such Paramount Network programs as Hollywood Wrestling, Bandstand Revue, and Time For Beany. During the late 1950s, the station was also briefly affiliated with the NTA Film Network
NTA Film Network
The NTA Film Network was an early American television network founded by Ely Landau in 1956. The network was not a full-time television network like CBS, NBC, or ABC. Rather, it operated on a part-time basis, broadcasting films and several first-run television programs from major Hollywood studios...
.
Following the 1952 release of the Federal Communications Commission
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
' s Sixth Report and Order, a realignment of VHF channels in the Midwest forced WXEL to move to channel 8 on December 10, 1953. Its former channel 9 allocation was moved to Steubenville
Steubenville, Ohio
Steubenville is a city located along the Ohio River in Jefferson County, Ohio on the Ohio-West Virginia border in the United States. It is the political county seat of Jefferson County. It is also a principal city of the Weirton–Steubenville, WV-OH Metropolitan Statistical Area...
and given to a new station, WSTV-TV (now WTOV); the switch took place only two weeks before WSTV-TV went on the air.
In 1954 Empire Coil sold two of its television interests—WXEL and KPTV
KPTV
KPTV is the Fox-affiliated television station serving the Portland, Oregon market, which includes most of the state of Oregon and portions of Southwest Washington. KPTV is owned by the Meredith Corporation in a duopoly with MyNetworkTV affiliate KPDX , with its studios located in Beaverton and...
in Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
, the United States' first UHF station—to Storer Broadcasting
Storer Broadcasting
Storer Broadcasting, Inc. was an American company which owned several television and radio stations in the northeast United States. It was incorporated in Ohio in 1927, and sold its broadcasting properties in 1983.-1920s—1940s:...
. George B. Storer, the company's founder and president, was a member of the board of directors of CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
, and used his influence to take the CBS television affiliation from WEWS in March 1955. Storer changed channel 8's call letters to WJW-TV on April 15, 1956, to match sister station of WJW radio (AM 850, frequency now occupied by WKNR
WKNR
WKNR — branded ESPN 850 WKNR — is a commercial sports radio station licensed to Cleveland, Ohio. Owned by Good Karma Broadcasting, WKNR is the primary Cleveland affiliate for ESPN Radio; together with sister station WWGK, WKNR is often referred to as ESPN Cleveland.WKNR is the Cleveland affiliate...
; and FM 104.1, now WQAL
WQAL
WQAL — branded Q104 — is a commercial Adult Top 40 radio station licensed to Cleveland, Ohio. Studios are located at One Radio Lane along with CBS Radio sister station WDOK.-History:...
). The WJW stations later moved into the former Esquire Theater building at 1630 Euclid Avenue, near Playhouse Square.
Local programming
In its early years, the station lagged behind its competitors in producing local programming, perhaps because its studio was located at the transmitter in Parma, while the other stations had studios downtown. A young Alan FreedAlan Freed
Albert James "Alan" Freed , also known as Moondog, was an American disc-jockey. He became internationally known for promoting the mix of blues, country and rhythm and blues music on the radio in the United States and Europe under the name of rock and roll...
, previously at WAKR
WAKR
WAKR — branded 1590 WAKR — is a commercial radio station in Akron, Ohio. It is owned by Rubber City Radio Group, Inc. which also owns Akron's WONE-FM and WQMX...
radio in Akron
Akron, Ohio
Akron , is the fifth largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Summit County. It is located in the Great Lakes region approximately south of Lake Erie along the Little Cuyahoga River. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 199,110. The Akron Metropolitan...
, worked for WXEL starting in 1949. Freed hosted an afternoon movie and performed live commercials for several years before he became the self-titled father of "rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
" while as an evening host on WJW radio, before moving on to radio jobs in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. Soupy Sales
Soupy Sales
Soupy Sales was an American comedian, actor, radio-TV personality and host, and jazz aficionado. He was best known for his local and network children's television show, Lunch with Soupy Sales; a series of comedy sketches frequently ending with Sales receiving a pie in the face, which became his...
, then known as Soupy Hines, had a weekday variety program called Soup's On where he started his pie-in-the-face routines.
The station also broadcast a popular and unique 11:00 p.m. newscast, The Sohio Reporter, featuring a Western Reserve University
Case Western Reserve University
Case Western Reserve University is a private research university located in Cleveland, Ohio, USA...
speech professor named Warren Guthrie who delivered the entire newscast from memory, speaking directly into the camera long before the days of the teleprompter
Teleprompter
An autocue is a display device that prompts the person speaking with an electronic visual text of a speech or script. Using a teleprompter is similar to the practice of using cue cards...
. In 1960, WJW-TV became the broadcast rights holder of the Cleveland Indians
Cleveland Indians
The Cleveland Indians are a professional baseball team based in Cleveland, Ohio. They are in the Central Division of Major League Baseball's American League. Since , they have played in Progressive Field. The team's spring training facility is in Goodyear, Arizona...
. Channel 8's partnership with the team continued until 1979, when the Indians moved to then-independent station WUAB
WUAB
WUAB, identified on-air as "My43 The Block, WUAB", is the MyNetworkTV affiliate in Cleveland, Ohio. The station is licensed to the suburb of Lorain, and it shares a studio in downtown Cleveland with sister station WOIO, Cleveland's CBS affiliate. Its transmitter is located in Parma, Ohio...
(channel 43). WJW also carried Indians games that were part of the CBS, and later, Fox network packages of Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...
games.
In 1964, WJW-TV was one of the first stations to use a two-man news anchor team, Joel Daly
Joel Daly
Joel T. Daly is an American former news presenter. He served as an anchor for Chicago's WLS-TV from 1967 to 2005.- News career :...
and Doug Adair
Doug Adair
Doug Adair is a former longtime Emmy Award winning American television news anchor and journalist who has worked in the Cleveland, Columbus, and Dayton, Ohio markets.- Career :...
, in the studio together. The newscast was called City Camera News, and reporters were equipped with Polaroid cameras
Instant camera
The instant camera is a type of camera that generates a developed film image. The most popular types to use self-developing film were formerly made by Polaroid Corporation....
to photograph news events, so that pictures could be quickly broadcast when they returned to the studio. Station programming also featured Adventure Road hosted by Jim Doney, which presented filmed travelogues narrated by the filmmakers. Daly and Adair reigned as Cleveland's top news team until 1967, when Daly was hired away by WLS-TV
WLS-TV
WLS-TV, virtual channel 7, is an owned-and-operated television station of the Walt Disney Company-owned American Broadcasting Company, located in Chicago, Illinois, USA. The station operates their full power digital operations on UHF channel 44, with their digital fill-in translator on VHF channel...
in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
. Adair remained at channel 8 until the early 1970s, when he joined WKYC-TV
WKYC-TV
WKYC, virtual channel 3 , is an NBC-affiliated television station located in Cleveland, Ohio, owned by the Gannett Company. Its studio is located on the shores of Lake Erie, while its transmitter is located in Parma, Ohio....
(channel 3), which was then owned by NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
. Later in 1964, WJW-TV was the first full CBS affiliate in Ohio, and the first Cleveland TV station, to start local color broadcasts.
One of the most memorable programs produced by WJW-TV was the Friday late night horror movie hosted by "Ghoulardi
Ghoulardi
Ghoulardi was a fictional character invented and portrayed by disc jockey, voice announcer, and actor Ernie Anderson as the horror host of late night Shock Theater at WJW-TV, Channel 8, in Cleveland, Ohio from January 13, 1963 through December 16, 1966....
", a character created by Ernie Anderson
Ernie Anderson
Ernie Anderson was an American disc jockey, and television and radio announcer/voiceover artist...
. Wearing a bad fright wig and phony beard and a pair of sunglasses with only one lens, he interacted with the movies and created an on-going patter and rehearsed skits during the movie breaks. The program began in February 1963 and created a generation of fans who could recite catch phrases such as "Turn Blue", "Stay Sick", "Camera Four" and "Ova Dey." Before Ghoulardi, Anderson had a weekday morning program on channel 8 starting in 1961 called Ernie's Place with sidekick Tim Conway
Tim Conway
Thomas Daniel "Tim" Conway is an American comedian and actor, primarily known for his roles in sitcoms, films and television. Conway is best known for his role as the inept second-in-command officer, Ensign Charles Parker, to Lt...
(then credited as "Tom Conway"), that included live skits reminiscent of Bob and Ray
Bob and Ray
Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding were an American comedy team whose career spanned five decades. Their format was typically to satirize the medium in which they were performing, such as conducting radio or television interviews, with off-the-wall dialogue presented in a generally deadpan style as...
.
When Anderson left for lucrative voice-over work in Hollywood in September 1966, Friday night movie hosting was inherited by Hoolihan and Big Chuck: "Hoolihan" being Bob Wells
Bob Wells (newscaster)
Bob Wells is a former news/weather anchor and television personality who is best known to Cleveland, Ohio, television viewers as "Hoolihan the Weatherman" and one-half of the Hoolihan and Big Chuck Show movie-hosting team...
, who did the station weather forecasts as "Hoolihan the Weatherman"; and "Big Chuck" being Chuck Schodowski, a station engineer who had risen to director and had appeared in some of Ghoulardi's skits. After Bob Wells departed channel 8 in September 1979, his position was filled by local jeweler and little person
Dwarfism
Dwarfism is short stature resulting from a medical condition. It is sometimes defined as an adult height of less than 4 feet 10 inches , although this definition is problematic because short stature in itself is not a disorder....
John Rinaldi, who had also previously performed in skits on the show. The program was renamed as the Big Chuck and Lil' John Show, and it continued airing on Friday nights before moving to Saturday nights in the early 1990s. The show ended its run on June 16, 2007, as Chuck Schodowski retired after a 47-year career at channel 8. At the time of its conclusion, the Big Chuck and Lil' John Show had been the only locally produced television show in the Cleveland market that was primarily entertainment, that is not news or informational.
Insert, then remove a "K"
The station moved to its present studios at 5800 South Marginal Road on November 2, 1975. While WJW-FM was sold in the late 1960s, Storer kept WJW radio until it was sold in late 1976. The AM station's new owners were allowed to keep the WJW call letters, forcing channel 8 to change theirs (at the time, the FCC did not allow radio and television stations with different owners to share the same call letters; this is not the case today). Thus, channel 8 became WJKW-TV on April 22, 1977, with the new calls being a variant of WJW. The K was added, but didn't stand for anything.At the same time, the station hired former WKYC-TV and NBC Radio news anchor Virgil Dominic as its news and public affairs director (a position which he held until 1983 when he became the general manager for WJKW/WJW until his retirement in 1995), and also began to pump considerable money into its news operation. The name of the newscasts even underwent a transition as well, going from City Camera News to Newscenter 8 around the summer of 1977. Within a year, channel 8 had overtaken longtime leader WEWS as the highest-rated news station in Cleveland – a lead it kept for almost 20 years. On September 16, 1985, it regained its historic "WJW-TV" calls as WJW radio changed its call letters following another ownership transaction (The "-TV" suffix was dropped in 1998, making WJW one of three television stations with a three-letter callsign, along with KGW
KGW
KGW is an NBC affiliate television station serving the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area. The station broadcasts its digital signal on VHF channel 8, from its transmitter in Portland. It also produces segments and serves as the Portland bureau for Northwest Cable News , which is also owned by...
in Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
and WIS
WIS
WIS, channel 10, is an NBC-affiliated television station in Columbia, South Carolina, USA. Owned by Raycom Media, WIS has studios on Bull Street in downtown Columbia, and transmitter located in Lugoff, South Carolina.-History:...
in Columbia, South Carolina
Columbia, South Carolina
Columbia is the state capital and largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The population was 129,272 according to the 2010 census. Columbia is the county seat of Richland County, but a portion of the city extends into neighboring Lexington County. The city is the center of a metropolitan...
, to have omitted the suffix since the 1990s; KOB
Kob
The Kob is an antelope found across Sub-Saharan Africa from Senegal to South Sudan. Found along the Northern Savanna, often seen in Murchison Falls and Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda; Garamba and Virunga National Park, Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as grassy floodplains of...
in Albuquerque, New Mexico
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Albuquerque is the largest city in the state of New Mexico, United States. It is the county seat of Bernalillo County and is situated in the central part of the state, straddling the Rio Grande. The city population was 545,852 as of the 2010 Census and ranks as the 32nd-largest city in the U.S. As...
dropped the suffix in 2009).
After Storer Broadcasting was bought out by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts in 1985, the station underwent a series of ownership changes. KKR sold the stations to Gillett Communications
George N. Gillett Jr.
-Biography:George Gillett graduated from Lake Forest Academy in 1956. He attended Amherst College and is a graduate of Dominican College in Racine, Wisconsin....
in 1987; shortly thereafter, SCI Television was spun off from Gillett to take over the stations after Gillett's bankruptcy. New World Communications
New World Communications
New World Pictures was an independent motion picture and television production company, and later television station owner in the United States from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s...
purchased WJW-TV and the other SCI Television stations in 1993. Like most of its sister stations, channel 8 pre-empted portions of the CBS schedule, usually the late morning daytime shows. In the 1990s, WJW-TV and its fellow New World stations prepared to launch their own morning newscasts, and as a result, channel 8 began to pre-empt CBS This Morning as well. The station also gained notoriety in 1993 by being one of the few CBS affiliates to tape-delay the Late Show with David Letterman
Late Show with David Letterman
Late Show with David Letterman is a U.S. late-night talk show hosted by David Letterman on CBS. The show debuted on August 30, 1993, and is produced by Letterman's production company, Worldwide Pants Incorporated. The show's music director and band-leader of the house band, the CBS Orchestra, is...
by half an hour in favor of Murphy Brown
Murphy Brown
Murphy Brown is an American situation comedy which aired on CBS from November 14, 1988, to May 18, 1998, for a total of 247 episodes. The program starred Candice Bergen as the eponymous Murphy Brown, a famous investigative journalist and news anchor for FYI, a fictional CBS television...
reruns. Despite the preemptions, CBS was generally satisfied with WJW, which was one of the network's strongest affiliates.
From CBS to Fox
In September 1994, as part of a deal between New World and the News CorporationNews Corporation
News Corporation or News Corp. is an American multinational media conglomerate. It is the world's second-largest media conglomerate as of 2011 in terms of revenue, and the world's third largest in entertainment as of 2009, although the BBC remains the world's largest broadcaster...
, WJW-TV swapped affiliations with WOIO
WOIO
WOIO, virtual channel 19 , is the CBS affiliate in Cleveland, Ohio. It is licensed to the nearby suburb of Shaker Heights. WOIO is owned by Raycom Media and its sister station to MyNetworkTV affiliate WUAB . The two stations share a studio facility in Cleveland and WOIO's transmitter is located in...
(channel 19), taking that station's Fox affiliation. WJW's outgoing CBS affiliation went to WOIO. The station expanded its news production to over 40 hours a week. It initially filled local non-news time with such programming as low budget syndicated first-run talk/reality shows and off-network sitcoms. The major reason for Fox and New World's deal was that CBS had lost the rights
NFL on CBS
The NFL on CBS is the brand name of the CBS television network's coverage of the National Football League's American Football Conference games, produced by CBS Sports.-Market coverage and television policies:...
to air the National Football Conference
National Football Conference
The National Football Conference is one of the two conferences of the National Football League . This conference and its counterpart, the American Football Conference , currently contain 16 teams each, making up the 32 teams of the NFL.-Current teams:Since 2002, the NFC has comprised 16 teams,...
of the National Football League
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
to Fox
NFL on FOX
NFL on Fox is the brand name of the Fox Broadcasting Company's coverage of the National Football League's National Football Conference games, produced by Fox Sports...
. However, the Cleveland Browns
Cleveland Browns
The Cleveland Browns are a professional football team based in Cleveland, Ohio. They are currently members of the North Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
were part of the American Football Conference
American Football Conference
The American Football Conference is one of the two conferences of the National Football League . This conference and its counterpart, the National Football Conference , currently contain 16 teams each, making up the 32 teams of the NFL....
, which was on NBC
NFL on NBC
NFL on NBC is the brand given to NBC Sports coverage of National Football League games until 1998, when NBC lost the NFL American Football Conference rights to CBS...
at that time. As a result, WJW only is guaranteed up to two Browns games each year, whenever they host an NFC team in the afternoon, but only if they sell out - the 1994 game against the Arizona Cardinals
Arizona Cardinals
The Arizona Cardinals are a professional American football team based in Glendale, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix. They are currently members of the Western Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...
did not sell out, neither did the 1995 games against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are a professional American football franchise based in Tampa, Florida, U.S. They are currently members of the Southern Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League – they are the only team in the division not to come from the old NFC West...
or Green Bay Packers
Green Bay Packers
The Green Bay Packers are an American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The Packers are the current NFL champions...
, and thus were blacked out locally. Since the opening of Cleveland Browns Stadium
Cleveland Browns Stadium
-See also:* List of current National Football League stadiums* Chronology of home stadiums for current National Football League teams* List of American football stadiums by capacity* List of U.S. stadiums by capacity* List of North American stadiums by capacity...
, however, all games have sold out - the only interconference home game for the Browns not aired locally on WJW in that era was the 2003 game against the St. Louis Rams
St. Louis Rams
The St. Louis Rams are a professional American football team based in St. Louis, Missouri. They are currently members of the West Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The Rams have won three NFL Championships .The Rams began playing in 1936 in Cleveland,...
, which aired on WEWS-TV
WEWS-TV
WEWS-TV, virtual channel 5 , is a television station in Cleveland, Ohio. WEWS has been owned by the E. W. Scripps Company since its inception, and is an affiliate of the ABC television network...
as part of ABC's Monday Night Football
Monday Night Football
Monday Night Football is a live broadcast of the National Football League on ESPN. From to it aired on ABC. Monday Night Football was, along with Hallmark Hall of Fame, and the Walt Disney anthology television series, one of the longest running prime time commercial network television series...
. Since 2006, WJW has been the over-the-air home for Browns games aired on cable channels.
However, both Cleveland viewers and WJW realized a major weakness with the new affiliation in April 1995 at the time of the Oklahoma City bombing
Oklahoma City bombing
The Oklahoma City bombing was a terrorist bomb attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. It was the most destructive act of terrorism on American soil until the September 11, 2001 attacks. The Oklahoma blast claimed 168 lives, including 19...
. When the news broke, all of the other stations in Cleveland were able to switch to national network coverage of the attacks. At the time Fox had no centralized news division, and WJW was only aligned with CNN for external feeds and some international news coverage. WJW was able to send reporter Martin Savage to Oklahoma City to cover the attack; his coverage would lead to his hiring by CNN later that year to co-host a relaunched morning show. But, unlike all other stations that had network coverage, WJW could offer only limited recap coverage of the events on their newscasts.
Later that year, WJW dropped its "Newscenter 8" branding and adopted a hard-hitting format under the phrase "ei8ht is News" for the title of its newscasts. The "ei8ht" logo was itself a revival an old WJW logo used from 1966 until 1977. However, in many people's minds the phrase was used on the station a little too often (one Plain Dealer story even started, "some viewers [are] squawking that 'ei8ht is enough', already"), and even more people moved away from WJW's newscasts. The "ei8ht is News" branding ended upon Fox's purchase of the station, after which it was replaced by "Fox 8 News."
One triumph for WJW was the morning newscast. Without a national morning show, WJW could produce an all-local 3.5 hour morning newscast. Many Cleveland viewers preferred the local show over the other stations' national broadcasts. This was especially true since WEWS' long-standing Morning Exchange was preempted until 9 a.m. around the same time of the Fox/CBS switch. With the exception of a brief period from late 2004 through early 2005 when it was titled Good Day Cleveland, Fox 8 News in the Morning has constantly been Cleveland's top rated morning newscast since the time of its debut.
As a Fox-owned station/affiliate
In 2006, WJW also debuted its new website - MyFox Cleveland, which follows a format that is also used by other Fox-owned stations. This lasted until the end of January 2009 – several months after Fox Television Stations sold the station and seven others – when WJW and six other former Fox O&O stations which previously used the myFox interface (plus co-owned NBC television affiliate WHO-TV
WHO-TV
WHO-DT is a television station that broadcasts on Channel 13 in Des Moines, Iowa. It is affiliated with the NBC television network and serves most of central Iowa. The station transmits from the WOI Tower in Alleman, Iowa, which is actually owned by WHO-DT's owners. WHO-DT brands itself as WHO-HD...
in Des Moines, Iowa
Des Moines, Iowa
Des Moines is the capital and the most populous city in the US state of Iowa. It is also the county seat of Polk County. A small portion of the city extends into Warren County. It was incorporated on September 22, 1851, as Fort Des Moines which was shortened to "Des Moines" in 1857...
) launched redesigned Web sites through Tribune
Tribune Company
The Tribune Company is a large American multimedia corporation based in Chicago, Illinois. It is the nation's second-largest newspaper publisher, with ten daily newspapers and commuter tabloids including Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Hartford Courant, Orlando Sentinel, South Florida...
Interactive. This was a result of a management agreement between Local TV and Tribune Broadcasting
Tribune Broadcasting
The Tribune Broadcasting Company is a group of radio and television stations located throughout the United States which are owned and operated by the Tribune Company, a media conglomerate based in Chicago, Illinois and named for the flagship Chicago Tribune newspaper.- History :Tribune Broadcasting...
, forming a separate division (controlled by Tribune) called Community Television (which became the licensee for seven of the former Fox O&Os), which operates all of the television stations owned by Local TV (until late June 2009, WBRC
WBRC
WBRC, virtual channel 6, is the Fox-affiliated television station serving the Birmingham, Alabama designated market area. The station is owned by Raycom Media, and its transmitter is located atop Red Mountain in Birmingham...
in Birmingham
Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham is the largest city in Alabama. The city is the county seat of Jefferson County. According to the 2010 United States Census, Birmingham had a population of 212,237. The Birmingham-Hoover Metropolitan Area, in estimate by the U.S...
continued to use the myFox interface for its website even though that station is now a sister station to Raycom Media
Raycom Media
- History :Although Raycom Media dates its birth to 1996, the core of the company was formed in 1992 when Atlanta native Bert Ellis formed Ellis Communications. He eventually controlled 13 television stations and two radio stations....
-owned WOIO and WUAB
WUAB
WUAB, identified on-air as "My43 The Block, WUAB", is the MyNetworkTV affiliate in Cleveland, Ohio. The station is licensed to the suburb of Lorain, and it shares a studio in downtown Cleveland with sister station WOIO, Cleveland's CBS affiliate. Its transmitter is located in Parma, Ohio...
). Although its former radio sisters had dropped the WJW calls some years before, Fox dropped the -TV suffix from channel 8's legal callsign shortly after it assumed full ownership of the station (it had been minority owner of New World since the 1994 affiliation switch) although the station continued to use the -TV suffix on-air for several years afterward.
On December 22, 2007, the News Corporation announced that it had entered into an agreement to sell WJW-TV and seven other Fox-owned stations to Local TV LLC, a subsidiary of private equity firm Oak Hill Capital Partners. The sale was closed on July 14, 2008. Early in 2009, WJW began clearing the entire Fox network schedule—including Weekend Marketplace
Weekend Marketplace
Weekend Marketplace is a two hour Saturday morning block of paid programming airing on Fox that began airing on January 3, 2009, replacing the 4Kids TV Saturday morning cartoon block that aired using time leased by 4Kids from Fox from 2002 until the last Saturday of 2008...
-- as it does to this day. The station was handed Weekend Marketplace partly due to a lack of a weekend morning newscast at the time, and partly because WBNX had declined the two-hour infomercial block. Local TV LLC had prior to the Fox acquisition a majority of its stations as CBS affiliates. There was significant talk that WJW would go back to CBS, partially due to CBS's much higher ratings and its holding the broadcast rights to the National Football League
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
's Cleveland Browns
Cleveland Browns
The Cleveland Browns are a professional football team based in Cleveland, Ohio. They are currently members of the North Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
and the Browns' rivals in its conference, and that CBS would stipulate that WJW would go to CBS in the deal. However, Fox locked in a long-term deal for Local TV LLC to keep the sold Fox O&O's as Fox affiliates.
During Fox ownership, WJW was the only (fully) network owned-and-operated station among the "Big 4" networks in the Cleveland area, and was the only Fox-owned station to carry a historic 1920s three-letter call sign
North American call sign
Call signs in North America are frequently still used by North American broadcast stations in addition to amateur radio and other international radio stations that continue to identify by call signs around the world...
. It remains the only Fox television affiliate in existence to carry such a three-letter call sign.
On-air staff continuity
WJW-TV has long prided itself on its homegrown staff. Along with the aforementioned Houlihan, Big Chuck, and Lil' John, many of its on-air staff grew up in northeast Ohio and have been with the station for 20 years or more.For instance, Howard Hoffman was the first on-air voice heard at WXEL's sign-on in 1949. Handling a myriad of duties such as newscaster, weatherman and live booth announcer, Hoffman stayed at the station until October 1986. Hoffman's successor, Bill Ward, joined then-WJKW in 1984 and would serve as WJW's main booth announcer until March of 2011.
Cleveland City Hall beat reporter Bob Cerminara and field reporter Neil Zurcher, both of which joined WJW in the late 1960s, stayed until the early 2000s. Zurcher is most famous for the "One Tank Trips" travel series that began in the late 1970s, highlighting vacation destinations close to home due to the energy crisis at that time (the feature continues to this day with different staffers, and Zurcher himself continues a similar feature biweekly in newspaper The Plain Dealer's Automotive advertising section, with an accompanying book series and weblog); he departed the station in August 2004. Feature reporter Gary Stromberg had been with channel 8 since 1977. He announced his retirement on April 1, 2008. Gary has since written two books. Aren't You That News Man? shares stories of his years at Channel 8. Every Tiger Has a Tale presents the life stories of 48 amazing graduates of Cleveland Heights High over the decades. Sports anchor John Telich has been at WJW for 30 years (beginning in 1981).
In addition, Dick Goddard
Dick Goddard
Richard D. "Dick" Goddard is an American television meteorologist, author, cartoonist, and animal activist. For over four decades, he has served as the evening meteorologist at WJW , the Fox Broadcasting Company-affiliated television station in Cleveland, Ohio...
has been chief weatherman since 1966, joining the station after spending the previous five years at WKYC-TV, then known as KYW-TV. Following the reversal of a 1956 station swap with NBC, Westinghouse reacquired WRCV-TV in Philadelphia and moved the KYW-TV
KYW-TV
KYW-TV, virtual channel 3, is an owned and operated television station of the CBS Television Network, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. KYW-TV shares a studio facility with its sister station, CW flagship WPSG just north of Center City Philadelphia...
calls there. Goddard went along with nearly all of Westinghouse's former Cleveland staffers, but came back to Cleveland after only a few months. Goddard has said that he joined WJW-TV due to the fact that CBS carried Cleveland Browns
Cleveland Browns
The Cleveland Browns are a professional football team based in Cleveland, Ohio. They are currently members of the North Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
games through its contract with the National Football League
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
(rights to which were ironically lost to WKYC in 1970). Goddard later became the team's statistician
Statistician
A statistician is someone who works with theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private and public sectors. The core of that work is to measure, interpret, and describe the world and human activity patterns within it...
, a position he still holds. On February 24th, 2011 Dick Goddard turned 80 years old. The station presented a special party live on air during the 6 p.m. newscast. In May 2011, he marked 50 years of being on the air in the Cleveland market.
Tim Taylor
Tim Taylor (newscaster)
Tim Taylor is an American former Emmy-Award winning newscaster/investigative reporter and news anchor for FOX-TV Affiliate WJW-TV 8 in Cleveland, Ohio. Taylor served as the Chief Anchor of FOX 8 News at Six and Ten , Monday through Friday on WJW...
joined WJW-TV as consumer reporter in the summer of 1977, having been hired away from a similar role at WEWS. The following year, Taylor became Judd Hambrick
Judd Hambrick
Judd Hambrick is an American former Emmy-award winning television newscaster/reporter.Hambrick grew up in Mount Pleasant, Texas.- Career, accomplishments, and awards :...
's partner on the station's 6 and 11 p.m. evening newscasts. He was one of the station's top anchormen, serving alongside several female anchors (including Tana Carli, Denise D'Ascenzo, Robin Swoboda, Denise Dufala and Wilma Smith) until his retirement on December 23, 2005. Taylor's 27-year run as an anchor at WJW was the second longest in Cleveland television history, behind WEWS' Ted Henry. One month prior to Taylor's retirement, a special feature was broadcast during Fox 8 News in the Morning which reunited him with what was quoted as one of "Cleveland's most successful news teams" during the 1980s—Taylor, Swoboda, Goddard and former sports anchor Casey Coleman
Casey Coleman
Kenneth R. "Casey" Coleman Jr. was a sportscaster and radio personality in the Cleveland area for nearly 30 years.-Early life:Coleman was born in Cleveland in 1951 to legendary play-by-play announcer Ken Coleman...
. In many people's eyes (as well as high ratings to back it up), this news team led Newscenter 8 to number one in the Cleveland market. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOXYzglk_14)
Taylor's replacement on the 6 p.m. newscast was Lou Maglio, another long-time Cleveland TV newsman. In November 2006, it was announced that Robin Swoboda was returning once again to host a new hour long show in the morning (originally titled That's Life, then known as The Robin Swoboda Show, which lasted from 2007-2011 before being revamped as New Day Cleveland with new hosts). In September, 2007, Stefani Schaefer, also a popular Cleveland newscaster, returned to WJW to co-anchor the morning newscasts.
News operation
As of September 10, 2011, WJW broadcasts a total of 58 hours of local news a week (with ten hours on weekdays and four hours on weekends), more than any other television station in the state of Ohio. In addition, the 10 p.m. newscast is repeated at 1 a.m.; counting New Day Cleveland at 10 a.m. and the 10 p.m. newscast replay at 1 a.m., WJW airs twelve hours of local programming per weekday. During football season, WJW airs Friday Night Touchdown, a weekly recap of all of the area high school football games, on Friday nights at 11 p.m. And on Sundays, Fox 8 airs Browns Insider at 11 a.m. The team produced half-hour show is hosted by Browns radio sideline reporter Jamir Howerton, features a weekly interview with head coach Pat ShurmurPat Shurmur
Pat Shurmur is currently the head coach of the Cleveland Browns.-Playing career:Shurmur was a four-year letterman in football at Michigan State University. He played guard and linebacker his freshman season, and started at center the next three seasons. He earned All-Big 10 Conference honors in...
by Cleveland Browns.com senior writer Vic Carrucci, and a player interview with WJW sports reporter Allie LaForce
Allie LaForce
Alexandra Leigh "Allie" LaForce is a beauty queen from Vermilion, Ohio who held the Miss Teen USA 2005 title who now works as a broadcast sports reporter....
.
From the time WJW affiliated with Fox in 1994, the station has put more emphasis on its local newscasts keeping a newscast schedule very similar to a CBS, ABC or NBC affiliate. Local newscasts were expanded to 3½ hours (and eventually to 4, then 5, and presently 5½ hours as of January 3, 2011) on weekday mornings, plus the extension of the 5 p.m. newscast by a half-hour, and the moving of the 11 p.m. newscast to 10 p.m. In December 2004, WJW became the first station in the Cleveland market (and the third station in the United States) to produce local news in high definition. This made WJW the only Local TV-owned station to have already been airing high-definition newscasts prior to Local TV's purchase of the station since the upgrade was made while it was still owned and operated by Fox. Unlike several of WJW's Local TV stablemates, most of WJW's field video is still shot in widescreen standard definition as of June 2011.
In 2007, SkyFox HD debuted. WJW used a Eurocopter Ecureuil Astar 350 Helicopter. WJW had the fastest TV helicopter in Cleveland (all the other Cleveland stations owned Bell 206
Bell 206
The Bell 206 is a family of two-bladed, single- or twin-engine helicopters, manufactured by Bell Helicopter at its Mirabel, Quebec plant. Originally developed as the Bell YOH-4 for the United States Army's Light Observation Helicopter program, the 206 failed to be selected...
helicopters), but due to budget cuts in late 2008, WJW had to get rid of SkyFox HD. After a tornado touched down in Wooster, Ohio on September 16, 2010, the station resumed sporadic usage of the chopper. In February 2011, SkyFox was refurbished with a new paintjob, and resumed weekday morning traffic reports with Kristi Capel
Kristi Capel
Kristi Marie Capel is a beauty queen from Springfield, Missouri who has competed in the Miss USA pageant.A native of Florence, Kentucky who later moved to Missouri, Capel won the Miss Missouri USA title in a state pageant held in late 2005. It was her first attempt at that title, however she had...
. However, it reverted to shooting video in 16:9 SD.
In the February 2006 ratings period WJW's newscasts placed first in the morning, second at 6 p.m., and first at 10 p.m.. WJW also had the highest rated newscast at 5 p.m., but it still fell behind WKYC's broadcast of Dr. Phil
Dr. Phil (TV series)
Dr. Phil is a reality/talk television show hosted by Phil McGraw. After McGraw's success with his segments on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Dr. Phil debuted on September 16, 2002...
. In the November 2006 ratings period, WJW's morning newscast continued its dominance over its competitors, while its other newscasts remained very competitive in their timeslots. WJW's remodeled news set officially debuted on July 16, 2007. Along with the new set, WJW adopted a new graphics package, new music (OSI Music's Fox Affiliate News Theme), and a new logo (which had been on some promotional items months prior to the revamp), similar to what has become standard on the other Fox-owned stations.
In the February 2008 ratings period, WJW's newscasts finished in first place in all of their timeslots except for its noon newscast, which finished third behind the noon newscasts of WEWS and WOIO. WJW's 5 p.m. newscast even managed to win its timeslot, knocking WKYC's airing of Dr. Phil (which had been winning the timeslot until recently) down to third place behind WJW's and WEWS' 5 p.m. newscasts.
On July 12, 2010, WJW began a weeknight, half-hour 7 p.m. newscast, making it the second station to air news in Cleveland in that time slot, behind WKYC, which had a ten-year head start. On January 3, 2011, WJW began airing their weekday morning newcasts at 4:30 a.m., WKYC expanded its morning newscast into that timeslot that same day (ABC affiliate WEWS was the first station in Cleveland to do 4:30 a.m. newscasts in November 2010). On September 10, 2011, WJW launched a weekend morning newscast on Saturday and Sunday morning: a two-hour Saturday morning newscast from 8-10 a.m., and two hour-long Sunday morning newscasts at 8 and 10 a.m., which will air around Fox News Sunday
Fox News Sunday
Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace is a public affairs program on the Fox network, hosted by Chris Wallace and airing on Sunday mornings. The show began on April 28, 1996, which predated the launch of Fox News Channel, and usually talks about items similar to Sunday morning talk shows...
; WJW became the second station in the Cleveland market with weekend morning newscasts, the first being WKYC.
Newscast titles
- The Sohio Reporter (1951 (ca.)–1965)
- Channel 8 Report (early 1960s)
- City Camera News (1964–1977)
- NewsCenter 8 (1977–1995, WJW used this newscast after the switch from CBS to FOX)
- ei8ht is News (1995–1996)
- Fox 8 is News (1996)
- Fox 8 News (1996–present)
Current on-air staff
The primary news anchors on WJW include Wayne DawsonWayne Dawson
Wayne Dawson is an American award-winning television newscaster and co-host of Fox 8 in the Morning, a morning show broadcast on Fox affiliate WJW-TV Channel 8, in Cleveland, Ohio. For two years prior to joining WJW in 1981, Dawson was an anchor/reporter at WNIR-AM in Kent, Ohio...
weekday mornings, Lou Maglio weeknights at 6 and 10 p.m., Wilma Smith
Wilma Smith (newscaster)
Wilma Smith is an American television news anchor for Fox-TV affiliate station WJW-TV, Channel 8, in Cleveland, Ohio.-Early life and career:...
weeknights at 5 and 6 p.m., Bill Martin weeknights at 5, 7, and 10 p.m., Tracy McCool weekday mornings and noon, Stefani Schaefer weekday mornings (7-10 a.m.), Bill Sheil weekend evenings (also lead investigative reporter), and Mark Zinni weekend mornings.
The Fox 8 weather team features Chief Meteorologist Dick Goddard
Dick Goddard
Richard D. "Dick" Goddard is an American television meteorologist, author, cartoonist, and animal activist. For over four decades, he has served as the evening meteorologist at WJW , the Fox Broadcasting Company-affiliated television station in Cleveland, Ohio...
(AMS
American Meteorological Society
The American Meteorological Society promotes the development and dissemination of information and education on the atmospheric and related oceanic and hydrologic sciences and the advancement of their professional applications. Founded in 1919, the American Meteorological Society has a membership...
Seal of Approval) weeknights at 6 and 10 p.m., André Bernier (AMS Seal of Approval) weeknights at 5, 7, and 10 p.m., Angelica Campos Wednesday-Friday mornings and noon as well as weekend evenings, Scott Sabol (AMS Seal of Approval) weekday mornings and Monday-Tuesday at noon, and AJ Colby (AMS Certified Broadcast Meteorologist
Certified Broadcast Meteorologist
Certified Broadcast Meteorologist is a rating for meteorologists given by the American Meteorological Society.The Certified Broadcast Meteorologist program was established to raise the professional standard in broadcast meteorology and encourage a broader range of scientific understanding,...
) weekend mornings.
The Fox 8 sports team includes sports director John Telich weeknights, Dan Coughlin (co-host of Friday Night Touchdown during high school football season), reporter Allie LaForce
Allie LaForce
Alexandra Leigh "Allie" LaForce is a beauty queen from Vermilion, Ohio who held the Miss Teen USA 2005 title who now works as a broadcast sports reporter....
, and Saturday sports anchor P.J. Ziegler.
WJW's field reporters include Elisa Amigo, Val Berry (fill-in traffic), Kristi Capel
Kristi Capel
Kristi Marie Capel is a beauty queen from Springfield, Missouri who has competed in the Miss USA pageant.A native of Florence, Kentucky who later moved to Missouri, Capel won the Miss Missouri USA title in a state pageant held in late 2005. It was her first attempt at that title, however she had...
(traffic, also co-host of New Day Cleveland), Kenny Crumpton (morning feature reporter), Kevin Freeman, Stacey Frey, Dan Jovic (web, also co-host of Friday Night Touchdown during high school football season), Annette Lawless, Todd Meany, David "Mossman" Moss (entertainment, also co-host of New Day Cleveland, and host of Hollywood and Dine), Dave Nethers, Melissa Reid, Maria Scali, Jack Shea, Suzanne Stratford, Lorrie Taylor (investigative/consumer), Emily Valdez, and Autumn Ziemba.
Notable former staff
|
Bob Franken Bob Franken is a frequent guest on MSNBC and other networks. Franken was CNN's primary correspondent in President Clinton's impeachment. He attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He specializes in political reporting and often uses puns in his commentaries... Alan Freed Albert James "Alan" Freed , also known as Moondog, was an American disc-jockey. He became internationally known for promoting the mix of blues, country and rhythm and blues music on the radio in the United States and Europe under the name of rock and roll... Judd Hambrick Judd Hambrick is an American former Emmy-award winning television newscaster/reporter.Hambrick grew up in Mount Pleasant, Texas.- Career, accomplishments, and awards :... - retired Cleveland Cavaliers The Cleveland Cavaliers are a professional basketball team based in Cleveland, Ohio. They began playing in the National Basketball Association in 1970 as an expansion team... HLN HLN can refer to*HLN , a cable network formerly known as Headline News*The IATA airport code for Helena Regional Airport*The Horizon League Network—see Horizon League#Horizon League Network*The shorthand notation of Phenolphthalein... Carl Monday Carl Monday is a television reporter for WOIO-TV in Cleveland, Ohio. "Carl Monday" was initially an on-air pseudonym, but became his legal name in "1972, 1973."... - now at WOIO WOIO WOIO, virtual channel 19 , is the CBS affiliate in Cleveland, Ohio. It is licensed to the nearby suburb of Shaker Heights. WOIO is owned by Raycom Media and its sister station to MyNetworkTV affiliate WUAB . The two stations share a studio facility in Cleveland and WOIO's transmitter is located in... |
Bob Neal (Cleveland sportscaster) Bob Neal was an American sportscaster who worked primarily in Cleveland, Ohio. He broadcast the Cleveland Indians on radio 1957–1961 and 1965–1972, and on television 1952–1953 and 1962–1964. He was also the original broadcaster for Cleveland Browns football games on radio and television starting... - deceased Kelly O'Donnell -Occupation:*Is a political reporter for NBC News.**She appears on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, Today -Occupation:*Is a political reporter for NBC News.**She appears on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, Today -Occupation:*Is a political reporter for NBC News.**She appears on NBC... - now with NBC NBC The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago... WKNR WKNR — branded ESPN 850 WKNR — is a commercial sports radio station licensed to Cleveland, Ohio. Owned by Good Karma Broadcasting, WKNR is the primary Cleveland affiliate for ESPN Radio; together with sister station WWGK, WKNR is often referred to as ESPN Cleveland.WKNR is the Cleveland affiliate... Soupy Sales Soupy Sales was an American comedian, actor, radio-TV personality and host, and jazz aficionado. He was best known for his local and network children's television show, Lunch with Soupy Sales; a series of comedy sketches frequently ending with Sales receiving a pie in the face, which became his... - deceased Mark Spain Mark Spain is a weekday television news anchor alongside Paige Kelton on Action News at WTEV/WAWS in Jacksonville, Florida. He anchors all evening newscasts .-Early life and education:... Martin Savidge Martin Savidge is an Edward R. Murrow and Emmy Award-winning American television news correspondent for NBC News and special correspondent and former anchor for public television's Worldfocus nightly news program, where he is currently in the role of a special correspondent... - now with CNN CNN Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States... |
Tim Taylor (newscaster) Tim Taylor is an American former Emmy-Award winning newscaster/investigative reporter and news anchor for FOX-TV Affiliate WJW-TV 8 in Cleveland, Ohio. Taylor served as the Chief Anchor of FOX 8 News at Six and Ten , Monday through Friday on WJW... - retired Bob Wells (newscaster) Bob Wells is a former news/weather anchor and television personality who is best known to Cleveland, Ohio, television viewers as "Hoolihan the Weatherman" and one-half of the Hoolihan and Big Chuck Show movie-hosting team... - retired Neil Zurcher Neil Zurcher is a retired American television reporter for Fox-TV affiliate WJW-TV, Channel 8 in Cleveland, OH. He is best known for his travel segment One Tank Trips.-Early Life and Career:... - retired |
Out-of-market coverage
Over the air, WJW-TV can be easily received in neighboring areas such as ToledoToledo, Ohio
Toledo is the fourth most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Lucas County. Toledo is in northwest Ohio, on the western end of Lake Erie, and borders the State of Michigan...
and Youngstown, Ohio
Youngstown, Ohio
Youngstown is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Mahoning County; it also extends into Trumbull County. The municipality is situated on the Mahoning River, approximately southeast of Cleveland and northwest of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania...
; Erie, Pennsylvania
Erie, Pennsylvania
Erie is a city located in northwestern Pennsylvania in the United States. Named for the lake and the Native American tribe that resided along its southern shore, Erie is the state's fourth-largest city , with a population of 102,000...
; and as far north as Kingsville
Kingsville, Ontario
The Town of Kingsville is located in Essex County in southwestern Ontario, Canada, and is Canada's southernmost municipality with town status. According to the 2006 census, the population of Kingsville is 20,908.-Geography:...
, Pelee Island, and Leamington, Ontario
Leamington, Ontario
Leamington is a municipality in Essex County, southern Ontario, Canada, and has a population of 31,113. It includes Point Pelee, the southernmost point of mainland Canada. It has a large H. J. Heinz Company factory and is known as the "Tomato Capital of Canada", with 4 km² of this crop in the...
. When atmospheric conditions are right, WJW's signal can be picked up as far as Detroit and Windsor, Ontario
Windsor, Ontario
Windsor is the southernmost city in Canada and is located in Southwestern Ontario at the western end of the heavily populated Quebec City – Windsor Corridor. It is within Essex County, Ontario, although administratively separated from the county government. Separated by the Detroit River, Windsor...
; during the 2003 North America Blackout, Detroit-area viewers were able to tune in WJW's analog signal, when the blackout silenced adjacent WXYZ-TV
WXYZ-TV
WXYZ-TV, channel 7, is an ABC-affiliated television station in Detroit, Michigan, USA. WXYZ-TV is owned by the E.W. Scripps Company, and is the media company's largest-market TV station property...
(channel 7) and Windsor's CBET
CBET
CBET, channel 9, is the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's owned-and-operated television station in Windsor, Ontario. The station's signal also covers the Detroit, Michigan area across the international border in the United States, and is counted as a Detroit station for the purposes of...
(channel 9).
The station was once one of the three stations from Cleveland carried on local cable in Kingsville, Pelee Island, and Leamington. (The others were WEWS and WKYC-TV, until 2000 when Cogeco
Cogeco
Cogeco Inc. is a Canadian media and communications company. The name is an acronym for Compagnie Générale de Communication .-History:...
displaced Shaw Cable as the cable provider for Essex County
Essex County, Ontario
Essex County is a county and census division located in Southwestern Ontario and covers an area at the southernmost tip of Canada. The administrative seat is Essex...
.) WJW was also seen on cable in London, Ontario
London, Ontario
London is a city in Southwestern Ontario, Canada, situated along the Quebec City – Windsor Corridor. The city has a population of 352,395, and the metropolitan area has a population of 457,720, according to the 2006 Canadian census; the metro population in 2009 was estimated at 489,274. The city...
until the 1970s. On October 16, 2009, the Windsor Star
Windsor Star
The Windsor Star is the regional newspaper of Windsor, Ontario , and is owned by the Postmedia Network Inc. Since 1923, the publication's main office is located at 167 Ferry Street in the downtown area...
notified readers that digital subchannels of the Detroit and Toledo stations would be added, while the Cleveland stations (such as WJW) and some Toledo stations would have to be dropped from the listings to make room for them, starting with the next issue of the TV Times, released the next day. The only Cleveland local station remaining in the Windsor-area TV Times is WUAB.
After WJW moved from CBS to Fox, WJW served as the de facto Fox affiliate in much of the Youngstown-Warren market until Youngstown's WKBN-TV
WKBN-TV
WKBN-TV is the CBS-affiliated television station for Youngstown, Ohio. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 41 from a transmitter at WKBN's studios on Sunset Boulevard in Boardman Township. Owned by New Vision Television, WKBN is sister to and shares studios with low-power...
(a longtime CBS affiliate) put WYFX-LP
WYFX-LP
WYFX-LD is the Fox-affiliated television station for the Mahoning Valley of Northeastern Ohio, licensed to Youngstown. It broadcasts a low-powered digital signal UHF channel 19 from a transmitter on Sunset Boulevard in Boardman Township. Owned by New Vision Television, the station is sister to CBS...
on the air in 1998.
Further reading
- Coughlin, Dan (2010). Crazy, With the Papers to Prove It. Cleveland, OH: Gray & Company, Publishers. ISBN 978-1-59851-068-3
- Feran, Tom and Heldenfels, Rich (1997). Ghoulardi: Inside Cleveland TV's Wildest Ride. Cleveland, OH: Gray & Company, Publishers. ISBN 978-1-886228-18-4
- Schodowski, Chuck (2008). Big Chuck: My Favorite Stories from 47 Years on Cleveland TV. Cleveland, OH: Gray & Company, Publishers. ISBN 978-1-59851-052-2
- Zurcher, Neil (2010). Tales from the Road: Memoirs from a Lifetime of Ohio Travel, Television, and More. Cleveland, OH: Gray & Company, Publishers. ISBN 978-1-59851-064-5