WKRC-TV:

WKRC's signal is multiplexed. They operate the area's CW affiliate on a second digital subchannel. Known on-air as The CW Cincinnati, this can also be seen in Ohio on Time Warner channel 20 with high definition on digital channel 913, in Kentucky on Insight channel 25, in Indiana on Comcast digital channel 253, and part of DirecTV's local package on channel 25. Syndicated programming on WKRC-DT2 includes: Two and a Half Men, Tyler Perry's House of Payne, The Dr. Oz Show, and The Tyra Banks Show.

History

The station signed on-air April 4, 1949 making it Cincinnati's second-oldest television station. The "KRC" of their call sign stood for its radio counterpart's original owner, Clarence Ogden of the Kodel Radio Company ("Ko" for Clarence and "dell" for Della his wife).^[1] WKRC-TV became the flagship station of Taft Broadcasting along with WKRC radio (AM 550) and FM 101.9 now WKRQ. Originally broadcasting on VHF channel 11, it moved to channel 12 on October 12, 1952. They were a CBS affiliate but switched to ABC in 1961. This came after that network's founder Leonard Goldenson persuaded Taft's president, a longtime friend, to switch several of the company's stations to ABC. During the late-1950s, the station was also briefly affiliated with the NTA Film Network.^[2] WKRC's nickname in the 1960s was "Tall 12", a reference to the station's transmitter tower which was the tallest in Cincinnati at the time. Like its competitor WCPO-TV, WKRC used a distinctive jingle ID at the top of the hour in the 1960s. The upbeat, orchestrated "Channel 12" jingle was followed by children's show host Glenn Ryle announcing: "This is WKRC-TV Cincinnati". In 1975, they began airing movies on late night Saturdays in a program called The Past Prime Playhouse. Hosted live by local personality Bob Shreve, the show would air until 1988.

In 1987, Taft was dissolved in a hostile takeover of its board and all of its stations (except WSYX-TV in Columbus, Ohio and WGHP-TV in High Point, North Carolina) were absorbed into Great American Broadcasting which became Citicasters in 1993. WKRC was subsequently acquired by Jacor in September 1996 after most of Citicasters' other television stations were sold to New World Communications and Fox. The Jacor deal reunited channel 12 with its AM sister which had been bought by Jacor in 1993 during Great American Broadcasting's bankruptcy reorganization. Jacor merged with Clear Channel Communications in 1998 although the Citicasters name continued to appear on WKRC's license until the sale of the station to Newport Television because it survives as a holding company within the Clear Channel corporate structure.

The station switched affiliations with WCPO on June 6, 1996 becoming a CBS affiliate once again. That station, which would take the ABC affiliation as part of a corporate affiliation deal its owner E.W. Scripps Company cut back in 1994, had to wait for WKRC's affiliation contract with ABC to run out before switching. Although owned by Clear Channel at the time, the station changed its branding to "Local 12" in 2003. This was inspired by the "Local Mandate", a station standardization branding adopted by Post-Newsweek for its own television stations. There are at least four other known non Post-Newsweek stations to have used the "Local" branding: KFMB-TV in San Diego, California (which used "Local 8" from 2001 to 2005), KOIN in Portland, Oregon, and WPSD-TV in Paducah, Kentucky having used "KOIN Local 6" and "WPSD Local 6" respectively, since 2008. WPMI in Mobile, Alabama has recently re-branded as "Local 15" as of August 2009.

In 2006, Clear Channel ranked WKRC as the top CBS affiliate in the United States. On November 16 of that year, Clear Channel announced that it would sell all its television stations, including WKRC,^[3] after being bought by private equity firms. On April 20, 2007, the company entered into an agreement to sell its entire television station group to Providence Equity Partners.^[4] Providence Equity teamed up with Sandy DiPasquale to form a new holding company, Newport Television, for the station group. Concurrently, Clear Channel applied to place WKRC and several other stations to the Aloha Station Trust just in case Newport Television failed to close on the group. However as a result of Newport Television closing on the purchase of WKRC and the other stations on March 14, 2008, Aloha Station Trust and the would-be new owners of Clear Channel opted not to consummate on the acquisition of this station. As a result, Newport Television became WKRC's fourth owner in just over twenty years. On June 18, 2008, the company announced that they were eliminating 7.5% of the employees at their 56 stations. They attributed the firings to a weak economy. As a result, WKRC fired eighteen staff members. After the analog television shutdown occurred on June 12, 2009 ^[5], WKRC-TV moved back to channel 12.^[6]

WKRC-DT2 "The CW Cincinnati"

On January 24, 2006, The WB and UPN announced that they would end broadcasting and merge. The new combined network would be called The CW. The letters would represent the first initial of its corporate parents, CBS (the parent company of UPN) and the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner. WKRC picked up affiliation with the new network on a new second digital subchannel resulting in UPN affiliate WBQC-CA going independent. Meanwhile, WB affiliate WSTR-TV joined the other new network, News Corporation-owned MyNetworkTV which launched on September 5.

Cincinnati cable viewers feared that WKRC-DT2 would face the same problems as WBQC. For years, Time Warner Cable had refused to carry that station full-time eventually airing its prime time programming on a low-profile channel. However, Time Warner Cable is a division of Time Warner (who would be half-owner of The CW) so it was in the company's best interest to air WKRC-DT2 over their systems. By late in the day on September 17, Time Warner Cable agreed to carry the new station only hours before the network's launch on September 18. The new station launched on Time Warner channel 2 in prime time only to start out with and 24/7 on digital cable channel 913 before earning a full-time broadcast basic berth on channel 20 as of October 18 ^[7] displacing WBQC and a commercial access channel. The station also debuted on Insight Communications and DirecTV under WBQC's former channel slots.

As a result, the channel can be viewed by 66% of the local population due to carriage by Time Warner Cable in Ohio, Insight in Northern Kentucky, and DirecTV.^[8] The subchannel originally broke from the network's usual station branding and called itself "The CinCW", a portmanteau with "Cincy". It currently airs the entire CW schedule in-pattern while outside of network hours airs classic sitcoms, dramas, films, and second runs of WKRC's syndicated programming along with regional wrestling programming on Saturday afternoons and evenings. Repeats of WKRC's local DIY show Homeworx can also be seen.

News operation

From 1977 to 1992,^[9] their news division was branded Eyewitness 12 News, a moniker that WLWT-TV would reuse in 1998. Afterwords, the station was usually announced as 12 News. In 1994, they began displaying "texta" (an on-screen banner) consisting of the current story's headline for the duration of the station's newscasts. Later, most Cincinnati stations would add news tickers to their weekday morning shows. WKRC added theirs below the texta headline. For a few years, the station aired its weekday Good Morning Cincinnati broadcasst live from the ground floor of Fifth Third Bank's headquarters in downtown with Fountain Square as the backdrop. In 1996, WKRC began airing 12 News First at 4 (a half-hour newscast Monday through Friday).

On April 26, 2006, the station announced a news share agreement with WSTR to produce a nightly prime time show known as Local 12 News at 10 on My 64 which began airing on August 21. This resulted, once MyNetworkTV began, in a CBS affiliate's newscast being carried on a station affiliated with a Fox sister network.^[10] On January 7, 2008, WKRC began simulcasting Good Morning Cincinnati on WKRC-DT2. It had been aired on the main channel from 5 to 8 in the morning but the third hour was dropped when CBS reclaimed the 7 o'clock hour for The Early Show. The network now requires all of its affiliates to air the show in its entirety after receiving a makeover hoping to better compete against its rivals, NBC's Today and ABC's Good Morning America. The 7 to 8 o'clock hour of Good Morning Cincinnati can now be only seen on WKRC-DT2. WKRC announced their intent to move the prime time newscast on WSTR to WKRC-DT2 in August 2008. On August 4, they began a brief simulcast of this program on WKRC-DT2 with it eventually being dropped from WSTR on August 22. The program then became known as CW News at 10.

Newport released a statement in October 2008 saying that WKRC would eventually begin broadcasting its newscasts in 1080i high definition. The company used the channel as a pilot station before investing in HD equipment for their other television stations. On October 30, they debuted a new set on its First at 4 broadcast in preparation for the HD debut. After nearly a year of delay, the station launched its high definition newscasts along with new logo and graphics on September 27, 2009 during their 11 o'clock show. They became the third in the Cincinnati area after WCPO and WXIX-TV and the second in the Newport group after WOAI-TV to make the upgrade. WKRC currently use JVC ProHD 250 Series cameras in their studios.^[11] Their newscasts and reports can be seen on the Ohio News Network cable channel. During weather segments, they use regional weather radar data in a system called "Precision Doppler 12 Network".

Newscast titles

Station Slogans

News team

Notable alumni

References

^ Nelson, Bob (2004-04-17). "Origins of many Call Signs". Southwest Museum of Engineering, Communications and Computation. http://www.smecc.org/call_sign_letter__meaning.htm. Retrieved 2007-04-12.
^ "Require Prime Evening Time for NTA Films", Boxoffice: 13, November 10, 1956, http://issuu.com/boxoffice/docs/boxoffice_111056-1
^ "Ch. 12 a prime draw in sale". The Cincinnati Enquirer (Gannett Company): p. 15A. 2006-11-17. http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:NewsBank:CEQB&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=1157DD8BC9678820&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated4&req_dat=0D0CB579A3BDA420. Retrieved 2006-11-17.
^ Clear Channel Communications (2007-04-20). "Clear Channel Agrees to Sell Television Station Group to Providence Equity Partners". Press release. http://www.clearchannel.com/Corporate/PressRelease.aspx?PressReleaseID=1943. Retrieved 2007-04-20.
^ http://www.local12.com/news/local/story/Local-12-Agrees-To-Delay-DTV-Switch/lZJy0yk5DE-9F-gsWArNqA.cspx
^ CDBS Print
^ Kiesewetter, John (2006-09-18). "Digital channel debuts". The Cincinnati Enquirer (Gannett Company): p. 1D. http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:NewsBank:CEQB&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=114D8CCE3498EF70&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated4&req_dat=0D0CB579A3BDA420. Retrieved 2007-10-12.
^ Kiesewetter, John (2006-09-17). "A Time Warner-CW Deal!". Cincinnati.Com Blogs. Gannett Company. http://frontier.cincinnati.com/blogs/tv/2006/09/time-warner-cw-deal.asp. Retrieved 2007-04-12.
^ "Old TV Newscast Titles". 2007-04-10. http://ekimmell2.tripod.com/old.html. Retrieved 2007-04-28.
^ Sinclair Broadcast Group (2006-04-24). "WSTR & WKRC Enter Into 10PM News Share In Cincinnati". Press release. http://sbgi.net/press/release_2006424_158.shtml. Retrieved 2006-05-20.
^ http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6604460.html

WKRC-TV

Contents

Digital programming