WEWS-TV

WEWS-TV, "NewsChannel5" is the local ABC network affiliate in Cleveland, Ohio. It has been owned by The E. W. Scripps Company since its inception; the call letters denote the initials of the parent company's founder. Its transmitter is located in Parma, Ohio. Since the 1990s, the station has been known on-air as NewsChannel 5.

History

WEWS first went on the air on December 17, 1947 as the first licensed television station in Ohio. Its first broadcast was of a Christmas pageant run by the station's corporate cousin, The Cleveland Press. In short order, WEWS became the most modern television station in America. Its staff included capable producers Jim Breslin and Betty Cope (the latter of whom would become president of WVIZ in 1965). In October 1948, WEWS, still Cleveland's only television station, broadcast the 1948 World Series games played in Cleveland between the Indians and the Boston Braves. The telecasts were fed to stations throughout the midwest (but could not fed to Boston or the east since there was not yet a coaxial cable connection east of Cleveland).

WEWS was originally a CBS affiliate with a secondary ABC affiliation, but it lost the affiliation to in 1955 (after Storer Broadcasting used its influence with CBS to land the affiliation). In its early days as an ABC affiliate, the station had to produce its own shows in the afternoon due to a lack of ABC network programming in that day part. WEWS had a lot of shows to offer, a tradition that would continue for many years.

Among the local programming offered during the 1950s and 1960s was news analysis from Dorothy Fuldheim, children's programming featuring the "Uncle Jake" character played by Gene Carroll and the "Captain Penny" character played by Ron Penfound, and exercise programs with Paige Palmer. Alice Weston had the one of first live television cooking shows, and Barbara Plummer was "Miss Barbara" for a generation of young viewers on the local version of Romper Room. The most popular show was the Gene Carroll show which began in the 1950's and ran well into the 1970's. The program aired every Sunday at noon. The show showcased the local talent of Cleveland area.

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

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, WEWS produced two programs that enjoyed national exposure through syndication. The first program was Upbeat. Considered by some to be one of the most significant early rock and roll TV variety shows, Upbeat featured a live audience, a group of dancers and live (or lip-synched) performances by the big names of the era. Artists who appeared on Upbeat included Aretha Franklin, The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, Otis Redding, Stevie Wonder and hundreds of others. In fact, Redding's final appearance ever came on the show on December 9, 1967. The next afternoon, his twin-engine airplane crashed in the icy waters of Lake Monona in Madison, Wisconsin, killing all but one of the eight passengers on board.

The program began locally as The Big 5 Show, and the name was changed to Upbeat when it went national, altogether running from 1964 to 1971. The host was local station personality Don Webster. At its peak, Upbeat was seen in over 100 television markets.

The other program seen throughout the country was Polka Varieties, an hour-long program of polka music. Polka Varieties ran locally on Sunday afternoons from 1:00 to 2:00 from 1956 to 1975, and was syndicated during its later years to 30 television markets. The program featured various popular Polish, Italian and Bohemian-style bands. America's Polka King Frankie Yankovic was the original band to perform on the show. Other bands included Richie Vadnal, George Staiduhar, Markic-Zagger, and Hank Haller. Original host Tom Fletcher was replaced by Paul Wilcox, whose presence became an indelible part of the show.

Until the late 1980s, the station would often pre-empt a few daytime morning ABC shows, but has since run most of the shows on ABC's regular lineup.

Logos

Image:WEWSearlycard.jpg|Early station identification slide from 1947.Image:WEWS_1970s.jpg|"Catch Five" promo from the 1970s.Image:WEWS_1986.jpg|1986 - 1990, "FIRST IN OHIO...TV5."Image:WEWS_1991.jpg|1990 - 1995, "NewsChannel 5... Cleveland's Live 24-Hour NewsSource."Image:WEWS_1997.jpg|1995 - 1998, "The most watched newsteam in Ohio... NewsChannel 5."Image:WEWS_1998.jpg|1998 - 2004, "NewsChannel 5, On Your Side." (though similar, first time without use of Circle 7 logo)Image:Wews_logo.PNG|2004 - present "NewsChannel 5: On Your Side." A very similar logo is used on unrelated KREX in Grand Junction, CO.

The Morning Exchange

One program in particular, The Morning Exchange, which ran from 1972 until 1999, changed the face of morning television. It was the first morning show to utilize a "living room" set, and the first to establish the now familiar concept of news and weather at the top and bottom of the hour. During its peak in the 1970s, nearly 70% of all TV sets in Cleveland were tuned to the program. The format also served as a basis for ABC's Good Morning America.

Newscasts

WEWS started covering news events soon after it went on air. The winter after it went on air, Cleveland experienced a blizzard, and for the first time WEWS had extended coverage for hours.

In 1959, Dorothy Fuldheim, who had been with the station before it even went on air, began to formulate her own newscast in response to the new 30-minute newscast on KYW, the first half-hour newscast in the country. Fuldheim utterly hated hard-hitting newscasts such as the one KYW had created. Instead, Fuldheim centered her newscast around her interviews, a general overview of the news, and her commentaries (during which the very opinionated Fuldheim frequently inserted her own opinions about the stories). Fuldheim was the first female in the United States to have her own television news analysis program.

With the arrival of the 1970s, WEWS changed the format of its newscasts slightly to a version of Eyewitness News. Fuldheim was now joined by John Hambrick as a co-anchor. Ted Henry, who joined WEWS in 1972 as a behind-the-scenes producer, presented the weather segment. (In later years, Henry would admit that he, not knowing the slightest about forecasting, simply made up the forecast every day.)

Catch 5

Further into the decade, the station commissioned musician Frank Gari to create a promotional campaign song. Catch 5, as it was known, caught on in Cleveland.

The Catch 5 promo highlighted the new anchor team on Eyewitness News. Hambrick continued to anchor the news, now joined by Dave Patterson. Fuldheim's role decreased as she only presented her interviews and commentaries on the air. Don Webster presented the weather and Gib Shanley was the sports director. At that time, Ted Henry became the weekend anchor, and then a year later in 1975, lead weekday anchor with Patterson. (Henry continues to be lead anchor to this day.)

The debut episode of Live On Five in 1982. Hosts Wilma Smith and Don Webster.

Live on Five

WEWS's news department underwent another major change in 1982. Previously, the 5 p.m.-6 p.m. spot was occupied by The Afternoon Exchange, the afternoon companion to The Morning Exchange. That year, the program adopted a new format, and was renamed to Live on Five. The broadcast was originally hosted by Wilma Smith and Don Webster, and retained many elements from The Afternoon Exchange, such as interviews, movie reviews, health reports, and some cooking segments. Added to the mix were frequent news reports by Ted Henry.

While the actual Eyewitness News broadcasts kept the Catch 5 theme music, Live on Five used a version of Hello News (also composed by Frank Gari) with a Catch 5 signature as its theme music. With that, the Catch 5 promo was replaced with a Hello Cleveland promo. In 1986, WEWS dropped the Catch 5 music altogether, and adopted Gari's Good News music package while Live on Five used the original version of Hello News (without the Catch 5 signature). Finally, in 1987, Live on Five became much more news-oriented, and the Hello news theme and image campaign were dropped.

NewsChannel 5

In 1977 weekend anchor Tim Taylor left WEWS for a new job at WJW where he played a key role in launching NewsCenter 8. As NewsCenter 8 became more and more successful throughout the 80s, WEWS began facing competition for the first time in years. According to Ted Henry, towards the end of the 80s, management felt that the station could produce a better newscast and overcome WJW by using a format other than Eyewitness News. An outside source was brought in and concurred that the station could do a better job in news production by adapting a new format. The analysis added that the Eyewitness News format gave nothing to viewers which suggested that its news was any better than the other stations'. With this in mind, WEWS began developing a format which would involve the production of full newscasts at the regular time slots, and in addition, mini-newscasts at the top of every hour, even overnight. This concept was dubbed "The 24 Hour NewsSource" as a way to suggest that WEWS was better than other stations since it produced a newscast every hour. In 1990, the new format was put into place and the station began identifying itself as NewsChannel 5.

From 1990 until 1993, WEWS and WJW continued battling for the top rated spot. In 1993, WEWS launched a successful campaign called "Together" which reminded viewers of the station's commitment to Cleveland through news and programming since its 1947 launch and that that same commitment was present today. The campaign also slightly toned down the newscasts by making them less hard-hitting. As a result, WEWS once again emerged as the market leader in news. In 1994, WJW became a Fox affiliate and adopted a more hard-hitting format for its newscasts, leading to many of its viewers changing channels to WEWS. Meanwhile, WKYC and WOIO (the new CBS affiliate) failed to present much substantial competition at all. However, WJW soon began regaining viewers due to the fact that it was able to produce longer local newscasts since FOX had less programming than the other networks. In response, WEWS began promoting its news division as "The Most Watched News Team in Ohio" in hope that the bandwagon effect would keep viewers tuned to its newscasts. In 1997, WEWS began to lose more viewers, this time to WKYC, when former WUAB anchor Romona Robinson moved to WKYC. At this time WEWS discontinued its hourly "24 Hour NewsSource" updates.

To try to prevent more viewers from leaving, WEWS got a new set and a new newsroom in 1998 and adopted "On Your Side" as its slogan (which it currently still uses). More noticeable, however, was the dropping of the station's longtime "Circle 5" logo. That year, WEWS also became the first TV station in Cleveland to launch a website NewsNet5.

WEWS retained the top spot until 2001, when WJW began resurfacing as the leader once again. Additionally, Live on Five, which dominated the 5 p.m. hour for years, suffered dramatically because at the end of WEWS's 4 p.m. broadcast of Oprah many viewers switched to WKYC's 5 p.m. broadcast of Dr. Phil. This in turn resulted in many viewers watching WKYC's 6 p.m. newscast, which caused further ratings declines at WEWS. It should be noted that WEWS had the chance to broadcast Dr. Phil (as WEWS is loyal to the show's syndicator, King World) but turned it down in order to keep Live on Five on the air. WEWS decided once again to change its format to compete. In September 2002, WEWS adopted a harder-hitting format that mimicked many of the elements of WJW's newscasts. It also dropped its weekend morning and weekend noon newscasts. When the station failed to regain viewers, WEWS saw that an even bigger change was needed.

In January 2004, a completely different NewsChannel 5 debuted to compete with WJW. The format was unlike any previous Cleveland newscast. Rather than staying at the main anchor desk, the anchors moved around the set reporting stories while standing, sitting at small tables, or in front of a "video wall." This was all complemented by a set made up mostly of flat screen TVs flashing the new NewsChannel 5 logo. On screen, stories would transition with flashy graphics and swooshing sounds. By this time, however, WJW had lost its number one spot to the more traditional WKYC. Therefore, the newscast WEWS created to compete with WJW now was competing against a completely different type of broadcast.

Due to the new style, WEWS experienced sharp ratings declines. As a result, in June 2004, Lynn Heider, WEWS's news director since 1998, resigned. She was replaced by John Butte who by that August eliminated many of the flashy graphics, swoosh sounds, and anchor movement from the newscasts. Butte also significantly expanded the length and content of the sports segments on all of the newscasts. Slowly, WEWS began to regain some viewers. In May 2005, WKYC lost its market dominance in the ratings and thus WEWS's ratings improved. In August 2005, Ric Harris, station general manager and vice president since 2001, left WEWS for a position with NBC's digital media sector. On February 8, 2006, Scripps named John Butte the permanent general manager and vice president of WEWS. Scripps cited the fact that as the news director, Butte helped WEWS grow stronger as part of the reason for the decision. Butte is the eighth general manager of WEWS.

In the May 2006 ratings period, WEWS lost viewers in many of their newscasts. However, its noon newscast placed first, while its 11 p.m. newscast finished closer to first-place WKYC than it did in the preceding two ratings periods.

Currently, WEWS has the following newscasts:
*Monday - Friday:
**5:00-7:00 a.m.: Good Morning Cleveland
**12:00noon-1:00 p.m.: NewsChannel 5 at Noon
**5:00-6:00 p.m.: Live On Five
**6:00-6:30 p.m.: NewsChannel 5 at 6
**11:00-11:35 p.m.: NewsChannel 5 at 11
*Saturday and Sunday
**6:00-6:30 p.m.: NewsChannel 5 at 6
**11:00-11:32 p.m.: NewsChannel 5 at 11

In addition, these weekend sports shows air:
*Saturday:
**11:32 p.m.-12:00mid: McDonald's Sports Saturday (Currently on hiatus until the college football seaon resumes)
***Host John Chandler or Sue Ann Robak
*Sunday:
**11:32 p.m.-12:00mid: Toyota Sports Sunday
***Host Chris Miller

WEWS-TV: Encyclopedia BETA

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