Rusty Muck

John was WEWS's first **star** anchor after market legend Dorothy Fuldheim. Later on he went to WTVJ to face the unenviable task of succeeding another broadcasting pioneer, Ralph Renick. John's brother Judd later went to WJKW (the former and current WJW), then to WKYC for two stays in the 80s and 90s... where he was initially paired with Al Roker as chief meteorologist (NBC ran WKYC as an AAA team for WMAQ and WNBC until 1990). Lisa joined WKYC shortly after NBC sold off majority control of the station.

As opposed to S!nclair or Nexstar? Even Cox isn't universally loved (**cough** WFXT **cough**) and they have a better reputation than most. Also remember that KMGH's previous GM was reassigned to WEWS before the "Denver 7" rebrand.

Unfortunately, I can't seem to find the most recent ratings postings. Typically, WKYC and WEWS have been battling it out for #2 at 6pm and #1 at 11pm (WJW doesn't have an 11pm newscast.) If I were to hazard a guess, WEWS is #3 or #4 at 4pm** and #3 at 5pm, behind WJW and WKYC's durable talk block of Ellen and Dr. Phil. The only time period WEWS really struggles is in early mornings... WJW's "Fox 8 News in the Morning" often doubles and triples the competition. Likewise, "Good Morning Cleveland" has been rebooted multiple times over the past decade. **That depends on how badly WOIO has flopped with "Cleveland 19 News" across the board.

WXYZ's iteration of "The Now" has morphed into a pseudo-"Action News at 4," right? The only thing different is the presentation/graphics and whatever content they take from KMGH. WEWS's Now replaced back-to-back episodes of RTM, which replaced "Dr. Oz" in mid-season (Oz moved to 10am exclusively, then WEWS gave his show up to WJW). So they had ratings issues in that timeslot that were worse than Detroit. I haven't really watched WEWS's Now in awhile, but with the 6pm team of Rob Powers and Danita Harris now as anchors, it's likely that WEWS will follow the same lead and make it a quasi-"News 5 Cleveland at 4" in all but name only.

It should be noted that WKBW never cleared "The Now" as part of the Scripps reclamation project, nor are they this fall. (WKBW is clearing Harry Connick, Jr.'s new show at 3pm, moving "Hot Bench" to the 4pm hour, and scuttling "Right this Minute" to 12:30.) Of course, KB has been airing "AM Buffalo" in the 10am timeslot since 1978... and that's in line with the infotainment shows the legacy Journal stations would have aired/are airing. And did anyone notice that "RTM" is, as of this fall, being syndicated by Disney/ABC?

I would be surprised if W*USA's GM Bill Lord hasn't entertained the idea of reuniting with Leon.

Cleveland TV logos don't have that high a bar to begin with (just look at WOIO's logo!). It would have to be an exceptional FAIL along the lines of WFXT.

That sounds like a perfect screwball comedy that needs to be made.

Outside of swapping in Rob Powers, the rest of the main 6p/11p team - Danita Harris, Mark Johnson and Andy Baskin - has been in place for several years now. Heck, it took them close to 15 years to replace the late Nev Chandler (gone too soon) with Andy... and close to 1 and 1/2 years to name a replacement for Ted Henry (that being Chris Flanagan). I only hope that they don't botch the logo, but that's not saying much.

Also the first TV station in the entire state (let alone Cleveland) and the oldest station in the Cleveland market to keep its original callsign and their historical analog channel number. WEWS is a legacy callsign... cumbersome as hell, but still, legacy. Fun but silly trivia: at one point in the early 1970s, WKYC was branded as "TV3," WEWS as "TV5" and WJW-TV as "Television ei8ht" (that itself became "TV8" in 1977).

It's a fair assessment, the WEWS calls don't roll off the tongue that easily. Even during the EWN era, the station was always referred to as "TV5." That being said, I would probably prefer for them to adopt "WEWS 5" as a non-news brand, though they'll probably use "Channel 5." ("5 ABC"/"ABC 5" is not even on my radar TBH.)

It simply sounds like WEWS is just dropping the "Channel" from their branding, going with "News5" and/or "News5 Cleveland." Which is fine. I wish they would have restored the EWN name but this is relatively harmless. I never really liked the "NewsChannel 5" brand because of the multiple revamps and turnover which has befallen WEWS since 1996... or that WEWS used that as the sole station brand from day one ("Oprah," today at 4 on NewsChannel 5!").

Dorothy Baby!

As silly as those brands are, that "Denver 7" even was used makes my head hurt.

Fine with me. WEWS has been "NewsChannel 5" since 1990 and I STILL want to refer to them as "TV5 Eyewitness News."

What's wrong with adopting the "7ABC" brand? (WKBW alternates between "7ABC" and "7EWN" as their brands.) We both know that they wouldn't do something mind-numbingly stupid like "Detroit 7."

Yeah, even if the current primetime repeats are shifted by 30 minutes (Chris Hayes at 11:30, Rachel at 12:30, etc.) it just comes off as odd. Or would they air a condensed "Hardball" rerun at 11:30?

Not entirely. Again, they'll still have the WBNS radio stations and ONN Radio... or, more accurately, they may be stuck with the radio operations unless Cox decides to buy Dispatch as a whole. (Off topic but is it possible for someone to move this and the preceding posts onto the Dispatch thread I just saw?)

Hearst is very plausible and would give them the market leaders in Columbus, Indianapolis and Cincinnati (while also reuniting WLWT with WTHR, the erstwhile WLWI). Cox would also be a good buyer, and given their radio presence (esp. in Dayton, their original market), may want to buy the radio assets too. That Dispatch has nothing to say about their radio operations, and presumably aren't going to sell them, says an awful lot about how bad the radio industry is now. (And could you blame them after witnessing CBS failing to find any buyer for their radio unit?)

Dispatch is going to stick with just WBNS-AM "ESPN 1460" and WBNS-FM "97.1 The FAN?" That's a bit of a surprise... then again, both stations bill tremendously with the IMG/tOSU PBP package (which has been on 1460 since 1979). Not to mention that radio in general is no longer a buyer's market by any stretch of the imagination... I would have thrown them in with both TV stations. Dispatch also runs ONN Radio, a statewide co-op comprised of member radio affiliates, WBNS-TV and the TV partners of the old ONN cable network. 10TV's meteorologists also provide weather forecasts to ONN Radio affiliates that request it. TBH, I would favor Scripps getting WBNS AM/FM/TV and the ONN remants, and TEGNA getting WTHR.

I would be remiss not to mention Matt Granite, whose weekday morning show deal segments originate from WKYC and are hubbed to all TEGNA stations. And in lieu of not having any investigative reporters (Granite disbanded their I-team in 2001), WKBW had been airing stories from other Scripps stations - including WFTS - during recent sweeps periods. That will no longer be necessary.

Agreed. It's meh. I would've stacked the words First Coast News from top-to-bottom in varying degrees of font weight, and stacked the network logos on the immediate side.

WCPO's John Materese has his "Don't Waste Your Money!" consumer reports hubbed to Scripps stations regionally. WEWS has carried him for several years now.

Greg Easterly had a long and very successful tenure as GM for WJW "Fox 8" Cleveland. PIX is getting a very good leader.

It smells more of, "we want to retire the Cox-era 'TV-36' brand, but KRON is holding onto MyTV for dear life, so ehhh... 'KTVU Plus.'"