The Morning Exchange - Morning Exchange's Decline

Morning Exchange's Decline

Originally, WEWS elected to air neither A.M. America nor Good Morning America, instead using that time-slot for The Morning Exchange. In 1978, WEWS began airing one hour of Good Morning America from 7 to 8 a.m. and then The Morning Exchange from 8 to 10 a.m. (It should be noted that a secondary ABC affiliate for the Cleveland market proper, Akron-based WAKR-TV — later WAKC and currently ion O&O WVPX — did carry Good Morning America in its entirety throughout the 1980s and early 1990s.)

In September of 1994, Cleveland station WJW, as part of a group-wide deal involving the station's then-owner, dropped its CBS affiliation and joined the Fox network. During the transition period, CBS attempted to negotiate with WEWS owner Scripps-Howard on having WEWS and onetime ABC O&O WXYZ in Detroit become CBS affiliates (Detroit's then-CBS affiliate was also involved in the same group deal with Fox). Instead, the company informed ABC of CBS's intentions and convinced ABC to increase the affiliation fee it paid to WEWS, which resulted in a group-wide affiliation pact with the network that triggered, among other deals, Westinghouse's affiliation pact-turned-merger with CBS.

However, in addition to agreeing not to switch to a CBS affiliation, WEWS also had to agree to broadcast the full two hours of Good Morning America. By 1994, WEWS was the only station remaining in the top 25 TV markets in the country that did not broadcast the full two hours of GMA.

That move was devastating to The Morning Exchange. It was pushed back to 9-11 a.m., missing the commuter rush hour crowd. Additionally, the show's original target audience, stay-at-home women, had nearly disappeared since the show's debut, as more women entered the workforce. In addition, other stations also began increasing local programming in the early morning hours. Most notably, WJW successfully compensated for the loss of CBS' morning show by extending their morning newscast until 9 a.m.

In 1997, WEWS began to air Live with Regis and Kathie Lee live from 9-10 a.m. and The Morning Exchange from 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. (Channel 5 had been airing Regis and Kathie Lee from 11 a.m. - noon since its debut in 1988). In an unusual move, WEWS inserted the syndicated and at the time 30 minute Martha Stewart Living program in the middle of the MX broadcast, playing it off as an extended segment of the show.

In 1998, major changes occurred when the show's title was changed to Today's Morning Exchange and reduced to one hour, in an attempt to save the declining show, and to accommodate The View — which WEWS had been airing on delay in the late night hours — at 11 a.m. Fred Griffith was demoted to a simple field reporter with morning weatherman Mark Johnson taking his place as co-host, along with former WJW news anchor Robin Swoboda. The resulting show departed significantly from the program viewers were used to and ratings suffered even more.

In 1999, WEWS announced that after 27 years, The Morning Exchange would come to an end. The last week's programs had Griffith return as host and featured "MX Moments" from over the years. The last program, which aired on September 10, 1999, included live interviews with some of the hosts of morning shows that used the MX format, including Good Morning America. All of the other program's hosts praised the MX for being the pioneer in establishing the format used by nearly all morning interview programs.