WKRC-TV - History

History

WKRC-TV is Cincinnati's second-oldest television station, having commenced operations on April 4, 1949 as a CBS affiliate on VHF channel 11. The station was owned by the Ohio-based Taft family, who were active in both politics and in media. The Tafts published the Cincinnati Times-Star, and also owned WKRC radio (AM 550 and FM 101.9, now WKRQ) under their broadcasting subsidiary, Radio Cincinnati. In 1958, the Tafts sold the Times-Star to the locally-based rival E. W. Scripps Company, owner of the The Cincinnati Post and WCPO-AM-FM-TV. The Tafts' broadcasting interests were then reorganized as Taft Broadcasting, with WKRC-AM-FM-TV as the flagship stations. The WKRC stations' call letters were derived from the original owner of WKRC radio, Clarence Ogden of the Kodel Radio Company ("Ko" for Clarence and "dell" for Della his wife).

Following the release of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s Sixth Report and Order, WKRC-TV moved to channel 12 on October 12, 1952. Nine years later, in 1961, the station became an ABC affiliate, switching networks with WCPO-TV. 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. 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 WCPO-TV, channel 12 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, it 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.

Over the years, as an ABC affiliate, WKRC-TV preempted moderate amounts of weekday programming and the Sunday morning cartoon reruns from ABC. When ABC offered late night programming from 11:30 pm to about 2:00 am, WKRC, like many other affiliates chose not to air it. It did air Nightline once that began in 1979. Occasionally, WKRC preempted a lower rated prime time program or movie from ABC to air either a stronger movie or a locally based special. Most programs not shown on WKRC were widely preempted by many affiliates. Also, most every show not shown on WKRC-TV was aired on the ABC station in nearby Dayton, WKEF until 1980 and WDTN after 1980. WKEF provided grade B coverage to most of the market, while WDTN provided city-grade coverage to nearly the entire market. Locally, WKRC aired news, talk shows, movies, and a few off network sitcoms at some points. Beginning in 1992, WKRC-TV began preempting portions of ABC's Saturday morning cartoons in favor of a local Saturday morning newscast.

In 1987, Taft was dissolved in a hostile takeover of its board and all of its stations (except WTVN-TV in Columbus 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.

The station switched affiliations with WCPO on June 3, 1996 after WCPO's owner, Scripps, demanded that ABC switch its Cincinnati affiliation there as a condition of keeping ABC programming on its two biggest stations, WXYZ-TV in Detroit and WEWS-TV in Cleveland. ABC actually agreed to Scripps' demands in 1994, but WKRC's contract with ABC still had two years to go. As a CBS affiliate, WKRC-TV ran the entire schedule except for several hours of the CBS Saturday morning cartoon lineup which would soon be pulled back to only a few hours anyway. Once that was pulled back, WKRC-TV was then running the entire CBS schedule with an occasional exception. 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 Stations for its own television stations.

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 its entire television division, including WKRC, 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. 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. As a result of the sale, the Citicasters name disappeared from WKRC's license, dissolving channel 12's last link to Taft Broadcasting; the Citicasters name is still alive as a holding company within the Clear Channel structure.

On June 18, 2008, the company announced that it was eliminating 7.5% of the jobs at its 56 stations. It attributed the firings to a weak economy. As a result, WKRC fired eighteen staff members. WKRC-TV ended programming on its analog signal, on VHF channel 12, on June 12, 2009, as part of the DTV transition in the United States. The station then moved back to channel 12 for its post-transition operations.

On July 19, 2012, Newport Television reached a deal to sell 22 of its 27 stations to the Nexstar Broadcasting Group, Sinclair Broadcast Group and Cox Media Group. WKRC-TV is among the six that would be sold to Sinclair. WSTR-TV will be transferred to Deerfield Media (who will also be receiving San Antonio's CW affiliate KMYS in the same deal) because the Cincinnati market, despite being the 35th-largest market, has only five full-power commercial stations, which are not enough to legally permit a duopoly. However, Sinclair will retain control of WSTR through a shared services agreement. The deal would also reunite WKRC-TV with WSYX (the former WTVN-TV), another station formerly owned by Taft. The sale was completed on December 3.