WJW (TV) - News Operation

News Operation

As of September 9, 2012, WJW broadcasts a total of 60½ hours of local news a week (with ten hours on weekdays five hours on Saturdays, and 5½ hours on Sundays), more than any other television station in the state of Ohio. In addition, the 10 p.m. newscast is repeated at 1 a.m.; counting New Day Cleveland at 10 a.m. and the 10 p.m. newscast replay at 1 a.m., WJW airs twelve hours of local programming per weekday.

During football season, WJW airs Friday Night Touchdown, a weekly recap of all of the area high school football games, Friday nights at 11 p.m. Sundays at 11 p.m., WJW airs The Rizzo Show, a year round weekly sports/talk/comedy program starring Tony Rizzo (former longtime sports director at WJW) featuring comedian Mike Polk.

From the time WJW affiliated with Fox in 1994, the station has put more emphasis on its local newscasts keeping a newscast schedule very similar to a CBS, ABC or NBC affiliate. Local newscasts were expanded to 3½ hours (and eventually to 4, then 5, and presently 5½ hours as of January 3, 2011) on weekday mornings, plus the extension of the 5 p.m. newscast by a half-hour, and the moving of the 11 p.m. newscast to 10 p.m. In December 2004, WJW became the first station in the Cleveland market (and the third station in the United States) to produce local news in high definition. This made WJW the only Local TV-owned station to have already been airing high-definition newscasts prior to Local TV's purchase of the station since the upgrade was made while it was still owned and operated by Fox. Unlike several of WJW's Local TV stablemates, most of WJW's field video is still shot in widescreen standard definition as of June 2011.

In 2007, SkyFox HD debuted. WJW used a Eurocopter Ecureuil Astar 350 Helicopter. WJW had the fastest TV helicopter in Cleveland (all the other Cleveland stations owned Bell 206 helicopters), but due to budget cuts in late 2008, WJW had to get rid of SkyFox HD. After a tornado touched down in Wooster, Ohio on September 16, 2010, the station resumed sporadic usage of the chopper. In February 2011, SkyFox was refurbished with a new paintjob, and resumed being used for weekday morning traffic reports. However, it reverted to shooting video in 16:9 SD.

In the February 2006 ratings period WJW's newscasts placed first in the morning, second at 6 p.m., and first at 10 p.m.. WJW also had the highest rated newscast at 5 p.m., but it still fell behind WKYC's broadcast of Dr. Phil. In the November 2006 ratings period, WJW's morning newscast continued its dominance over its competitors, while its other newscasts remained very competitive in their timeslots. WJW's remodeled news set officially debuted on July 16, 2007. Along with the new set, WJW adopted a new graphics package, new music (OSI Music's Fox Affiliate News Theme), and a new logo (which had been on some promotional items months prior to the revamp), similar to what has become standard on the other Fox-owned stations.

In the February 2008 ratings period, WJW's newscasts finished in first place in all of their timeslots except for its noon newscast, which finished third behind the noon newscasts of WEWS and WOIO. WJW's 5 p.m. newscast even managed to win its timeslot, knocking WKYC's airing of Dr. Phil (which had been winning the timeslot until recently) down to third place behind WJW's and WEWS' 5 p.m. newscasts.

On July 12, 2010, WJW began a weeknight, half-hour 7 p.m. newscast, making it the second station to air news in Cleveland in that time slot, behind WKYC, which had a ten-year head start. On January 3, 2011, WJW began airing their weekday morning newcasts at 4:30 a.m., WKYC expanded its morning newscast into that timeslot that same day (ABC affiliate WEWS was the first station in Cleveland to do 4:30 a.m. newscasts in November 2010). On September 10, 2011, WJW launched weekend morning newscasts, becoming the second station in the Cleveland market to do so, the first being WKYC in 1992.