WKEF - News Operation

News Operation

During the station's early years, channel 22 had no local newscasts. WKEF established a news department in mid-1972 in response to licensing requirements with two weeknight broadcasts in mid-1972. Mark Pierce was named News Director, with anchor John Getter, sports from Billy McCool, and meteorologist Virginia Bigler. Bigler was granted the American Meteorological Society Seal of Approval based on her weather segments, becoming the second female meteorologist in the United States to receive this. The news department was discontinued after the Xenia tornado in 1974. The final Eyewitness News at 11 was anchored by Paul Douglas (Wilson) who had joined the WKEF staff as an anchor, reporter, and producer in 1973.

Throughout most of the 1970s, WKEF decided against airing its own newscasts possibly owing to low ratings. It relied instead on brief audio-only news updates from newscasters at local radio station WING-AM. It ran these updates at selected times in the morning, afternoon, and evening using a still slide on-screen with a picture of the newscaster. WKEF brought back full news programs in 1979 under the moniker 22 Alive! News with anchors Tom Miller and Jack Marschall.

In 1998, sister station WRGT-TV began airing a nightly 10 o'clock newscast, now known as Fox 45 News at 10, using WKEF's news team.

On June 12, 2006, WKEF began airing a weekday morning program from 5 to 7, called ABC 22 Good Morning. On the same day, WRGT-TV began airing Fox 45 in the Morning from 7 to 9 a.m. weekdays.

In August 2008, Fox 45 Dayton's News Source at 6:30 was added to WRGT-TV, airing on weeknights against the national news broadcasts on the "Big Three" stations.

In terms of ratings, WKEF's newscasts have always been a distant third place behind WHIO and WDTN. However, on some nights (usually Sundays because of ABC programming) there are times that WKEF is runner-up to WHIO. WKEF did not participate in the wider implementation of Sinclair's now-defunct, controversial News Central format for its newscasts but did air "The Point", a one-minute conservative political commentary hosted by Mark E. Hyman, that was also controversial and a requirement of all Sinclair-owned stations with newscasts until the series was discontinued in December 2006.

As of July 21, 2012, with WDTN's upgrade to high definition local newscasts, WKEF and WRGT-TV remain the only two "Big Four" network-affiliated television stations in the Dayton area that continue to broadcast their newscasts in pillarboxed 4:3 standard definition. WHIO-TV was the first to have made the upgrade to full high definition. Dean Ditmer, general manager of the stations, announced that WKEF and WRGT-TV would upgrade to HD in 2012 with a new set; the current set has been in use since January, 1995. On October 29, 2012, the stations began constructing their new set at their future Corporate Place studios.