Cincinnati’s third television station, WCPO-TV, has many impressive firsts in local TV history dating back to its very first minutes on the air on July 26, 1949.
WCPO-TV debuted at noon on Channel 7 (before the federal government reallocation moved it to Channel 9) with WCPO-AM radio disc jockey Art Jarrett. WLWT-TV — the city’s first TV station then in its 16th month of operation — didn’t air programming until 4 p.m. WKRC-TV, which debuted in April 1949, was dark until 6 p.m.
The station’s official dedication was broadcast at 7:45 p.m. with Gov. Frank Lausche at Crosley Field before Channel 7 broadcast the Reds-Boston Braves game, a simulcast with Waite Hoyt’s radio call on WCPO-AM (now WDBZ-AM, 1230 "The Buzz of Cincinnati”).
WCPO-TV’s pioneering daytime TV schedule — including the “Uncle Al” Lewis kids show started in 1950, and DJ Paul Dixon's program — earned the station an award from Variety magazine for “outstanding station operation in the nation” for its first anniversary in July 1950.
The station also won a national Variety award for "news coverage" in 1949 — although Al Schottelkotte’s news department wasn't created until 1959. Schottelkotte and Channel 9 had many significant firsts for Cincinnati TV news, which I’ve put throughout the list below.
WCPO-TV will celebrate its 75th birthday a day early, with a half-hour special, 75 Years of WCPO 9, at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, July 25. Happy birthday WCPO-TV!
1—Uncle Al Show: Hired as the station’s art director before the launch, Albert Lewis Slowik soon was entertaining viewers with his accordion nightclub act. When neighborhood kids were attracted to the music on his daytime Al’s Drug Store it morphed into the Uncle Al Show, which had a 35-year run at the station (1950-85).
2—Al Schottelkotte: WCPO-TV’s other Al was the dominant player in Cincinnati TV news from 1959, when he quit as Enquirer columnist to start a three-person Channel 9 newsroom, until he left the anchor desk in 1986. For 22 consecutive years, starting in 1960, Schottelkotte’s 11 p.m. newscast was No. 1 in the ratings. At his peak, the 11 p.m. Al Schottelkotte News drew half of all available viewers to Chanel 9.
3—The Rembrandts: Schottelkotte was so influential that when two Rembrandt paintings were stolen from the Taft Museum on Dec. 18, 1973, an “intermediary” named Jim Hough turned over one of the paintings to Schottelkotte. The anchorman took it back to the station, and refused to let museum officials or police see it until he opened the 11 p.m. news with the Rembrandt.
4—Four Peabody Awards: WCPO-TV’s four Peabody Awards — more than any other Cincinnati TV station — were presented for Elaine Green's interview with James Hoskins (1980); Pat Minarcin's stories exposing Donald Harvey as a possible serial killer (1987); problems with construction of Paul Brown Stadium (1999); and Laure Quinlivan's Visions of Vine Street documentary about abandoned Over-the-Rhine buildings (2001) a decade before OTR was cool again.
5—John Matarese: Hired as a reporter in the 1980s, Matarese has been doing watchdog consumer reports since 1999 which have grown into the “Don’t Waste Your Money” franchise airing on 28 stations, from New York to San Diego.
6—Sports Of All Sorts: Eighteen months after he arrived at WCPO-TV, sports director John Popovich was asked in December 1980 to create a 15-minute live Sunday night sports show, which grew to a full hour in 1988. It’s still on the air, as a taped show.
7—Channel 7: WCPO-TV first broadcast on Channel 7 here before the 1953 federal government’s channel re-alignment, which moved WCPO-TV to Channel 9; WLWT-TV to Channel 5 from 4; and WKRC-TV to Channel 12 from 11.
8—Call letters: The WCPO-TV call letters stood for the Cincinnati Post, the evening newspaper also owned by the Scripps family from 1881 until it closed in 2007. Scripps purchased WFBE-AM (1230) in 1935, and launched television with many of its radio personalities.
9—9 Stands For News: News has always been part of WCPO-TV’s legacy. Its first year on the air, the station “won the national Variety (trade paper) Award for news coverage” in 1949. WCPO-TV used the “9 Stands For News” slogan for many years.
10—Tanya O'Rourke: A second-generation broadcaster, O'Rourke started at WCPO-TV in 1992 on the weekend assignment desk and advanced to being a writer for the 11 p.m. news and overnight assistant producer for the morning show before becoming a reporter. She's been the main late news anchor since 2016, when anchor Carol Williams went part-time before her retirement in 2017.
11—It’s E-E-E-E-Eleven O’Clock in the Tri-State: WCPO-TV’s 11 p.m. news opening in the 1970s: “E-E-E-E-Eleven O’Clock! Al Schottelkotte News time! From the Tri-State, across the nation and from around the world — the color films, pictures and sounds of the day’s events from the station where news is first.“
12—Clyde Gray: After two stints on WLWT-TV as a reporter and occasional anchor in the 1980s, Gray jumped to WCPO-TV to become main co-anchor and report I-Team investigations. He retired in the middle of his contract in 2014, at age 59, and returned after a failed attempt in 2015 to anchor at WXIX-TV with Tricia Macke. He also co-hosted Channel 9’s daytime Cincy Lifestyles until retiring again in 2022.
13—Waite Hoyt: The legendary Cincinnati Reds radio announcer was part of WCPO-TV's inaugural broadcast when his WCPO-AM call of the game was simulcast with the TV broadcast of the Reds-Boston Braves game at 8:30 p.m. from Crosley Field. The Enquirer reported that WCPO-TV planned to televise all Reds home games “even though commercial contracts call for WCPO-TV and WLWT-TV to alternate the telecasting.”
14—Bill Hemmer: The Fox News Channel host was a WLWT-TV sports reporter in 1989 when hired by WCPO-TV to work with sportscasters Dennis Janson and John Popovich. The 1983 Elder High School graduate switched to news anchor after taking a year off to backpack around the world. He left Channel 9 in 1995 for CNN, and moved to Fox News in 2005.
15—Gretchen Carlson: The 1989 Miss America from Minnesota joined WCPO-TV from a Virginia station in 1992 as a night shift reporter and eventually an anchor. After two years, she worked at Cleveland and Dallas stations before joining CBS News in 2000 and Fox News Channel in 2013. When her Fox contract expired in 2016 she sued Roger Ailes, Fox News chairman and CEO, claiming sexual harassment.
16—Roger Ailes: More than two decades before creating the Fox News Channel, Ailes produced a couple of Cincinnati daytime local TV talk shows. He worked on WKRC-TV’s Dennis Wholey Show in 1969, and was executive producer of WCPO-TV’s John Wade Show, which was cancelled after 26 weeks in January 1974 because it failed to attract enough interest for national syndication.
17—1980 hostage incident: After fatally shooting his girlfriend in his Over-the-Rhine apartment, James Hoskins, 41, went to WCPO-TV at 500 Central Ave. Downtown and took nine employees hostage, including reporters Elaine Green and Tom McKee, early in the morning of Oct. 15, 1980. Hoskins let them go after taping an interview with Green, then killed himself in the newsroom.
18—Elaine Green: Reporter Elaine Green and photographer John Ehrhart were returning from filming a late-night medical story in 1980 when gunman James Hoskins approached them in the Channel 9 parking lot. They went inside and Hoskins held nine employees hostage. He demanded to go on TV live, but Green suggested talking on videotape. Green left WCPO-TV in 1983 to open the Video Features storytelling company, and married Schottelkotte in 1988. Here’s her 1980 interview with Hoskins:
19—Tom McKee: For four decades Tom McKee has reported breaking news, politics, business and education and his "Democracy" series before elections before retiring in 2018.
20—Craig McKee: When Clyde Gray retired early, Channel 9 hired Milwaukee anchor Craig McKee (no relation to Tom) to be main co-anchor in June 2015. The nine-year Air Force veteran has promoted many veterans’ issues in his “Homefront” reports.
21—Dennis Janson: After anchorman Nick Clooney left WKRC-TV’s top-rated newscast in 1984 for KNBC-TV in Los Angeles, sportscaster Dennis Janson was convinced to jump across town to Channel 9 from 12. Janson anchored sports for about 30 years before leaving TV to write columns for wcpo.com. Here’s Popovich’s tribute to his old pal:
22—John Popovich: Perhaps Cincinnati TV’s most gifted storyteller (as he demonstrated in the above tribute to Janson), John Popovich was the rock solid, never flashy, almost poetic sportscaster at WCPO-TV for 40 years.
23—Symmes Avenue: WCPO-TV first broadcast from a building at 2345 Symmes Street, under the current WCPO-TV tower. Schottelkotte’s three-person TV news staff, first assembled in 1959, worked in a trailer in the parking lot until sharing an office in the building with Al and Wanda Lewis.
24—Central Avenue: Channel 9 moved into new headquarters in 1967 at 500 Central Ave., where the Fifth Street exit ramp from Interstate 75 dumps into Downtown. The building was demolished in 2004 for convention center expansion.
25—Gilbert Avenue: WCPO-TV moved into its current home at 1720 Gilbert Ave., at the foot of Mount Adams, in 2004, near the dawn of wide-screen high-definition TV sets. Note that the windows along Gilbert Avenue are in the 16 x 9 aspect ratio of today’s flat TV screens.
26—Wheel and Jeopardy: Credit WCPO-TV with being one of the first stations to pair King World’s syndicated Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! 7-8 p.m. in September 1984. WCPO-TV gave up the hit shows to WXIX-TV due to their expense in 2012.
27—Oprah Winfrey: Channel 9’s relationship with King World paid off again in 1987 when WKRC-TV balked at renewing Oprah Winfrey’s smash hit talk show for its second season. Oprah moved from 10 a.m. on Channel 12 to 4 p.m. on Channel 9 for the next 24 years.
28—Jennifer Ketchmark: Morning meteorologist Jennifer Ketchmark started her career in her hometown of Champaign, Ill., and spent five years as weekend evening forecaster for Indianapolis Fox affiliate WXIN-TV before coming to Channel 9 in October 2014. She replaced Mount Healthy native Larry Handley, whose contract was not renewed after 15 years.
29—Adrian Whitsett: The Iraq war veteran was hired to co-anchor Good Morning Tri-State with Julie O’Neill in 2020. After a four-year stint in the Marines, he worked at TV stations in Omaha, where he spent most of his childhood, and Orlando.
30—Bob Shreve: Best known as host of the All Night Theater sponsored by Schoenling Beer in the late 1960s on WCPO-TV (and later WLWT-TV and WKRC-TV), Shreve also appeared on various shows from 1954 to 1970, including hosting Three Stooges films and playing Roger Robot on the Uncle Al Show. Here’s a clip from Shreve’s last all-night movie on Oct. 3, 1970 on Channel 9:
31—Bob Braun: Before he was a huge TV star on WLW TV and radio, and taking over Ruth Lyons’ top-rated 50-50 Club in 1967, Bob Braun started his TV career at WCPO-TV in 1949 to appear on a variety of live shows, often pantomiming to records.
32—Kathrine Nero: Originally hired as a sports reporter in 1998, Kathrine Nero was shifted to Good Morning Tri-State in 2003 — and “blindsided” when let go in 2018. Four months earlier, Channel 9 had let go of her morning co-anchor Chris Riva.
33—Julie O’Neill: Hired from a Miami, Fla., station in 1995, Julie O’Neill was displaced as morning anchor by Nero in 2003 — and then returned to the morning show after Channel 9 dumped Nero and Riva. The 27-year veteran was not renewed in September 2022, and turned down a $50,000 severance offer contingent upon accepting a non-disclosure agreement. She has since written a tell-all book called “BOLD,” sued Scripps, and joined WXIX-TV.
34—DuMont Television Network: In the first days of Cincinnati TV, WCPO-TV broadcast (and fed) programs to two networks, ABC and DuMont. The nation’s first “fourth network” ceased operation in 1956 — three decades before Fox Broadcasting premiered.
35—Randy Little: Anchor Randy Little left WKRC-TV for Channel 9 in 1987, after being bumped off the 11 p.m. news when Nick Clooney returned from Los Angeles. Little and Denise Dory co-anchored Channel 9’s new 5 p.m. newscast which debuted after the station acquired Oprah Winfrey for 4 p.m.
36—Glenn Ryle: Before he was kiddie TV host “Skipper Ryle” on Channel 12, Ryle started his TV career on WCPO-TV as the 11:45 p.m. news anchor, late-night movie host and announcer in 1952.
37—Larry Smith: Puppeteer Larry Smith, best known as WXIX-TV’s biggest TV star after Channel 19 premiered in 1968, dropped out of Ohio State University in 1957 to bring his puppets to the Uncle Al Show.
38—Carol Williams: In 1986, as the Schottelkotte era was near the end, Channel 9 hired Carol Williams from a Lancaster, Pa., station to co-anchor with former Associated Press newsman Pat Minarcin. Williams and Clyde Gray teamed up in the early 1990s, and Williams remained a Channel 9 news fixture until her retirement in 2017.
39—Donald Harvey: Minarcin broke the story in 1987 that a Drake Hospital orderly named Donald Harvey could be a serial killer. Within months of Minarcin’s report, Harvey pleaded guilty to murdering 24 people.
40—I Team: The award-winning Donald Harvey stories led to the creation of an investigative unit which featured reports by Clyde Gray, Laure Quinlivan, Hagit Limor, Craig Cheatham and others.
41—Gongless Days: Say what? Schottelkotte kept track of the accuracy of weatherman Todd Hunter with a tote board listing “Gongless Days” for the number of times Hunter was correct in the 1960s and ‘70s. If Hunter’s forecast for the previous day was wrong, they’d ring a gong. Talk about low-tech television!
42—Jay Warren: Reporter-photographer Jay Warren lost his battle to oral cancer in June at age 54. When multiple surgeries on his face and jaw limited his speech, Warren become a Channel 9 news photographer.
43—Chic Poppe: Before TV consultants branded every newscast with “breaking news,” Channel 9's photographer-reporter was Cincinnati’s Mr. Breaking News. For 40 years, Poppe often was the first reporter to show up at a fire, bad wreck or crime scene.
44—Bruce Johnson: One of Cincinnati’s first Black TV reporters, Bruce Johnson was hired by Al Schottelkotte in 1972. Johnson, who spent most of his career at WUSA-TV in Washington, D.C. (1976-2020), devoted a chapter of his “Surviving Deep Waters” book to working in Channel 9’s all-white newsroom in the early 1970s.
45—Steve Raleigh: Chief meteorologist Steve Raleigh was hired in 2005 from San Francisco’s KRON-TV to replace Pete Delkus. Raleigh knew Cincinnati well. While working as a WLWT-TV reporter and weekend weather anchor from 1985 through 1987, he married Julie Leis, daughter of Simon Leis, a former Hamilton County sheriff, prosecutor and judge.
46—Bill Price: Over 26 years, Bill Price did a variety of roles at Channel 9, including morning news anchor, medical reporter and the station’s first technology reporter. He retired in 2012 and returned to New York City to care for his ailing mother.
47—Sid Keitz: Sometimes you hear a reporter end a story by mentioning the name of the accompanying photographer. During Schottelkotte’s tenure, Channel 9 viewers heard the announcer say, “Directed by Sid Keitz” (pronounced Kites) every newscast. The Taylor Mill native and long-time Channel 9 director died Feb. 16 this year at age 89.
48—Sherry Hughes: Breast cancer survivor Sherry Hughes left her weekend meteorologist job in 2021 after 10 years to devote more of her time to women’s health, breast cancer awareness, education and advocacy. Here’s Channel’s 9 2019 tribute:
49—Richard Simmons: The exercise guru’s syndicated Richard Simmons talk show premiered at 9 a.m. in fall of 1981 when WCPO-TV moved Uncle Al out of his long-standing time slot to 10 a.m., cut it to a half hour, and renamed it Uncle Al Town.
50—Gunsmoke: Super-serious Al Schottelkotte did a cameo as a bailiff on CBS’ popular Gunsmoke on Oct. 10, 1964. Channel 9 in 1961 had swapped networks with Channel 12, going from ABC to CBS, until the stations swapped networks again in 1996.
51—The Al Schottelkotte News: Schottelkotte newscasts were very visual. Viewers saw a constant barrage of news video, film, still photos or slides (from the station’s 45,000 slide collection) while hearing the anchor’s off-camera narration. Before portable “minicam” video technology, he armed photographers with five cameras to capture news events on silent film, sound film, color slides, black-and-white photos or Polaroids. Often viewers saw only a reporter's wrist holding a Channel 9 microphone in front of a news source. Before the launch of CNN Headline News in 1981, he was told that the half-hour “CNN2” newscast format was “patterned after the Al Schottelkotte News in Cincinnati.”
52—Allan White: Cincinnati Post reporter Allan White quit his job at Scripps’ evening newspaper in 1959 to join Schottelkotte’s three-man start-up TV news team with photographer Frank Jones. He was Schottelkotte’s trusted chief assistant for decades, and also a Channel 9 assignment editor, producer, reporter and writer. Although he retired in 1989, he continued to come in regularly to archive film and tape for almost 20 years.
53—George Ratterman trial: White did Cincinnati’s first live TV news remote broadcast from the Campbell County Courthouse in Newport on May 15, 1961, during the trial of former football star George Ratterman running as a reform candidate for sheriff. Fifteen years before portable news video cameras, Channel 9 engineers dismantled a big studio camera and re-assembled in the courthouse for the live reports.
54—The Newsbird: Schottelkotte in 1967 introduced the “Newsbird,” the first local TV newsroom with a full-time helicopter.
54—Other firsts: Channel 9 news was the first to have cars for reporters and photographers in 1960. The Ford Galaxy sedans were replaced by 1964 and 1966 Ford Mustangs. Channel 9 bought the city’s first TV live remote news van in 1975, and had the first portable videotape “minicam” cameras. The first satellite truck arrived in 1995. WCPO-TV also was CNN’s first local affiliate.
55--Xavier basketball: Before the proliferation of cable TV sports, regional sports networks and ESPN3, WCPO-TV broadcast Xavier University basketball games in the 1980s and ’90s when Bob Staak, Pete Gillen and Skip Posser coached the Musketeers.
56--Paul Dixon: WCPO-TV’s first star was Dixon, a WCPO-AM disc jockey, who pantomimed to records with sidekicks Wanda Lewis and Dotty Mack. The Paul Dixon Show was so successful that it aired from Cincinnati on the ABC and DuMont networks. Dixon moved to New York in late 1954 to do his show for DuMont, and returned the next year to work for WLWT-TV, where he hosted a popular morning show until his death in 1974.
57—Wanda Lewis: The wife of “Uncle Al” Lewis danced, pantomimed and drew pictures to songs on the Paul Dixon Show until he quit in 1954. Then Wanda and her husband hosted a daytime show before she joined his Uncle Al children’s show in 1956 as Captain Windy. Here’s a great example of the Dixon gang on ABC in 1952 performing Perry Como’s “No Boat Like A Rowboat” and another song:
58—Dotty Mack: The former Cincinnati department store model who made her debut at age 20 in 1949 as a Dixon Show sidekick was so popular that she was called “the Queen of Pantomime” and quickly starred in her own shows, Your Pantomime Hit Parade and the Dotty Mack Show on WCPO-TV, the DuMont network and ABC (1953-56).
59—Betsy Ross: The owner of Game Day Communications first came to town as a Channel 9 news reporter in 1981, before working for SportsChannel America, WLWT-TV, ESPN and WXIX-TV. She loved sports so much she volunteered for Channel 9 sports assignments.
60—Bob Alan: Before TV stations sought to hire meteorologists in the late 1980s, Bob Alan was the weatherman for Channel 9’s Minarcin-Williams-Janson team until going to New York’s WWOR-TV in 1995.
61—Andrea Canning: Dateline NBC correspondent and podcast host Andrea Canning was a Channel 9 reporter and co-anchor early in her career in the late 1990s before going to ABC News in 2004, and to NBC News in 2012.
62—Paula Faris: Another former Channel 9 sports reporter who enjoyed network TV success is Paula Faris, former co-host of ABC’s The View and Good Morning America Weekend. The 1997 Cedarville University graduate started her broadcast career in Dayton before working with Popovich and Janson as a sports reporter and weekend sports anchor 2002-05. She worked at Chicago’s WMAQ-TV (2005-11) before joining ABC news.
63—Kristen Swilley: Weekend morning anchor Kristen Swilley left WCPO-TV after more than eight years in May, saying that “there was no room for me to grow at the station.” She now works for Wordsworth Communications, a local public relations company.
64—Hometown: Another WCPO-TV news innovation was Joe Webb’s charming “Hometown” series of reports in the 1990s. He took a deep dive into one community’s residents and landmarks in the style of CBS’ News’ “On The Road” features. Webb worked at Channel 9 from 1987 to 2002, then reported for WKRC-TV from 2002 to 2018.
65—Around The House: After Scripps created the HGTV network, reporter Jay Shatz turned his passion for home design into Channel 9’s local Around the House series. He left the station in 2000 and created JayTV to produce many series for the HGTV and DIY networks through 2017.
66—Michael Flannery: Comedian Michael Flannery transitioned from WXIX-TV kids club host in 1995 to WCPO-TV morning co-anchor with Nero, features reporter, children’s advocate and host of the late-night comedy quiz show called Know It Alls. He made a huge impact with his “9 On Your Kids Side” advocacy for kids which helped more than 700 children with special needs, including providing wheelchair accessible vans, computers, home remodeling and even helping find organ donors. His contract was not renewed in 2007.
67—Hasker Nelson: Community affairs director Hasker Nelson Jr. founded, hosted and produced the weekly Black Memo show from 1974 to 1999. He also worked three years as a Channel 9 reporter. Nelson, who died in 2023, was inducted into the Cincinnati Journalism Hall of Fame in 2005.
68—Reggie Wilson: After working in Dodge City and Dayton, Reggie Wilson took over sports anchoring and reporting when Popovich retired in 2019. He worked here two years before being named sports director at KARE-TV in Minneapolis.
69—Evan Millward and Jasmine Styles: Channel 9’s 7 and 11 p.m. anchor team left Channel 9 together in May, a month after station manager Jeff Brogan announced a newsroom budget re-alignment that eliminated two anchor positions and created five more reporting jobs. Millward, from the Dayton area, had been hired in 2014; Styles joined the station in 2022 from a Tampa station.
70—Paula Jane Schultz: Dayton native Paula Jane Schultz, hired by WCPO-TV in 1957 out of Ohio University, was Cincinnati’s first female weather forecaster. She was doing Paula Predicts reports at 1:25, 7:25 and 11:15 p.m. weekdays in 1959. She later married Mort Watters, the founding general manager of WCPO-TV.
71—Raven Richard: Traffic reporter and fill-in meteorologist Raven Richard after five years moved in June to New Orleans, where she does weather for NBC affiliate WDSU-TV.
72—Nick Clooney Show: Before Nick Clooney’s WKRC-TV news ended Schottelkotte’s news rating streak in 1982, Clooney hosted a midday live TV variety show on WCPO-TV (1969-72) and WKRC-TV (1973-75). Here’s a clip from the Channel 9 premiere of the Nick Clooney Show with his sisters, Rosemary and Betty Clooney, on June 2, 1969:
73—Kristyn Hartman: As Carol Williams was planning to retire in 2017, Channel 9 hired former Columbus anchor Kristyn Hartman. The 5:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. anchor won a regional Emmy Award for best news anchor in 2018. She left after five years in 2022 to move to Chicago and be closer to family.
74—Madeline Ottilie: When reporter Madeline Ottilie left WCPO-TV after three years in early July for a Seattle TV station she was the sixth person to exit the newsroom in two months, following Swilley, Millward, Styles, Richard and reporter Jessica Hart. Brogan says the five new reporting positions had been filled by last week, and a sixth reporter will be hired soon.
75—Scrippscast: The latest Cincinnati TV first: Channel 9 uses “Scrippscast” computer technology to record the noon, 4 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts in advance of their broadcasts. The format, in which reporters introduce their own stories without interacting with the anchor, “helps us spend more time working on stories,” says Brogan, Channel 9 vice president and general manager.
