And then there were none.
WKRC-TV enters the busy fall high school, college and pro football season — plus FC Cincinnati’s playoff quest and the final five weeks of the Reds season — without a sports anchor or sports reporter.
Chris Renkel — the former weekend sports anchor who has been Channel 12’s only on-air talent since main anchor Gary Miller didn't have his contract renewed a year ago — has left the station after five years.
“Living on the air in Cincinnati has been a blast! But it’s time to see what’s next,” the Cleveland native wrote on social media Aug. 12, as he started his final week at the station.
Renkel leaves Channel 12 with an impressive resume tape. For the past year, Renkel has done it all: anchoring weeknights, covering Bengals games and hosting all of WKRC-TV’s weekend Bengals shows as part of the Bengals’ contract which expired in February. He won a regional Emmy Award in July for best sports program for WKRC-TV’s Bengals’ AFC Championship special.
On Tuesday night, anchor Adam Clements did the sports report at 6 p.m., and news reporter Tyler Madden did sports at 10 p.m. News reporter Yanni Tragellis also has anchored sports in recent weeks. During the past year it was common for a weekend anchor to read the sports report, or for a producer to voice-over Reds, Bengals and FCC highlights.
Renkel’s departure comes as fall sports overlap with summer sports. Most high school football teams began play last weekend. The University of Cincinnati, Miami University, Kentucky and Ohio State kick off their football schedules Saturday. The Reds started a 10-game home stand Tuesday. FC Cincinnati plays Saturday.
The Bengals open the season Sunday, Sept. 8, hosting the New England Patriots on WKRC-TV, the CBS affiliate which will air a majority of their games again this season.
His agent, C.J. Kane, says that “Chris was offered a contract renewal, but he left WKRC to pursue other opportunities.”
Renkel has not responded to several requests for comment. Stefan Schellhas, WKRC-TV vice president and general manager, has not responded to a request for comment.
For the past year, Channel 12 was seriously outmanned by the other TV stations in town. WLWT-TV, WCPO-TV and WXIX-TV had two anchor-reporters to cover the TV studio desk seven days a week and report from the field.
And in recent months, Renkel was outnumbered four-to-one by WXIX-TV. Channel 19 has hired two additional sports journalists, Gabi Sorrentino and Regan Holgate, to help handle special Bengals programming under Fox 19’s new contract as the Bengals flagship TV station.
Renkel expressed his appreciation in a Facebook post:
“THANK YOU CINCINNATI!
“To the people of Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky and Southeast Indiana: The last five years we’ve been through a lot with too many unforgettable moments to list. It’s time for a new challenge. This is my last week at Local 12. I look forward to seeing where the next step of this journey leads me. To the fans, athletes, coaches, co-workers and countless others that made the last 5 years so special, I sincerely say thank you.”
WKRC-TV’s website lists only one sports staffer, Richard Skinner, the station’s “digital sports columnist/editor/writer” according to his station bio.
Sinclair’s Dayton stations, WKEF-TV and WRGT-TV, list only one sports reporter, Matt Digby, and no sports anchor on its news team. (Interestingly, the Dayton stations also list two WKRC-TV employees as Dayton news staffers, health/medical reporter Liz Bonis and investigative reporter Duane Pohlman.)
Sinclair’s Columbus station, WSYX-TV, lists a sports director (Dave Holmes) and sports multimedia journalist/anchor (Kellyanne Stitts).
Cincinnati (market No. 36) has more major league professional sports teams than Columbus (market No. 32) or Dayton (market No. 64). None of Sinclair’s 185 owned-and-operated stations are in Kentucky or Indiana.
Renkel was a sports reporter at KIFI-TV in Idaho Falls and WIAT-TV in Birmingham, Ala., before coming to Channel 12 in August 2019. While attending Ball State, he shot Friday night football games as a freelance photographer for WISH-TV in Indianapolis and interned as a sports reporter for WFFT-TV in Fort Wayne. He also interned in the WKEF/WGRT sports department in 2010.
