Paul Poteet has worked is last "Caturday" at WKRC-TV.
After 40 years as forecaster, mostly in Indiana, Poteet is leaving his Channel 12 Saturday-through-Wednesday morning TV job after nine years to free up his weekends for the grandkids — or whatever he decides to take on next.
“I’m cutting out working on the weekends. That’s the main reason. I have no beef with Local 12,” says Poteet, 63, who has filled his Saturday morning forecasts with photos of cats submitted by the audience.
What most viewers don’t know is that the entrepreneurial Poteet is the hardest-working man in Cincinnati show business — although most of his gigs are back home in Indiana, where he grew up.
- From his Maineville basement office (“Studio B”), he’ll continue providing recorded weekday weather forecasts for 14 radio stations in five Indiana and Ohio markets, from Indianapolis and Lafayette to Muncie and Lima.
- He also records (or “voice tracks”) a 6-10 a.m. weekday morning show on WLQQ-FM (106.7) in Lafayette, Ind., and a 3-7 p.m. weekday afternoon drive show on WERK-FM (104.9) in Muncie, Ind.
- On the weekends, he hosts three voice-tracked shows on stations carrying the Local Radio Network, an Indiana company that provides 19 different 24/7 music formats. He’s a classic country DJ 8 p.m.-midnight weekend evenings, and DJs a classic rock show 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Sundays. All can be recorded during the week to free up his weekends.
- Twice a week, Poteet provides recreational and weather videos for the Smokey Mountains area for visitmysmokies.com.
- He’s a print guy, too. Poteet is part owner of the Hamilton County Register, a weekly newspaper and website for the Noblesville area north of Indianapolis.
- Poteet also does voice-overs and narrations for marketing and industrial films and commercials. He narrates the Indianapolis Zoo’s dolphin show. Poteet also is the voice for the Indianapolis-based Family Leisure stores selling patio furniture, swimming pools, hot tubs and game-room products. The company started as Watson’s in Cincinnati in the late 1960s.
“Even though he’s technically full-time for us, we’re not the main source of his income. Paul is a renaissance man,” says John Gumm, WKRC-TV chief meteorologist.
How does he do it all in 24 hours?
“I get five hours of sleep, with a nap here and there,” he says. Poteet and his wife of 44 years — they met in radio, of course — are empty nesters. They have two adult sons and two grandsons.
Poteet has been working all his life. After a brief stint at Burger Chef at 15, he heard about the radio station at his Huntington North High School, southwest of Fort Wayne. Soon he got a job at the Huntington radio station at 16. His senior year, Poteet was an overnight DJ on Fort Wayne’s WMEE-FM while completing the half-day of classes he needed to graduate. He made his Indianapolis radio debut in 1982 on Q95.
In the 1980s, Poteet was an announcer and sports producer at Bloomington’s WTTV-TV, which broadcast Indiana University and Purdue University games. When the station had an opening for a weatherman in 1986, coworkers encouraged him to apply for the job. He got the gig — over a couple college cheerleaders and others, he says.
Poteet had no formal training, but he did have lots of practice as a kid in the pretend weather set his father built for him in their basement. He would study positions of weather systems on 1970s television maps “that would seem prehistoric in these days of high-definition storm tracking,” says his WKRC-TV bio.
“I never set out to be on TV. I got into it accidentally," he says. “I was kind of self-taught when it came to doing weather on television.” That changed after spending three years studying for a degree from the Mississippi State Broadcast Meteorology program.
An early adopter of technology, Poteet says he was one of the first in Indianapolis with an ISDN (integrated services digital network) line for digital transmissions from his Indianapolis home. He’s had his own website since 1998. And in and around 30 years on Indiana TV, he also found time to manage the Metro Traffic service office in Indianapolis in the 1990s.
Four times he was named “Best Indianapolis Weatherman” by the readers of NUVO Magazine (2003, 2005, 2007, and 2009). He also came in second for “Sexiest TV Personality” in 2005.
But wait! There’s more!
Poteet also owns Weather History Research, a forensic meteorology business that researches past weather events, and reports those findings to insurance companies and attorneys. He’s testified in court as an expert witness on numerous occasions.
“I’m pretty efficient at doing what I do, or I couldn’t do what I do,” he says.
When WKRC-TV hired him in 2018, he instantly felt comfortable around all the veterans in the newsroom: Rob Braun, Cammy Dierking, Deborah Dixon, Jeff Hirsh, Joe Webb, Brad Johansen and Larry Davis.
“I told my wife, ‘This place is crazy. Everyone there is my age!’ But they’ve all left, and I’m now the oldest one on the air,” he says.
Poteet is one of those rare broadcasters who enjoys doing radio more than TV, like Charles Osgood, Vin Scully, Marty Brennaman or Scott Simon. “I'm hoping to do radio until I’m no good at it,” he says.
Not having to drive from Warren County to WKRC-TV in Mount Auburn every Saturday and Sunday morning will be a welcomed lifestyle change.
“To me, it will seem like I’m semi-retired,” he says.
Read more:
