WCPO was the first Cincinnati TV station with a 5:30 p.m. news. With an investigative I-Team. With a 7 p.m. local newscast. With a helicopter.
Channel 9 did Greater Cincinnati’s first live remote new broadcast in 1961. WCPO-TV was the first with IntantCams that shot news on videotape which could be aired instantly, unlike old school film cameras that required 45 minutes to process the film. Channel 9 also had Cincinnati’s first live remote truck, TV news minivan and satellite truck.
Scripps' hometown flagship station was the city’s news technology leader for decades after columnist Al Schottelkotte quit the Enquirer in 1961 to become Channel 9’s news director and anchor.
Now, WCPO-TV has achieved some dubious firsts:
- The first Cincinnati TV station without a general manager in the building. Jeff Brogan, a Cincinnati native and loyal 26-year employee, was dismissed as vice president and general manager in September when Scripps went to a new leadership structure with 11 regional managers.
- The first Cincinnati TV station to make drastic cuts to its photography/videography staff. Six of 12 WCPO-TV photographers are being let go through buyouts or staff cuts, among the 431 Scripps workers nationwide chopped off the payroll last week.
- Two years ago, Channel 9 began using “Scrippscast” software to pre-record its weekday noon, 4 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts, something the other stations here don’t do. At the same time, the station eliminated two news anchors (Evan Millward and Jasmine Styles) to hire five reporters in 2024.
- Four years ago, Channel 9 became the first — and only — Cincinnati station to pull its primary news anchors off the 11 p.m. news. Main co-anchors Tanya O’Rourke and Adrian Whitsett work day shifts so they can report more stories.
Scripps made news in March 31 when it sold Indianapolis ABC affiliate WRTV-TV to a rival broadcaster there, and the entire staff — reportedly more than 50 people — was fired immediately by the new owner, Circle City Broadcasters.
And in Baltimore, Scripps’ WMAR-TV now airs newscasts without any anchors. The ABC affiliate’s format “is part of a broader effort to cut costs and change how Scripps produces and distributes local news,” says Kerwin Speight, a faculty member at the Poynter Institute, a nonprofit media institute and newsroom in St. Petersburg, Fla.
On Wednesday Oct. 28, the morning after the local cuts were announced, Channel 9 had problems airing taped stories on Good Morning Tri-State. On Thursday the on-screen text said "authorities search for reamins” in West Chester Township, not remains.
This is the way forward?
That’s the question many Channel 9 alumni have asked since my story posted Tuesday night Oct. 27.
Or is the legacy media company, nearly 150 years old, floundering to find its way to navigate rough seas? Local TV newscast viewing has dropped precipitously the past five years, as people increasingly get their news on their phones or tablets. Lower TV ratings means lower advertising revenues. Ruh-roh!
All stations are scrambling to adapt their old business models as we change how we consume news.
WKRC-TV in July eliminated seven newsroom positions, including anchor Aleah Hordges; canceled Saturday and Sunday morning newscasts; and added a 3 p.m. weekday newscast. I was told it was more economically viable to add a 3 p.m. weekday newscast, when support staff (producers, engineers, directors, etc.) were already in the building, than to bring in a crew, producers and anchors to work several hours on weekend mornings.
WLWT-TV added a 7:30 p.m. news, replacing a syndicated show. Why? It’s cheaper, and the local station keeps all the commercial revenue in a newscast.
At Scripps, stations are cutting photographers? Really? Isn’t television a visual medium?
At Schottelkotte’s peak — he was No. 1 at 11 p.m. for 20 years, all of the 1960s and 1970s — his philosophy was to read the news while showing viewers a constant flow of pictures: video, film, slides, photographs, headshots and file pictures of buildings, street signs, intersections, highways or city limits signage from his 49,000 slide collection. He learned the power of visuals doing Army lectures with slide shows for young recruits.
Now we’re going to see more iPhone videos shot by multimedia journalists? But it works for the web.
Knowledgeable WCPO-TV sources tell me that about 20 employees were offered buyouts or told their jobs would be eliminated. Since I reported “possibly more than a dozen” job cuts Tuesday, I’ve learned that Scripps will eliminate up to eight (of 10) engineers; one director; one content coordinator (video editor); a traffic staffer; the building manager; in addition to six photographers and two producers.
This is all part of Scripps’ plan to transform the broadcast television company into a 24-hour streaming news model powered by artificial intelligence (AI), as CEO Adam Symson explained in August — after cutting 268 jobs. Then Scripps cut 27 more in September, including Brogan and six other GMs, and 431 last week.
Cincinnati’s legacy media company, founded in 1878, “is continuing to advance its companywide transformation to adapt to how people consume news and information across broadcast, streaming and digital platforms. Our focus is on preserving Scripps’ longstanding commitment to serving our audiences while changing how we reach them. Across the company, this includes the creation of new positions and changes to responsibilities, as well as the elimination of certain roles,” a Scripps spokesperson explained to me this week.
“At WCPO, the affected roles are primarily tied to traditional newscast production. Live newscasts will continue – the station is moving to new newsroom workflows that support more local reporting from the field and allow WCPO journalists to update stories throughout the day across broadcast, streaming, digital and social platforms, with technology and automation helping enable those workflows,” the spokesperson said.
The publicist also noted that “across our local newsrooms, Scripps also is creating over 100 new positions, including local reporting roles and new community connection roles.”
That is Symson’s plan for “refounding” Scripps. At least for now. They’ve made innovative changes in the past that didn’t last long.
For years WCPO-TV’s promotional slogan was “9 Stands For News.” Then they renamed the 11 p.m. newscast to “The Latest @11.” After that came “9 On Your Side.” Now the newscast opens with a boast of “listening, responding, finding solutions.”
In 2013, Scripps spent thousands of dollars on an ambitious WCPO Insider website to compete with the Enquirer, which was starting its decline. WCPO-TV hired nearly two dozen former Enquirer staffers to produce lifestyle, history, entertainment and sports stories for the short-lived experiment.
I think I’ve seen this movie before.
The Enquirer, where I worked from 1975 to 2014, tried all kinds of strategies to compete with the emerging internet, which quickly stole the core of paper’s advertising. Gone were ads for new and used autos and homes, and its multiple-page classified advertising marketplace for people to sell or buy everything from stoves, refrigerators, washers and dryers to pianos, puppies, mowers and blowers.
We put all our stories on the web. Then we put some behind a paywall. We delayed posting some big stories until the next morning, after they appeared in the paper. As revenues shrunk, we cut staffers through buyouts and job eliminations. (I never called them “layoffs” because nobody was brought back when finances improved.)
We eliminated the Extra zoned suburban sections, later revived neighborhood sections as Hometown, then scrapped them. We also shut down the free CiN Weekly entertainment tabloid and the glossy OurTown magazines for Mason and West Chester Township.
In 2012 or 2013, all reporters including myself we ordered to shoot and produce a two-minute video every week for the Cincinnati.com website on our iPhones. Videos were becoming popular. And they could be sold at a higher rate than an online ad.
The Enquirer also shrunk to a tabloid size in 2013 to save on paper costs. That was abandoned in 2020, so all of Gannet’s papers would be the same full “broadsheet” format, making it easier to design national and international news pages, some sports pages, comics and puzzles for multiple newspapers across the country.
Why aren’t WLWT-TV, WKRC-TV or WXIX-TV axing photographers?
One Channel 9 veteran called Oct. 27 “Black Tuesday.” Another said, “I have to think Al Schottelkotte along with Charles Scripps (long-time chairman of the company his grandfather founded) are rolling over in their graves.”
Is Scripps ahead of the curve? Or have they swerved off the road and tumbled down an embankment?
That “reamins” to be seen.
John Kiesewetter’s opinion is his own, and not that of Cincinnati Public Radio.
Kiesewetter is an independent contractor who has written about media for WVXU-FM since 2015. He worked nearly 40 years at the Enquirer as a county government and suburban reporter; the suburban and regional news editor; the features and Tempo section editor; and TV/media columnist.
