Cincinnati Television

Play ball! Fox Sports Ohio's Opening Day plans again call for the 4:10 p.m. Thursday game to be simulcast on WKRC-TV (Channel 12).

WCPO-TV, WLWT-TV, WXIX-TV and WKRC-TV will provide extensive Opening Day coverage on their morning newscasts. All four stations, plus FSO and CitiCable, will air and stream the noon parade.

Nick Lachey had this crazy idea – making a Fame-style national TV series starring the talented students at Cincinnati's School for Creative & Performing Arts.

It became a reality 10 years ago today, when MTV premiered Taking The Stage on March 19, 2009.

The Williams Hall TV studio where former NBC executive Rick Ludwin got his start will be named in his honor in a ceremony Tuesday, March 19, on the Oxford campus.

It's a fitting tribute to Ludwin, a 1970 Miami graduate who has returned to the Williams Hall studio for 36 years at his own expense to talk to students about TV trends and answer their questions.

Courtis Fuller hosts a town hall-style broadcast called Where We Stand 2019 with Cincinnati city leaders 7 p.m. Thursday, March 14 (Channel 5).

The discussion, part of Hearst Television's corporate-wide Project CommUnity announced in December, will focus on four main topics -- crime and justice; employment; poverty and health; and education.

Fifty years ago today, WLWT-TV broadcast one of the most memorable telecasts in Cincinnati history: the wedding of two rubber chickens.

On a live broadcast of the Paul Dixon Show.

Update at 5:30 p.m. Friday, March 1:  This just in from Branden Frantz, WLWT-TV general manager, about Let's Talk Cincinnati, premiering 7:30 p.m. Saturday March 2 on WLWT-TV (Channel 5) with Courtis Fuller and Alexis Rogers:

Guess who's coming to Taste of Cincinnati?  NBC's American Ninja Warrior fans!

Producers for the reality TV competition will construct their obstacle courses on Second Street for 10 days in May, overlapping with the annual Taste of Cincinnati food festival Memorial Day weekend (May 25-27) on Fifth Street.

Thursday April 4 update: Lisa Cooney anchors her final News 5 Today morning newscast on WLW-TV Friday, April 5.  

Original post Jan. 17, 2019: Forget what Lisa Cooney told me last month about how she loved the mornings, as she was celebrating her 30th anniversary at WLWT-TV.  

No better way to remember Cincinnati TV entertainer Bob Braun on the anniversary of his death than to enjoy this 1984 Bob Braun Show clip when Columbus zookeeper Jack Hanna let goats run wild through the WLWT-TV studio while singer David Cassidy looked on.  

Braun died on Jan. 15, 2001, at age 71.

With Braun's live noon show, you never knew what could happen… or who would show up. Braun hosted a live weekday noon variety show on WLWT-TV from 1967 to 1984, taking over from the legendary Ruth Lyons.

Another year down the tubes! Here's a look at 2018 TV/media/radio/movie stories from A to Z:

A is for comedian Harry Anderson, star of NBC's Night Court and CBS' Dave's World, who died in April at 65. We've lost a lot of classic TV stars in 2018: actress-director Penny Marshall (Laverne & Shirley), Bill Daily (Bob Newhart Show, I Dream Of Jeannie), Robert Guilliame (Benson), David Ogden Stiers (M*A*S*H), John Mahoney (Frasier), Rose Marie (Dick Van Dyke Show), Charlotte Rae (Facts of Life), Monty Hall (Let's Make A Deal) and Jim Nabors (Gomer Pyle, USMC).

Reporter Tom McKee and sportscaster Ken Broo -- who roomed together as WCPO-TV interns in the summer of 1973 -- will both retire this month from Channel 9.

Together they've spent 67 years on Cincinnati television – 40 for McKee and 27 for Broo.

Thirty years? Really? Lisa Cooney has been living on the air at WLWT-TV since 1988, mostly as a morning news co-anchor on what was the city's top-rated morning newscast during November sweeps.

"I love the camaraderie among the team in the mornings. We are a different breed. We come in the night before or in the middle of the night," says Cooney, a Northern Kentucky native.

It's official: Jerry Springer, whose daytime talk show ceased production last spring, will debut next fall as TV's Judge Jerry, and likely air on Cincinnati television.

In late October, I reported that Springer – the former Cincinnati attorney, mayor and news anchor turned TV talk host – had taped a TV court show pilot for NBCUniversal, which produced and distributed the Jerry Springer talk show, which ended production earlier this year.

From Rudolph to Ralphie, John Legend to Johnny Cash, the Grinch to Amy Grant, Elf to Ed Sullivan, Lucy Van Pelt to Lucy Ricardo, they’re all here in my Holiday Program Guide.

It’s my biggest list ever, and it has something for everyone. Here’s the link to a downloadable PDF so you can print the list, circle your favorites and share with family and friends.

Look for another change in the weather in December, as Cincinnati and Indianapolis swap meteorologists.

For a generation of younger Cincinnatians, the old Union Terminal seems like the perfect place for a couple of museums, exhibition space and the Cincinnati Historical Society.

But it wasn't always that way.

Elliott Block's low-power Channel 25 – branded as "WKRP TV" – switched frequencies on Nov. 1, leading some over-the-air viewers to think the station had gone off the air.

Not true.

And even better news: Block has secured a permanent digital channel to remain on the air after most Cincinnati TV stations change digital channels sometime in 2019.

As God as my witness: WKRP bombed a Cincinnati shopping mall with live turkeys 40 years ago today, on the hilarious WKRP in Cincinnati "Turkey's Away" episode Oct. 30, 1978. 

The fowl promotion was just the seventh episode of WKRP, which premiered on Sept. 18, 1978.  "Turkey's Away" ranked No. 40 on TV Guide's "100 Greatest (TV) Episodes of All Time" in 1997.

Author Nick Parisi talks to me about Rod Serling's early 1950s TV scripts, and how they shaped his  writing for The Twilight Zone and other network TV shows, on Around Cincinnati 7 p.m. Sunday Oct. 28 on WVXU-FM and WMUB-FM.

Baby, if you've ever wondered, wondered what company would use the iconic WKRP In Cincinnati theme song in its advertising campaign….

Well, the answer is Teasdale Fenton Carpet Cleaning & Restoration.