WLWT-TV

More breaking news is coming to Cincinnati television: WLWT-TV announced Tuesday it’s adding new 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. weekday newscasts, a week after WXIX-TV revealed plans for the city’s first 3 p.m. weekday news.

The demographic ratings are in – which TV stations use to sell advertising – showing WXIX-TV winning most weekday newscasts, and WLWT-TV winning at 11 pm., during February sweeps.

WLWT-TV will be hiring two new reporters to replace Andrew Setters and Alexis Rogers "in the very near future," says Branden Frantz, Channel 5 president and general manager.

Count WLWT-TV among the many NBC affiliates not broadcasting the 30 Rock reunion tonight with Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Tracy Morgan, Jack McBrayer and Jane Krakowski.

About half of the NBC stations nationwide are refusing to air the one-hour special because the affiliates consider the 30 Rock: A One-Time Special  "too much of a promotion for the company's new Peacock streaming platform," Vulture reports.

Elise Jesse, the Oak Hills High School and Mount St. Joseph University alum, is leaving her hometown sports reporting job at WLWT-TV.

She's married to Mike Rehfeldt, the former University of Cincinnati basketball director of sports performance who has accepted a similar position at the University of Connecticut.

"I have decided to leave Cincinnati. It's a bittersweet moment, but I know that the next adventure will be amazing," Jesse announced Thursday on Twitter.

He didn't want to come to Cincinnati. Now he doesn't want to leave.

But Michael Baldwin, WXIX-TV Saturday night anchor and general assignment reporter, is heading to Clarksburg, W. Va., to become one of the nation's few African Americans working as a TV news director.

May sweeps ratings, Part Two: The demographics are in for May, and WXIX-TV is the big winner.

WVXU's revival of Rod Serling's 1955 O'Toole From Moscow show about the Cincinnati Reds is now available on podcast platforms.

O'Toole From Moscow, the Cold War comedy about a Russian Embassy security guard playing outfield for the Reds, premiered on Cincinnati Public Radio March 25.

WKRC-TV's new Kyle Inskeep-Paula Toti anchor team won the May sweeps' household ratings, according to the overnight Nielsen meters.

Cincinnati and former ESPN sports anchor Betsy Ross is one of the many female sportscasters indebted to Phyllis George, the first woman to co-host a high-profile sports show on a major broadcast network.

Local TV news ratings have dramatically increased while we're stuck at home – but TV stations haven't been able to cash in much, since many of the businesses which advertised were closed the past two months. 

And the worst may be yet to come.

Prestigious Edward R. Murrow Awards for outstanding achievements in broadcast and digital journalism were announced Tuesday for WLWT-TV, WCPO-TV and Dayton's WHIO-TV.

Longtime WLW-AM morning news anchor Bill Ridenour died Sunday in a Northern Kentucky nursing home from COVID-19. He was 94.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, who has become a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel during the pandemic, got a big boost from WLWT-TV starting today.

Judith Scheindlin tells Ellen DeGeneres today that she will end her top-rated Judge Judy daytime court show in 2021, after its 25th season.

Scheindlin, who turns 78 in October, says she wants to return to TV with a new series called Judy Justice, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Rod Serling's 1955 comedy involving the Cincinnati Reds – broadcast only once on NBC Television – will premiere as a radio play on WVXU-FM 8 p.m. Wednesday, March 25.

Written during the Cold War, Serling's O'Toole From Moscow is about confusion between Russians and the Reds in which a Soviet Union embassy staffer ends up playing outfield for the Cincinnati Reds. 

We start with breaking news because TV stations always start with breaking news: The Channel 9 news branding is no longer on your side.

WCPO-TV has unveiled new imaging, reverting back to its call letters and huge channel number – WCPO 9 – similar to the logo used about 60 years ago. It dropped the orange and brown "9 On Your Side" slogan mentioned repeatedly by anchors and reporters, and seen on logos and news vans for nearly two decades.

Update Friday, Jan. 24:  Just found this clip on YouTube of an early 1950s Paul Dixon Show with Len Goorian broadcast on the ABC network from WCPO-TV.

The show opens with "Lennie" Goorian, who died Jan. 20, as a Sid Caesar-like character doing a gag involving Dixon.  This 10-minute clip features a song pantomime -- a great example of live TV in the early 1950s, when entertainers pantomimed to popular records, an extension of the radio stations which put the first TV stations on the air.

It's a long way from Cincinnati TV sports to Fox News Channel's New York headquarters, where Bill Hemmer takes another career step by hosting his own Fox News show starting Monday, Jan. 20.

Hemmer, an Elder High School (1983) and Miami University (1987) alum, debuts Bill Hemmer Reports at 3 p.m. weekdays, taking over the hour that Shepard Smith vacated when he left Fox in October.

This story was posted Jan. 13, 2020. 

Happy 86th birthday to Nick Clooney, the generous Cincinnati broadcasting icon, born on Jan. 13, 1934, in Maysville, Ky.

Clooney likes to joke that most of his life he's been known as George Clooney's father or singer Rosemary Clooney's baby brother.

Fox News Channel has promoted Bill Hemmer to take over Shepherd Smith's 3 p.m. time slot, and to lead all breaking news coverage on the Fox News Channel.

5:40 p.m. Friday Oct. 25 update:  Low-power WKRP-TV (Channels 20 and 25) returned to the airwaves at 5:30 p.m. Friday for the first time in more than a week.

The 10 WKRP multiplex channels went dark Thursday, Oct. 17,  for the digital channel "repack" (TV frequency changes) on Oct. 18.

Turns out  Rod Serling was right: There is a dimension as timeless as infinity called The Twilight Zone.

Since Serling's iconic drama anthology premiered on CBS 60 years ago today – on Oct. 2, 1959 – the show has never gone off the air.

Order in the court! The fall TV season's biggest daytime battle will be waged by former talk show host Jerry Springer against Judge Judy Sheindlin, starting her 24th season on television.

Daytime TV viewers also will see new shows starring Kelly Clarkson and Tamron Hall replacing Steve Harvey, Pickler & Ben and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. See my list below.

Flintstones! Meet The Flintstones! They're the modern Stone Age family!

From the town of Bedrock, The Flintstones are heading to MeTV at 6 p.m. weekdays starting Monday, Sept. 30 in Cincinnati on WLWT-TV Channel 5.2 and in Dayton on WHIO-TV Channel 7.2.

On July 26, 1949, WCPO-TV debuted on Channel 7 as Cincinnati's third television station.

WCPO-TV – which was moved to Channel 9 by the federal government in 1952 – has done a wonderful job in recent weeks recalling its rich history.  And it will air a one-hour anniversary special Thursday, July 25 (7 p.m., Channel 9).

Why did WLWT-TV hire Seton High School graduate Alanna Martella to replace traffic reporter Vanessa Richardson after only two years?

Longtime WKRC-TV anchor Cammy Dierking has told her bosses she's leaving the station at the end of her contract in December, multiple sources tell me.

For a fourth consecutive year, WKRC-TV will telecast the annual Western & Southern/WEBN-FM Riverfest fireworks at 9 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 1.

May sweeps ratings, Part Two: The demographics are in for the May ratings' sweeps, and WXIX-TV is the big winner.