Even as Westinghouse set up shop in Cleveland in 1956 they were not happy about the circumstances behind the move, though to the company's credit they set out to create an outstanding, locally oriented television station in spite of everything..The FCC with a complaint by Westinghouse, undertook a 10-year investigation of the Sale/swap..It was found that NBC coerced Westinghouse into making the move, threatening to pull affiliations from other Westinghouse Owned NBC stations. The FCC ultimately ordered NBC to reverse the swap, while not realizing any profit from the move back. The swap was completed by June 1965..with the KYW call letters back in Philadelphia at channel 3 and AM 1060. NBC changed its call letters on channel 3, AM 1100 and FM 105.7 to WKYC. AM 1100 was known as a top 40 giant in Cleveland..moving to some news and talk in the early 1970's. AM 1100 and 105.7 were sold to Nick Mileti and Tom Embrescia in 1973..under the call letters WWWE-AM and WWWM-FM.
105.7 has since become WMJI with Majic Oldies..After many format changes...3WE settled into a News-Talk format..changing call letters back to WTAM in 1996.
As for WKYC-TV 3, while some of the long time employees stuck around, Mike Douglas moved to Philly to continue his talk show. There have been some bright spots concerning channel 3 from the 60's through the 80's, such as conversion to All-color programming in 1965: Award winning documentary show Montage and somewhat successful morning shows by Scott Newell and Dave Patterson. Also the long run of "Today In Cleveland" with Del Donahoo (whose long running Del's folks travel segment on the news was a hit) and Tom Haley. Wally Kinnan had a nice run of popularity as the weeknight weatherman. There was a perception among viewers, however that WKYC-TV 3 was not much more than a "Farm Team" for NBC..With popular folks like Weatherman Al Roker Newsman Bud Dancy and Dawn Stensland moving on to bigger positions in New York..(Stensland to CBS)
The Farm Team perception hurt ratings as for years WKYC was number 3 in news ratings..
NBC ultimately relinquished majority control of WKYC to Multimedia, Inc. in 1989..Multimedia merged with Gannett in 1995. A new downtown studio, coupled with the acquisition of Talk Show Dr. Phil, has improved the fortunes of WKYC in recent years.
Edit:Just became aware that Dawn Stensland currently is 10PM News anchor at WTXF-Channel 29 in Philadelphia
Saturday, November 18, 1967
6:25 News
6:30 Farm Front
7AM Popeye Theater
9AM Super 6
9:30 Super President
10AM Flintstones
10:30 Samson and Goliath
11AM Birdman
11:30 Atom Ant/Secret Squirrel
Noon Top Cat
12:30 Cool McCool
1PM Panorama-Hicks
1:30 Movie-Double Feature
I Want You-1951
The First Traveling Saleslady-1956
5PM Gadabout Gaddis-Fishing
5:30 GE College Bowl-Robert Earle
6PM Big Ralph-Teen Dance Show
6:30 Montage
7PM NBC News-Frank McGee
7:30 Maya
8:30 Get Smart
9PM NBC Saturday Night at the Movies-Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man-1962
Midnight News-Ron Becker
12:10 Weather-Hicks (anyone know a first name?)
12:15 Sports-Dick Hammer
12:20 Movie-Double Feature
The Tarnished Angels-1957
She Played with Fire-English 1958
3:55 News and Sign Off
Listing from Cleveland Edition TV Guide
The WKYC call letters were to keep the "KY eleven" popularity going on the 1100 frequency.
ReplyDeleteBeing an NBC owned and operated station was a royal pain for the disc jockeys of the station. When any news occured(Big Jack commented during a WIXY reunion that NBC would break in of the UN wuold have a group belch) the programming would be interrupted.
WKYC-3 would have a teen show on Saturday night, first called Jerry G. and Company. When Jerry G. moved to Chicago, the show became for a year the Big Jack show.