Syndicated and network
WEWS carried the 90-minute ABC premiere of The Edge of Night on December 1, 1975. On December 3, it started Edge at 10 a.m. on a one-day delay, and then later pushed up to 10:30 to make way for the national syndication of the talk show Donahue. Edge was dropped in April 1977 when ABC expanded All My Children to one hour and revised the daytime lineup.[36]
In 1969, the station gained some national attention for airing only the first half of Turn-On, because they stated it did not return to the show after the first commercial break, which guest host Tim Conway said was after "15 minutes"[37] but the station claimed had happened after 10 minutes.[38] The rest of the time slot was the emergency procedure, a black screen with live organ music that had not been used in over 20 years.[39] The station's spokesman claimed that the station's switchboard was "lit up" with protest calls, and general manager Donald Perris derided Turn-On as being "in excessive poor taste."[40] Perris sent to ABC president Elton Rule an angry telegram: "If your naughty little boys have to write dirty words on the walls, please don't use our walls. Turn-On is turned off, as far as WEWS is concerned. You tried too hard."[41][42][43] Perris told The Cleveland Press that neither he nor program director Ernest Sindelar had previewed the program prior to it being broadcast, remarking: It was previewed by a member of our staff whose judgment is usually good. Last night it wasn't very good. The show shouldn't have gone on. It's all right to be racy—but this was just plain dirty. This was a hate show. Its spirit was dirty. I watched it at home and I felt very bad that it was on.[43]
In 2004, all the Scripps-owned ABC stations preempted a showing of Saving Private Ryan.[44]
On May 23, 2010, WEWS-TV's broadcast of the series finale of Lost was almost completely interrupted and rendered unwatchable by a number of technical difficulties with the station's digital signal. This caused numerous viewer complaints, leading the station to issue numerous apologies both on-air and on its website.[45]
From the mid-1980s until 2011, WEWS was the Cleveland outlet for popular syndicated programs such as The Oprah Winfrey Show, Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy!, and Live with Regis and Kathie Lee/Kelly, and throughout that time frame, there was little change in the daytime lineup, as those programs consistently drew good ratings.
In 2011, Oprah Winfrey ended her show after a successful 25-year run. To fill the void, WEWS put The Dr. Oz Show (an Oprah spin-off hosted by Cleveland native Dr. Mehmet Oz), which was airing at 10 am, in the 4 p.m. time slot.,[46] and in subsequent years aired various other programs in that slot until settling in with a 4 p.m. newscast in fall 2018. (Dr. Oz ended up moving to WJW until the show ended its run in 2022 due to Oz's commitments to running for the United States Senate.)
On September 14, 2012, the station dropped both Wheel and Jeopardy! after airing both shows for almost three decades, replacing them with The List and Let's Ask America, two more internally produced shows from Scripps. The reason behind the removal of the two hit game shows was because Scripps was looking to stray away from shows that carried a high cost to air on their stations, and instead air shows where Scripps was able to control advertisement, and as a result, are much cheaper to air on their stations. Both game shows ended up moving to WOIO.
Let's Ask America would eventually be canceled in 2015, and WEWS would replace it with the long running celebrity gossip program Access Hollywood.[47][48] The station also acquired Katie Couric's new talk show and placed it at 3 p.m. following General Hospital's shift to 2 pm, a move that many other ABC affiliates also made. Couric's show would be canceled two years later, and WEWS has aired various other syndicated programs in that time slot ever since.[49][50][51] At present, only the program now known as Live with Kelly and Mark continues to air on channel 5 from the original stable of hit syndicated shows.
Local programming
In its early days as an ABC affiliate, the station produced its own shows in the afternoon, as ABC offered little daytime network programming. Among the local programs offered during the 1950s and 1960s included news analysis from Dorothy Fuldheim, children's programs featuring the "Uncle Jake" character played by Gene Carroll and the "Captain Penny" character played by Ron Penfound, and exercise programs with Paige Palmer. Alice Weston had one of the first live television cooking shows, and Barbara Plummer was "Miss Barbara" for a generation of young viewers on the local version of Romper Room. The most popular show was The Gene Carroll Show, a program that showcased Cleveland area talent which aired Sundays at noon beginning in 1948 and ran well into the 1970s.[4] WEWS also offered a 90-minute afternoon variety show The One O'Clock Club weekdays hosted by Fuldheim and Bill Gordon.[3] The program was so popular that competitor KYW-TV was prompted to organize a competing variety show which was the beginning of The Mike Douglas Show.
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, WEWS produced several programs that eventually entered into national syndication. The first program was Upbeat. Considered by some to be one of the most significant early rock-and-roll variety television shows, Upbeat featured a live audience, a group of dancers and lip-synched (but occasionally live) performances by popular acts of the era.[52]
The Morning Exchange
One program in particular, The Morning Exchange, which ran from 1972 to 1999, changed the face of morning television. It was the first morning show to use a "living room" set, and the first to establish the now familiar concept of news and weather updates at the top and bottom of the hour. During its peak in the 1970s, nearly 70% of all television households in Cleveland were tuned to the program. The format also served as a template for ABC's Good Morning America.[56]
From 1975 to 1978, WEWS completely preempted both AM America and Good Morning America in favor of continuing with The Morning Exchange,[57] and from 1978 to 1994, the station aired only the first hour of Good Morning America, before cutting to The Morning Exchange, but it was changed by the end of 1994.[58]
Sports programming
WEWS-TV has a long history of covering Cleveland sports teams both produced in-house by the station or through ABC's network coverage. From 2015 to present, channel 5 is the official station for the NFL's Cleveland Browns, airing all non-network preseason games as well as year-round team centered programming.[59][60]
WEWS has aired two MLB World Series during the station's existence: it broadcast the Cleveland Indians' home games in the 1948 World Series against the Boston Braves, as well as the odd-numbered games of the 1995 World Series, in which the Indians lost to the Atlanta Braves in five games; ABC and NBC (and thus WKYC) alternated games covered as part of The Baseball Network that season. WEWS also aired select Indians games as part of ABC's MLB broadcast contract from 1976 to 1989.
All Cleveland Cavaliers games that air through ABC's NBA broadcast rights are aired on channel 5; the team's 2016 NBA Finals
News operation
WEWS presently broadcasts 39 1/2 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 6 1/2 hours each weekday, four hours on Saturdays and three hours on Sundays). In addition, the station produces the sports highlight and discussion program News 5 Sports Sunday, which airs Sunday nights following its 11 p.m. newscast.
Early news coverage
WEWS started covering news events soon after it went on air. The winter after it signed on, Cleveland experienced a blizzard, and for the first time WEWS had provided extended coverage for hours. During the early and mid-1950s, channel 5's first newscasts and weather reports were delivered by Tom Field. In 1959, Dorothy Fuldheim—who had been with the station before it even first signed on—began to formulate her own newscast. Fuldheim centered her newscast around her interviews, a general overview of the news, and her commentaries (the very opinionated Fuldheim frequently inserted her own opinions about the stories). Fuldheim was the first female in the United States to have her own television news analysis program.
Eyewitness News
27-year-old John Hambrick took over as lead anchor on WEWS' evening newscasts on Christmas Day in 1967, with Fuldheim staying on as a commentator. Don Webster presented the weather and Gib Shanley was the sports anchor. In 1968, WEWS changed the format of its newscasts slightly to a version of Eyewitness News. In 1970, Dave Patterson joined Hambrick on the early newscast and then became co-anchor on the 11 p.m. newscast in 1971.
Early news coverage
WEWS started covering news events soon after it went on air. The winter after it signed on, Cleveland experienced a blizzard, and for the first time WEWS had provided extended coverage for hours. During the early and mid-1950s, channel 5's first newscasts and weather reports were delivered by Tom Field. In 1959, Dorothy Fuldheim—who had been with the station before it even first signed on—began to formulate her own newscast. Fuldheim centered her newscast around her interviews, a general overview of the news, and her commentaries (the very opinionated Fuldheim frequently inserted her own opinions about the stories). Fuldheim was the first female in the United States to have her own television news analysis program.
Eyewitness News
27-year-old John Hambrick took over as lead anchor on WEWS' evening newscasts on Christmas Day in 1967, with Fuldheim staying on as a commentator. Don Webster presented the weather and Gib Shanley was the sports anchor. In 1968, WEWS changed the format of its newscasts slightly to a version of Eyewitness News. In 1970, Dave Patterson joined Hambrick on the early newscast and then became co-anchor on the 11 p.m. newscast in 1971. Ted Henry, who joined WEWS in 1972 as a behind-the-scenes producer, got his start on the air later in 1975 as a weekend weatherman. In later years, Henry would admit that he, not knowing the slightest thing about forecasting, basically copied his forecasts from a Detroit radio station.[61]
That same year, Bill Jacocks—said to be Cleveland's first full-time African-American anchorman[62]—joined WEWS. Jacocks started as assistant public affairs director, and became weekend anchor in January 1975. For a solid decade (until 1985) Jacocks remained the one constant weekend anchor while many co-anchors came and went. Among those doing their first Cleveland co-anchor stints with Jacocks were Tim Taylor and Wilma Smith (both of whom, coincidentally, would later anchor together at rival WJW).
Hambrick and Patterson continued to anchor the newscasts together until Hambrick left for KABC-TV
News Channel 5
In 1991, WEWS dropped the long-standing Eyewitness News branding, adopting News Channel 5 as a universal branding for newscasts and station promotion. The new branding helped emphasize a format developed by the station the year prior, when WEWS positioned itself as "Cleveland's (Live) 24 Hour NewsSource". Providing news headlines to viewers at times when the station was not carrying regularly scheduled, long-form newscasts, the "24-Hour News Source" concept saw WEWS produce news updates running 30 seconds in length at or near the top of each hour and brief weather updates every half-hour during local commercial break inserts within syndicated and ABC network programs, in addition to the existing half-hourly updates it aired during Good Morning America. The concept would be adopted by network-affiliated television stations in other markets during the early 1990s, as a convenient means for stations to provide news coverage when syndicated or network programming aired. WEWS discontinued production of these hourly updates in 1998.[4]
In 1994, longtime anchor Wilma Smith left the station to sign with rival WJW-TV.[66] The same year, longtime sports director Nev Chandler died of cancer.[67]
1995 saw a modification to the long-running "Circle 5", tilting it at an angle. At this time, a major promotional campaign was launched for the station, "Give Me 5", as it faced competition from WJW (then-recently having switched to Fox), WKYC (rebuilding themselves after years of being used as NBC's farm team), and WOIO (which had just launched their own news department, in partnership with WUAB).
"On Your Side" era
In 1998, WEWS adopted "On Your Side" as its slogan (which it currently still uses). More noticeable, however, was the discontinuance of the station's longtime "Circle 5" logo. That year, WEWS also became the first television station in Cleveland to launch a website—NewsNet5. In 1999, longtime station weather forecaster Don Webster retired from the station after 35 years.[52] In 2000, longtime sports anchor/sports director Matt Underwood left to become an announcer for the Cleveland Indians.[69]
On January 7, 2007, WEWS became the third Cleveland television station to begin broadcasting newscasts in high-definition. At present, all locally produced portions of the station's newscasts, including live remote field footage, are presented in HD. It was also around this time that channel 5 introduced the modified version of the classic "Circle 5" logo that was used until 2016. Sister station WPTV also uses the classic "Circle 5" logo. On May 21, 2009, Ted Henry retired as the primary news anchor at channel 5, after holding the post for 33 years. Henry is the longest serving news anchor in Cleveland television history.[61]
In November 2010, WEWS became the first Cleveland television station to follow a growing national trend in starting its weekday morning newscasts at 4:30 a.m.
News 5 era
On September 26, 2016, the station retired the NewsChannel 5 name for its newscasts, becoming simply News 5. At the same time, the station began using a graphic identity similar to that of British television network Channel 5 (which used a similar logo from February 2011 to February 2016).
In 2017, longtime WEWS anchors Leon Bibb and Lee Jordan both announced their retirements from the station. Bibb had served as an anchor/reporter at the station since 1995 (coming over from WKYC where he had spent 16 years previous), while Jordan started at WEWS in 1987 as a co-host of The Morning Exchange before becoming an evening news anchor in 1993.[70] To honor their tenures at the station, WEWS renamed their newsroom the Leon Bibb Newsroom, and their main studio the Lee Jordan News Studio.[71]
On June 26, 2023, following the cancellation of The List, WEWS began airing The Debrief, a nightly newscast airing at 7 p.m. originating from and simulcast on Scripps News—a sister network of WEWS, as part of a plan by Scripps to integrate Scripps News programming on their main network affiliates as a way to promote Scripps News and increase the network's exposure.[72] Scripps News ceased operations as a linear channel on November 16, 2024, and with that The Debrief was canceled, and a new local 7 p.m. newscast debuted on November 18, 2024.
Honors
Two plaques outside the WEWS building commemorate the station's historical contributions. The Ohio Historical Society placed a marker right outside TV 5's building, specifically noting Dorothy Fuldheim's career at the station.[73] The second marker (located on the wall leading up to the front door of the station) is from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, honoring the station (along with producer Herman Spero and host Don Webster) as being the home of the popular music series Upbeat! and that program's contributions to Rock and Roll's history.[74]
Notable current on-air staff
Notable alumni
- Ernie Anderson
- Leon Bibb
- Nev Chandler
- Liz Claman
- Joel Daly
- Dick Feagler
- Dorothy Fuldheim
- John Hambrick
- Ted Henry
- Bill Jorgensen
- Paige Palmer
- Michael Reghi
- Michael Settonni
- Gib Shanley
- Wilma Smith
- Robin Swoboda
- Tim Taylor
