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WKEF
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WKEF is a broadcast television station in Dayton, Ohio, affiliated with the ABC network. It broadcasts on channel 22. WKEF is owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group with its transmitter is located in Dayton. It is the sister station of Fox Broadcasting Company affiliate WRGT-TV.
nel 22 signed on August 22, 1964 as WONE-TV, owned by Brush-Moore Newspapers along with WONE-AM. Conventional wisdom suggested that it would take the ABC affiliation, since it was Dayton's third commercial station.
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Encyclopedia
WKEF is a broadcast television station in Dayton, Ohio, affiliated with the ABC network. It broadcasts on channel 22. WKEF is owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group with its transmitter is located in Dayton. It is the sister station of Fox Broadcasting Company affiliate WRGT-TV.
History
Channel 22 signed on August 22, 1964 as WONE-TV, owned by Brush-Moore Newspapers along with WONE-AM. Conventional wisdom suggested that it would take the ABC affiliation, since it was Dayton's third commercial station. Before 1964, ABC programming came to Dayton by way of selected carriage/secondary affiliation on NBC affiliate WLWD (channel 2, now WDTN). In addition, viewers could watch the the full ABC schedules on WKRC-TV in Cincinnati and WTVN-TV (now WSYX) in Columbus, both of which decently covered Dayton. Under these circumstances, ABC initially balked at giving an even a secondary affiliation to WONE-TV, forcing the station to make a go of it as an independent until late 1965. Another consideration may have been that many Dayton viewers didn't have UHF-capable sets at the time. The FCC had just required television set manufacturers to include all-channel tuning months earlier.
In 1965, however, under new owner Group One Broadcasting, WONE-TV began running ABC prime time shows and sports, plus any daytime ABC shows that WKRC or WTVN pre-empted, or Dayton's WLWD (until 1971) did not carry. WONE-TV had no local newscasts at the time.
Soon after the station joined ABC, it was sold to Springfield Television Corporation (owner of WWLP in Springfield, Massachusetts), and renamed WKEF. By 1978, ABC had become the nation's most-watched network (with shows such as Happy Days), and was unhappy with the Cincinnati/Dayton arrangement. WKRC-TV and WTVN-TV were both preempting decent amounts of daytime programming, late night shows and some of the Saturday morning cartoons. ABC wanted a station in Dayton that could run its whole schedule and be able to reach Cincinnati and Columbus. It also wanted a station that had local news.
WKEF established a news department with two weekday evening newscasts in mid-1972, with a full local staff for news, weather and sports. The newscasts were continued through 1974 re-initiated in 1978, but this was not enough to save its affiliation with ABC. In late 1979, ABC began talks with WDTN, and agreed to move its Dayton affiliation there when its contract ran out at the end of the year. The change took affect on New Year's Day 1980. Almost by default, WKEF was then left to take the NBC affiliation. Unlike its ABC deal, WKEF now ran NBC's entire schedule. Even with the affiliation swap, WKEF remained in the ratings basement. NBC also lost market share in the Dayton-Sprigfield market to stronger affiliates in Cincinnati (WLWT, who has a city-grade signal in Dayton and a Grade B signal as far north as Piqua, Ohio) and Columbus (WCMH-TV, who has a grade B signal in Springfield and as far north as Bellefontaine, Ohio).
In 1984, the Springfield Television group (WKEF, WWLP and KSTU in Salt Lake City, Utah) was sold to Adams Communications. Adams broke up the group in the late 80s, selling WKEF to KT Communications in 1989. Neither owner was able to get WKEF out of last place. Even with NBC's powerhouse primetime lineup in the 1980s and early 1990s, WKEF was the third station in what was basically a two-station market. Part of the problem was a primitive on-air look.
KT sold WKEF to Max Television (later Max Media) in 1995. KT invested millions in new equipment, updated its on-air look and hired almost a completely new staff. Ratings improved, but WKEF remained a distant third in the ratings behind WHIO and WDTN.
In 1998, WKEF was sold to Sinclair in a group deal. Sinclair was already managing WRGT, owned by Sullivan, and Sinclair moved WRGT's operations to WKEF's studios. In 2001, Sinclair bought most of Sullivan's stations, but could not buy WRGT because the FCC does not allow common ownership of two of the four highest-rated stations in a market. Also, the Dayton market has only six full-power commercial stations — too few to permit duopolies. Accordingly, WRGT was sold to Glencairn, Ltd. However, this was a sale in name only, as Glencairn's stock was almost entirely owned by the Smith family, founders of Sinclair. This effectively gave Sinclair a duopoly in Dayton. Glencairn, now known as Cunningham Broadcasting, still owns WRGT today--one of several arrangements that has led to allegations of Cunningham being merely a shell corporation for Sinclair. This is exactly the same arrangement and same affiilation pair that Sinclar has in Columbus--ABC affiliate WSYX and Fox affiliate WTTE.
On August 30, 2004 WDTN again took the opportunity to sign up with the more popular network, dropping ABC to switch back to NBC. Thus, as of August 2004, WKEF became an ABC affiliate again. WKEF now runs the entire ABC schedule. Only a few months after becoming an ABC affiliate again, the station, and all other Sinclair-owned ABC affiliates including sister WSYX in Columbus as well as two other ABC affiliates in Ohio, preempted the movie Saving Private Ryan. That decision was made due to the network's plan to air the R-rated film unedited, potentially exposing its affiliated stations to FCC scrutiny if viewers complained about the film's graphic violence and coarse language, even though some of Sinclair's stations had already shown the film unedited and uncensored a few months earlier. The incident landed Sinclair at the center of a mild controversy, fueling the debate over whether the context of such material should be considered in determining broadcast indecency violations.
Digital television
The station's digital channel is not multiplexed:
Digital channels>| Channel | Programming |
|---|
| 22.1 | main WKEF-TV/ABC programming | |
Analog-to-digital conversion
After the analog television shutdown and digital conversion, which is tentatively scheduled to take place on June 12, 2009 , WKEF-TV will remain on its current pre-transition channel number, 51. However, through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers will display WKEF-TV's virtual channel as 22.
News
Ratings wise, WKEF's newscasts have always been a distant third place behind WHIO-TV and WDTN. WKEF established a news department in mid-1972 in response to licensing requirements. Mark Pierce was named News Director, with anchor John Getter, sports Billy McCool and Virginia Bigler, meteorologist. Ms. Bigler was granted the Television Seal of Approval based on her WKEF weather segment, becoming the second female meteorologist in the U.S. to received the Seal from the American Meteorological Society. The news department was curtailed after the Xenia tornado in 1974.
Throughout most of the 70s, WKEF decided against airing its own newscasts possibly owing to low ratings; they relied instead on brief audio-only news updates from newscasters at local radio station WING-AM. They ran these updates at selected times in the morning, afternoon and evening using a still slide on-screen with a picture of the newscaster. WKEF brought back their news programs in the late 70s under the moniker 22 Alive! News, with anchors Tom Miller and Jack Marschall.
On some nights (usually Sundays because of ABC programming) there are times that WKEF is runner-up to WHIO. On June 5,2006, WKEF debuted a morning newscast, which will help them compete with WHIO and WDTN's news departments.
For many years, WKEF produced the daily children's program Clubhouse 22 hosted by Malcolm McLeod in the early 1970s, with Joe Smith taking over in the mid 1970s. Their cohorts included Duffy the Dog, Stan The Man and later Dr. Creep (Barry Hobart). Dr. Creep was also the host of WKEF's weekly horror movie show, Shock Theater. Nationally syndicated conservative talk-show host Mike Gallagher began his TV broadcasting career at WKEF as a weatherman, sportscaster and special events host.
The Tube
WKEF broadcast The Tube on digital channel 22.2 and on Time Warner Cable's digital lineup on channel 723. WKEF and other Sinclair stations dropped The Tube on December 31, 2006.
Notable WKEF/WRGT Alumni
- Valerie Abati, Meteorologist (now at WLWT in Cincinnati)
- Morgan Adsit, sports (now at KLRT in Little Rock)
- Rich Apuzzo, Meteorologist, (now at Skyeye Weather LLC)
- Scott Arnold, reporter (went on to WDTN, now at WTVF )
- Marcus Bailey, Meteorologist
- Andy Banker, reporter/anchor (now at KTVI in St. Louis)
- Glen Barbour, reporter (now at KSTP-TV in St. Paul)
- Cornell Barnard, anchor/reporter (now at KXTV in Sacramento)
- Mario Barson, Sports, left for WHIO Sports, Returned to Sales, Promoted to Local New Business Sales Manager; abruptly resigned in July '08.
- Mike Bettes, meteorologist (now on The Weather Channel)
- Virginia Bigler, meteorologist (second woman to receive AMS Television Seal of Approval), went on to WAVE-TV/AM Louisville, ultimately to KCST San Diego, leaving TV for air pollution research and teaching in California.
- Dave Bohman, Reporter/Assistant News Director, famous for Fugitive Files
- Marsha Bonhart, lead anchor, (now @ WDTN)
- Ryan Brant, Sports, now in sales department
- Anita Brikmanis, anchor (now 'Anita Brikman' at WUSA-TV in Washington, D.C.)
- Don Brown, Sports Director, (was a part-time sports reporter/anchor @ WHIO-TV)
- Tara Brown, anchor (now at WEAR in Pensacola)
- Tom Burse, Chief Meteorologist (President, WeatherImage.com)
- Jeff Castle, Meteorologist (now at WAFF in Huntsville)
- Jo Corey "Miss Jo", 1960s local host of preschooler program "Romper Room."
- Mary Costello, reporter (now at WCCO in Minneapolis)
- Elizabeth Cowart, reporter
- Marc Cox, reporter (now @ KMOV in St. Louis)
- Ray Crawford, Sports Director(anchor FSN Ohio).
- Carl Day, lead anchor, (now @ WDTN)
- Greg Dixon, Meteorologist
- Paula Farris, sports (now at WMAQ in Chicago)
- Jacqueline Fell, reporter
- Guy Fogle, Sports (now a teacher)
- Mike Gallagher, weatherman and sports reporter (now nationally syndicated radio talk show hostThe Mike Gallagher Show)
- Mike Giangreco, sports/producer (now at TV3 in Winchester)
- Ruthanne Gordon, anchor/reporter (now at WISH-TV in Indianapolis)
- Anietra Hamper, anchor/reporter (now at WCMH in Columbus)
- Barry Hobart, better known as "Dr. Creep", host of "Shock Theater" (aka "Saturday Night Dead.")
- Karin Johnson, reporter (now at WLWT in Cincinnati)
- Paula Johnson, reporter
- Karen Jordan, anchor/reporter, now in Chicago WLS-TV
- Amy Kaufeldt, assignment editor (now an anchor at WOFL in Lake Mary)
- Ed Krahling, first news anchor in 1965-66 (later moved to WHIO-TV in 1967...retired in 1993, died in 1998)
- Michelle Kingsfield, Lead Anchor 1999-2007( now at WDTN )
- Reid Lamberty, anchor (now at WNYW in New York City)
- Billy McCool, sports (1972-4), former Cincinnati Reds rookie pitcher
- Mia McCormick, reporter
- Janet McGill, lead weather specialist 1979-94, (married to WHIO-TV's Mike Hartsock)
- Malcolm McLeod, early 1970s host of "Clubhouse 22"
- Jason Meyers, Weather forecaster (now at WISE in Fort Wayne)
- Ben Nandy, reporter
- Steve Norris, Meteorologist (now at WCPO in Cincinnati)
- Laurie Penco, Lead Anchor, 1995-99, now at KFSN/ABC Fresno
- Leif Pedersen-Diaz, Investigative Reporter, 1994-1996 (went to WFOR-TV Miami)
- Kristi Piehl, anchor/reporter(now at KSTP in Minneapolis-St. Paul)
- Mark Pierce, News Director and part-time anchor 1972-74 (left for public TV, Florida)
- Mark Pompilio, Lead Anchor, 1999-2008
- Tina Rezash, lead anchor, (went on to WDTN, now Time Warner Cable Sales)
- Chris Riva, (now an anchor/reporter at KCRA in Sacramento)
- Takisha Roberson, reporter (now at KTVT in Fort Worth)
- Karrie Rosmiller, Reporter, News Director; now WDTN 2news This Morning Traffic Reporter.
- Bina Roy, weekend anchor and reporter
- Roscoe Shaw, Meteorologist
- Deb Silverman, reporter (now at WCPO in Cincinnati)
- Joe Smith, staff announcer and late 1970s host of "Clubhouse 22" (now at KGW in Portland)
- Gary Somerset, anchor/reporter
- Matt Storm, photojournalist (was a sports reporter at WEYI in Clio)
- Toody the Clown (aka: "Toody Too"..as in "22")1960s children's show host
- Johnny Walker, staff announcer, public affairs director and host of local segments of the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon, later president of Hara Arena, died in 2005
- Lori Webster, anchor/reporter then news director, now with Lexis Nexis
- Dan Weist, reporter (now a correspondent at ONN in Columbus)
- Brittany Westbrook, reporter (now at WBNS-TV in Columbus)
- Karoline Wightman, reporter
- Natasha (King) Williams, reporter, (now @ WHIO-TV)
- Bernie Wulkotte aka: "B.W." a Dayton Daily News columnist and WAVI radio personality who hosted local evening movie program, died in 1980s
- George Wymer, Morning Movie and Motoryclcling with KK in the mid-70's, returned to WKEF sales 1994; left for WDTN sales 2006.
External links
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