WOIO

rdf:langString WOIO

rdf:langString left

rdf:langString right

rdf:langString Dennis Thatcher

rdf:langString Thomas Francis

rdf:langString Brian Sinclair

rdf:langString Bill Applegate

rdf:langString Hubert B. Payne

rdf:langString Kevin Salyer

rdf:langString Leesa Dillon Faust

rdf:langString R.D. Heldenfels

rdf:langString CBS 19; 19 News

rdf:langString WOIO

rdf:langString "Ohio"

rdf:langString Shaker Heights, Ohio

rdf:langString United States

rdf:langString vertical

rdf:langString WOIO Hometeam.png

rdf:langString WOIO logo.png

rdf:langString Gray Television Licensee, LLC

rdf:langString WOIO CBS 19 2019.svg

rdf:langString When the channels began their joint operation in 1995, their newscasts looked destined to challenge for ratings supremacy, and management wasn't shy about predicting it. ... Channel 19 finished fourth in the ratings that year and still makes camp there six years later. In that same time, anchorwoman Denise Dufala has sat beside four co-anchors, and the meteorologist's face has changed as rapidly as the seasons.

rdf:langString I'm sure someone could shove my nose into a ratings book, rattle off statistics as baffling as DNA evidence and try to explain that Channel 19 really is doing well. But the company still is expending a lot of energy, time and money to achieve what Channel 23 does in a far more Spartan way. And Malrite Communications, which operates Channel 19 and Channel 43, may be killing Channel 43's newscast as well. Now who's crazy?

rdf:langString I'm an opportunist at a ratings-challenged station. Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody has issues. She's coming here with a clean slate.

rdf:langString The digital audience really doesn't have the loyalties that the television audience has. In the digital space, where it's just all about the content, if you can do better content than your competitors, you're going to get traction.

rdf:langString It became obvious to me that I was not going to be vice president of sales for NBC. So I decided that if I wanted professional advancement, I would have to have my own property.

rdf:langString It's hard to look at the decline in news audience and not think they're bored by the product. Maybe we should put a little vigor back in the news—have something to say instead of being so damned objective all the time.

rdf:langString People say to us, 'Who wants all those old shows?' The answer is: everyone. We're giving them memories. Warm memories.

rdf:langString

rdf:langString WUAB

rdf:langString Akron Beacon Journal

rdf:langString Cleveland Scene, 2001

rdf:langString WJW vice-president of programming

rdf:langString WOIO assistant news director

rdf:langString WOIO general manager

rdf:langString former WKYC sales manager and founder of WOIO

rdf:langString WOIO general manager, on the station's programming philosophy

rdf:langString WOIO news director, on hiring Sharon Reed in 2002 after her firing from WCAU in Philadelphia

rdf:langString WOIO (channel 19) is a television station licensed to Shaker Heights, Ohio, United States, serving the Cleveland area as an affiliate of CBS. It is owned by Gray Television alongside low-power Telemundo affiliate WTCL-LD (channel 6) and Lorain-licensed CW affiliate WUAB (channel 43), the latter station transmitting over WOIO's full-power spectrum via a channel sharing agreement. WOIO, WUAB and WTCL-LD share studios on the ground floor of the Reserve Square building in Downtown Cleveland, with WOIO and WUAB sharing transmitter facilities at the West Creek Reservation in Parma. Established in 1985, WOIO's entry into the Cleveland market was the culmination of multiple failed attempts to sign on a station on channel 19 over the course of 34 years, four different construction permits and multiple contested bids. Owned initially by a consortium controlled by Hubert B. Payne, the first Black executive at a Cleveland television station, WOIO was sold to Malrite Communications, one of the partners in the consortium, in 1986 for a capital infusion. With studios at Shaker Square, WOIO operated with a minimum of local output but boasted a unique "nineteen" identity and irreverent on-air persona, along with a program inventory of long-established reruns that appealed to a younger audience. A charter affiliate of the Fox Broadcasting Company and the over-the-air home of Cleveland Cavaliers basketball and Cleveland Browns preseason games, WOIO thrived in competition against the market's established independent WUAB despite ongoing perceptions of being a "video jukebox". The May 1994 groupwide affiliation pact between WJW-TV owner New World Communications and Fox, along with the complex realignment of network affiliations that followed, resulted in WOIO becoming the market's new CBS affiliate, replacing WJW-TV in the role despite WOIO not having a news department. A local marketing agreement (LMA) between Malrite and WUAB owner Cannell Communications saw Malrite assume control of WUAB and using that station's existing news operation as the basis for newscasts on WOIO. Despite lofty expectations by station management, WOIO's newscasts—rebranded several times and with frequent on- and off-air turnover—remained mired in last place in nearly every timeslot into the 2000s. Purchased by Raycom Media in 1998, veteran executive Bill Applegate was named as WOIO-WUAB's general manager in 2001. Under Applegate, WOIO's news department was relaunched as 19 Action News, featuring a populist-leaning tabloid style with multiple controversial on-air talent hires and rating stunts. While 19 Action News proved successful in some timeslots, Applegate's immediate successors dropped the tabloid motif in 2015 in favor of the more traditional Cleveland 19 News. Following Gray Television's merger with Raycom, WOIO has revived some of the elements of Action News while repositioning the station's news department for non-linear over-the-top and mobile streaming. A third station in the Gray Cleveland cluster, WTCL-LD, was added in 2022, expanding WOIO's operations to a Spanish-language audience.