Rusty Muck

The same Dick Oliver lampooned by Bill Hader as "Herb Welch" on SNL several years ago... The original incident... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-a5B6xM5s4 ...and the parody... (which unfortunately I can't seem to embed)

Pretty much. WKYC found success in the late 90s with Ramona Robinson at 6/11 and the early evening talk duo of Ellen at 4pm and Dr. Phil at 5pm. Aside from their turnover between 2008-2012, they have shown remarkable stability. WEWS took forever to find a successor to Ted Henry, lost ratings powerhouses Oprah, WoF and J! in the span of a few months, and has been blowing up the roster of their morning show ever 15-18 months. (Note that one-time morning anchors Macie McInnis Jepson and Josh Boose are now newscasters/reporters for WTAM/1100 and iHeartMedia's 24/7 Total Traffic/News.) So in short, WKYC finally took advantage of WEWS's weaknesses and slowly ascended to #2 in the market, behind WJW.

Took them long enough for them to put the lottery ball logo on their iOS app. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It's possible that ratings are a factor. WEWS seems to blow up "Good Morning Cleveland" every 12-18 months. If it weren't for WOIO/WUAB, they would be dead last.

FFS. Excuse me for a minute...

Who would buy WGBA and run it any differently? S!nclair, Nexstar and Gray already have stations in the market and are not going to trade down for what is effectively a pseuo-semi-satellite of WTMJ.

Yeesh. And I thought the "Power of 5" was silly.

Yeah, I meant expanding on their second place position. They'll effectively own 11. Which is pretty remarkable considering that WKYC has no news at 4 and 5, and their noon timeslot has a heavily sponsored infotainment show instead of a traditional newscast.

WKYC easily can slide into a solid 2nd place and make serious gains at the expense of WEWS. Should WOIO rise to third place, it will be due to inertia.

I half-expected to see Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor and Al Borland behind the anchor desk.

This is a screenshot of their new 11pm open. The G3 graphics remain as-is, though.

WEWS's Instagram profile name has been altered to "news5cleveland." That would leave their Twitter account that still uses the "NewsChannel 5" name. I have a feeling that the rebrand will take place next week (also the start of the fall TV season). And it will be nothing more than a simple phase-out of "Channel."

John was WEWS's first **star** anchor after market legend Dorothy Fuldheim. Later on he went to WTVJ to face the unenviable task of succeeding another broadcasting pioneer, Ralph Renick. John's brother Judd later went to WJKW (the former and current WJW), then to WKYC for two stays in the 80s and 90s... where he was initially paired with Al Roker as chief meteorologist (NBC ran WKYC as an AAA team for WMAQ and WNBC until 1990). Lisa joined WKYC shortly after NBC sold off majority control of the station.

As opposed to S!nclair or Nexstar? Even Cox isn't universally loved (**cough** WFXT **cough**) and they have a better reputation than most. Also remember that KMGH's previous GM was reassigned to WEWS before the "Denver 7" rebrand.

Unfortunately, I can't seem to find the most recent ratings postings. Typically, WKYC and WEWS have been battling it out for #2 at 6pm and #1 at 11pm (WJW doesn't have an 11pm newscast.) If I were to hazard a guess, WEWS is #3 or #4 at 4pm** and #3 at 5pm, behind WJW and WKYC's durable talk block of Ellen and Dr. Phil. The only time period WEWS really struggles is in early mornings... WJW's "Fox 8 News in the Morning" often doubles and triples the competition. Likewise, "Good Morning Cleveland" has been rebooted multiple times over the past decade. **That depends on how badly WOIO has flopped with "Cleveland 19 News" across the board.

WXYZ's iteration of "The Now" has morphed into a pseudo-"Action News at 4," right? The only thing different is the presentation/graphics and whatever content they take from KMGH. WEWS's Now replaced back-to-back episodes of RTM, which replaced "Dr. Oz" in mid-season (Oz moved to 10am exclusively, then WEWS gave his show up to WJW). So they had ratings issues in that timeslot that were worse than Detroit. I haven't really watched WEWS's Now in awhile, but with the 6pm team of Rob Powers and Danita Harris now as anchors, it's likely that WEWS will follow the same lead and make it a quasi-"News 5 Cleveland at 4" in all but name only.

It should be noted that WKBW never cleared "The Now" as part of the Scripps reclamation project, nor are they this fall. (WKBW is clearing Harry Connick, Jr.'s new show at 3pm, moving "Hot Bench" to the 4pm hour, and scuttling "Right this Minute" to 12:30.) Of course, KB has been airing "AM Buffalo" in the 10am timeslot since 1978... and that's in line with the infotainment shows the legacy Journal stations would have aired/are airing. And did anyone notice that "RTM" is, as of this fall, being syndicated by Disney/ABC?

I would be surprised if W*USA's GM Bill Lord hasn't entertained the idea of reuniting with Leon.

Cleveland TV logos don't have that high a bar to begin with (just look at WOIO's logo!). It would have to be an exceptional FAIL along the lines of WFXT.

That sounds like a perfect screwball comedy that needs to be made.

Outside of swapping in Rob Powers, the rest of the main 6p/11p team - Danita Harris, Mark Johnson and Andy Baskin - has been in place for several years now. Heck, it took them close to 15 years to replace the late Nev Chandler (gone too soon) with Andy... and close to 1 and 1/2 years to name a replacement for Ted Henry (that being Chris Flanagan). I only hope that they don't botch the logo, but that's not saying much.

Also the first TV station in the entire state (let alone Cleveland) and the oldest station in the Cleveland market to keep its original callsign and their historical analog channel number. WEWS is a legacy callsign... cumbersome as hell, but still, legacy. Fun but silly trivia: at one point in the early 1970s, WKYC was branded as "TV3," WEWS as "TV5" and WJW-TV as "Television ei8ht" (that itself became "TV8" in 1977).

It's a fair assessment, the WEWS calls don't roll off the tongue that easily. Even during the EWN era, the station was always referred to as "TV5." That being said, I would probably prefer for them to adopt "WEWS 5" as a non-news brand, though they'll probably use "Channel 5." ("5 ABC"/"ABC 5" is not even on my radar TBH.)

It simply sounds like WEWS is just dropping the "Channel" from their branding, going with "News5" and/or "News5 Cleveland." Which is fine. I wish they would have restored the EWN name but this is relatively harmless. I never really liked the "NewsChannel 5" brand because of the multiple revamps and turnover which has befallen WEWS since 1996... or that WEWS used that as the sole station brand from day one ("Oprah," today at 4 on NewsChannel 5!").