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WCPO-TV
WCPO-TV (channel 9) is a television station in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, affiliated with ABC. It is the flagship television property of locally based E. W. Scripps Company, which has owned the station since its inception. WCPO-TV's studios are located in the Mount Adams neighborhood of Cincinnati next to the Elsinore Arch, and its transmitter is located at the site of the station's original studios on Symmes Street, in the Walnut Hills section of the city.
WCPO-TV first signed on the air at noon ET on July 26, 1949, and the first face seen was Big Jim Stacey. Originally operating on VHF channel 7, it was Cincinnati's third television station. It was also the third television station to be built from the ground-up and signed-on by the E. W. Scripps Company, following WEWS in Cleveland and WMCT (now WMC-TV) in Memphis. The station's call letters were derived from then-sister radio stations WCPO (1230 AM, now WDBZ) and WCPO-FM (105.1 FM, now WUBE-FM), both of which were sold in 1966. Scripps also published The Cincinnati Post, the city's afternoon newspaper whose name served as the basis for the WCPO call letters.
Following the release of the FCC's Sixth Report and Order in 1952, all of Cincinnati's VHF stations changed channel positions. WCPO-TV was reassigned to channel 9, as the previous channel 7 allocation was shifted north to Dayton and later given to WHIO-TV; when the channel shift occurred on March 10, 1953, the station's transmitting power increased to the FCC's maximum of 316 kilowatts.
WCPO-TV was originally a primary ABC affiliate, maintaining a secondary affiliation with the DuMont Television Network until DuMont's demise in 1956. On April 30, 1961, channel 9 traded network alignments with WKRC-TV (channel 12), becoming a CBS affiliate as ABC moved to WKRC-TV. This deal came because WKRC-TV's owner, Cincinnati-based Taft Broadcasting, had developed very good relations with ABC.
WCPO-TV originally broadcast from a studio on Symmes Street in Walnut Hills, adjacent to the station's self-supporting transmission tower; the WCPO radio stations also operated from this location. On June 23, 1967, WCPO-TV moved its studios into a new, modern facility on Central Avenue in downtown Cincinnati.
On the early morning of October 15, 1980, WCPO and most of its news staff became part of a major news story when James Hoskins, armed with a 9mm J&R M68 semi-automatic rifle and five revolvers, seized control of WCPO's newsroom. Hoskins held reporter Elaine Green and her cameraman at gunpoint in the parking lot of WCPO's studios. He then forced his way into the newsroom and took seven more hostages.
A self-described terrorist, Hoskins stated in a videotaped interview with Green that he had, among other things, murdered his girlfriend before arriving at the studios. After voicing his displeasure with local government, Hoskins ended by saying that he would let his hostages go, but only after they helped him to barricade himself in their newsroom in anticipation of a shootout with police. Green and the others pleaded with Hoskins to get help, but to no avail. WCPO's news staff ran special newscasts from the parking lot throughout that morning. Hoskins eventually let all the hostages go, and the standoff ended later that morning when Hoskins shot himself dead while on the phone with SWAT negotiators. Green was given a Peabody Award for her handling of the crisis. She later married anchor and then-news director Al Schottelkotte. The two remained married until his death in 1996.
For three decades, WCPO had been one of CBS' strongest affiliates. The Cincinnati market was initially unaffected by the 1994–96 affiliation switches, as the station was in the middle of a long-term affiliation contract with CBS; however, in September 1995, Scripps and ABC announced a 10-year affiliation deal for WCPO. A year earlier, Scripps had agreed to switch three of its other stations (WMAR-TV in Baltimore, KNXV-TV in Phoenix, and WFTS-TV in Tampa) to ABC as a condition of keeping its affiliation on Scripps' two largest stations, WXYZ-TV in Detroit and WEWS-TV in Cleveland. Both of those stations had been heavily wooed by CBS, which was about to lose longtime affiliates WJBK in Detroit and WJW in Cleveland to Fox as part of an affiliation deal with New World Communications.
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WCPO-TV
WCPO-TV (channel 9) is a television station in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, affiliated with ABC. It is the flagship television property of locally based E. W. Scripps Company, which has owned the station since its inception. WCPO-TV's studios are located in the Mount Adams neighborhood of Cincinnati next to the Elsinore Arch, and its transmitter is located at the site of the station's original studios on Symmes Street, in the Walnut Hills section of the city.
WCPO-TV first signed on the air at noon ET on July 26, 1949, and the first face seen was Big Jim Stacey. Originally operating on VHF channel 7, it was Cincinnati's third television station. It was also the third television station to be built from the ground-up and signed-on by the E. W. Scripps Company, following WEWS in Cleveland and WMCT (now WMC-TV) in Memphis. The station's call letters were derived from then-sister radio stations WCPO (1230 AM, now WDBZ) and WCPO-FM (105.1 FM, now WUBE-FM), both of which were sold in 1966. Scripps also published The Cincinnati Post, the city's afternoon newspaper whose name served as the basis for the WCPO call letters.
Following the release of the FCC's Sixth Report and Order in 1952, all of Cincinnati's VHF stations changed channel positions. WCPO-TV was reassigned to channel 9, as the previous channel 7 allocation was shifted north to Dayton and later given to WHIO-TV; when the channel shift occurred on March 10, 1953, the station's transmitting power increased to the FCC's maximum of 316 kilowatts.
WCPO-TV was originally a primary ABC affiliate, maintaining a secondary affiliation with the DuMont Television Network until DuMont's demise in 1956. On April 30, 1961, channel 9 traded network alignments with WKRC-TV (channel 12), becoming a CBS affiliate as ABC moved to WKRC-TV. This deal came because WKRC-TV's owner, Cincinnati-based Taft Broadcasting, had developed very good relations with ABC.
WCPO-TV originally broadcast from a studio on Symmes Street in Walnut Hills, adjacent to the station's self-supporting transmission tower; the WCPO radio stations also operated from this location. On June 23, 1967, WCPO-TV moved its studios into a new, modern facility on Central Avenue in downtown Cincinnati.
On the early morning of October 15, 1980, WCPO and most of its news staff became part of a major news story when James Hoskins, armed with a 9mm J&R M68 semi-automatic rifle and five revolvers, seized control of WCPO's newsroom. Hoskins held reporter Elaine Green and her cameraman at gunpoint in the parking lot of WCPO's studios. He then forced his way into the newsroom and took seven more hostages.
A self-described terrorist, Hoskins stated in a videotaped interview with Green that he had, among other things, murdered his girlfriend before arriving at the studios. After voicing his displeasure with local government, Hoskins ended by saying that he would let his hostages go, but only after they helped him to barricade himself in their newsroom in anticipation of a shootout with police. Green and the others pleaded with Hoskins to get help, but to no avail. WCPO's news staff ran special newscasts from the parking lot throughout that morning. Hoskins eventually let all the hostages go, and the standoff ended later that morning when Hoskins shot himself dead while on the phone with SWAT negotiators. Green was given a Peabody Award for her handling of the crisis. She later married anchor and then-news director Al Schottelkotte. The two remained married until his death in 1996.
For three decades, WCPO had been one of CBS' strongest affiliates. The Cincinnati market was initially unaffected by the 1994–96 affiliation switches, as the station was in the middle of a long-term affiliation contract with CBS; however, in September 1995, Scripps and ABC announced a 10-year affiliation deal for WCPO. A year earlier, Scripps had agreed to switch three of its other stations (WMAR-TV in Baltimore, KNXV-TV in Phoenix, and WFTS-TV in Tampa) to ABC as a condition of keeping its affiliation on Scripps' two largest stations, WXYZ-TV in Detroit and WEWS-TV in Cleveland. Both of those stations had been heavily wooed by CBS, which was about to lose longtime affiliates WJBK in Detroit and WJW in Cleveland to Fox as part of an affiliation deal with New World Communications.