WQHS-DT

WQHS-DT (channel 61) is a television station in Cleveland, Ohio, United States, broadcasting the Spanish-language networks Univision and UniMás. Owned and operated by TelevisaUnivision, it is the only full-power Spanish-language television station in the state of Ohio. WQHS-DT's studios and transmitter are located on West Ridgewood Drive in suburban Parma.

This station's sign-on in 1981 as WCLQ-TV marked the return of broadcasting over channel 61 in Cleveland, a frequency unused since the closure of WKBF-TV six years earlier. It served as the market's original outlet for subscription television service Preview, and also carried a general slate of entertainment programming. Preview's 1983 closure forced WCLQ-TV to operate as a full-time independent station under the ownership of Channel Communications, which aggressively purchased syndicated reruns and movies but consistently ranked near the bottom of the local ratings. With the sign-on of two competing independent stations in 1985 and limited chance for profitability, the station was sold to Silver King Broadcasting, becoming one of the first owned-and-operated outlets for the Home Shopping Network (HSN) in 1986, when it changed its call sign to the present WQHS. The station was purchased by Univision in 2002 and has largely aired network programming since, with no local newscasts.

A previous license owned by Kaiser Broadcasting occupied channel 61 as WKBF-TV from January 1968 to April 1975. It was the first independent station to sign on in Cleveland and was Cleveland's first commercial ultra high frequency (UHF) station. WKBF struggled financially for the majority of its existence due to poor revenue growth; the station failed to achieve profitability while competing against rival independent WUAB (channel 43), which signed on nine months after WKBF in September 1968. In April 1975, Kaiser Broadcasting shut down WKBF-TV, returned the license to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and sold off WKBF's assets to WUAB's owner, United Artists Broadcasting; Kaiser then purchased a minority ownership in that station, which it retained until WUAB was sold in 1977.

Even though WKBF-TV had largely failed, interest in channel 61 was fueled by the imminent maturity of subscription television (STV) technology. In January 1977, Cleveland Associates Co.—a consortium of Chicago firms Froelich Corporation, Balaban Television Corporation, Friedland Corporation, and Bray Corporation—filed an application for a construction permit to build channel 61 as a station that would operate on a hybrid basis. The station would air commercial, advertiser-supported programs during the day and scrambled STV programs to paying subscribers at night. A construction permit was awarded by the FCC in 1978, and WCLQ-TV began broadcasting on March 3, 1981, with a special prime time airing of the movie The Deer Hunter as its marquee program on launch day. Four days later, WCLQ-TV began airing STV programs from Preview, a division of Time Inc.'s American Television and Communications, after 8 p.m. on weekdays and 7 p.m. on weekends; the remaining time was occupied by a general-entertainment independent lineup. The station revived a character from the old WKBF-TV—The Ghoul, portrayed by Ron Sweed—when it added a horror movie showcase on September 25, 1982.

Preview's run on WCLQ-TV initially boasted a subscription base of nearly 35,000 at its peak in February 1982. The service carried select Cleveland Cavaliers games starting with the 1981–82 season, with executives mentioning a possible alliance with Cavaliers owner Ted Stepien's "Total Entertainment Network" as an additional programming tier. Ultimately, Preview lost nearly half of their subscription base to cable television systems in the market's affluent suburbs, along with piracy from different decoder boxes and a struggling area economy. Preview added a secondary service—the "adult"-themed Niteview—which only attracted half of Preview's subscribers, while the service itself was largely criticized for poor marketing and customer service. In addition to Preview's struggles, WCLQ-TV faced low ratings and a lack of media exposure, with general manager Gary Brandt publicly musing about The Chronicle-Telegram in Elyria listing the station as "WQLC". The station did make a further attempt at local programming with Video Arcade, a daily variety show aimed at older children with various old films, cartoons, music videos via Video Jukebox, and a local version of TV Powww.

When Time Inc. announced the closure of Preview in Cleveland on May 12, 1983, the service had 22,000 subscribers; for its final day on August 31, that number dropped to 14,000. The shutdown announcement caught station executives off guard, as syndicated programming for the coming television season had largely been committed to months earlier. WCLQ-TV filled the loss of Preview with a traditional mixture of off-network reruns, movies and Independent Network News (anchored by former Cleveland newscaster Bill Jorgensen); it also picked up CBS Late Night, which WJKW declined. WCLQ-TV also began carrying various sports packages—including Big Ten Conference football and basketball, Cleveland State Vikings men's basketball, and select NBA on CBS games WJKW deferred—but dropped much of these sports packages in the summer of 1985 for schedule consistency. The Ghoul was cancelled in the spring of 1984, attributed to low ratings, but it was later suggested that Brandt dropped it after an on-air skit involving a shed being set on fire outside of the studios.

Balaban Broadcasting and the other partners in Cleveland Associates sold WCLQ-TV to Channel Communications, a subsidiary of Nashville, Tennessee–based NASCO, Inc., on May 4, 1984, for $14 million (equivalent to $42.4 million in 2024). NASCO, which primarily handled National Football League merchandise, established Channel as a diversification move, purchasing WCLQ-TV along with two small-market network affiliates—KAIT in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and KPLC in Lake Charles, Louisiana—for a combined $48.8 million. Brandt resigned in late April 1985, with Channel director of operations Jack White taking over as interim general manager; rumors among staffers suggested Brandt was not asked to leave willingly. In a bid to remain competitive, WCLQ-TV acquired syndication rights to Dallas, Simon & Simon and The Love Boat in expensive contracts and began using Ernest P. Worrell (Jim Varney) in promotional spots and billboards. Later purchases included reruns of The A-Team and "lost episodes" of The Honeymooners. Dallas reruns fared poorly, only running on WCLQ-TV for six months before being removed from the schedule entirely.

The explosion of stations was more than the individual markets could absorb. There simply were too many stations and not enough advertising dollars.