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WKRC-TV
Cincinnati, Ohio
Branding	Local12 CinCW
Slogan	Get It Right Now
Channels	Analog: 12 (VHF) Digital: 31 (UHF)
Affiliations	CBS (1949–61, 1996–present) The CW (on DT2, 2006–present)
Owner	Newport Television
Founded	April 4, 1949
Call letters meaning	Kodel Radio Company CINcinnati CW
Former channel number(s)	11 (1949-1952)
Former affiliations	ABC (1961–96)
Website	Local12.com The CinCW

Local 12, WKRC-TV is the CBS affiliate serving Cincinnati, Ohio. Its transmitter is located in the Mount Auburn area of Cincinnati. The station serves the Tri-State area in Ohio, Indiana and Northern Kentucky, along with a digital subchannel called CinCW (pronounced Cincy-W, using a common nickname for the city) which carries The CW Television Network on Channel 12.2 / 31.2 and most area cable and satellite systems.

The station signed on the air on April 4, 1949, making it Cincinnati's second-oldest television station. The "KRC" of WKRC stood for its radio counterpart's original owner, Clarence Ogden of the Kodell Radio Company (Ko: for Clarence and dell: for Della his wife).^[1] WKRC-TV became the flagship station of Taft Broadcasting, along with WKRC radio (AM 550 and FM 101.9, now WKRQ). Originally broadcasting on channel 11, it moved to channel 12 on October 12, 1952.

Originally a CBS affiliate, it switched to ABC in 1961. This switch came after ABC founder Leonard Goldenson persuaded Taft's president, a longtime friend, to switch several of Taft's stations to ABC. WKRC's nickname in the 1960s was "Tall 12", a reference to the station's transmitter tower, the tallest in Cincinnati at the time. Like its competitor WCPO-TV, WKRC used a distinctive jingle ID used at the top of the hour in the 1960s. The upbeat, orchestrated "Channel 12" jingle was followed by children's show host Glenn Ryle announcing, "This is WKRC-TV, Cincinnati."

In 1975, WKRC began airing movies on late night Saturdays in a program called The Past Prime Playhouse. Hosted live by local personality Bob Shreve, the show would air until 1988.

In 1987, Taft restructured itself into Great American Broadcasting, which became Citicasters in 1993. The station was subsequently acquired by Jacor in September 1996 (after most of Citicasters' other television stations were sold to New World Communications and Fox). The Jacor deal reunited channel 12 with its AM sister, which had been bought by Jacor in 1987. Jacor merged with Clear Channel in 1998, though the Citicasters name still appears on WKRC's license, because Citicasters survives as a holding company within the Clear Channel corporate structure.

WKRC's previous logo, used until 2003 along with the slogan "A New Generation of News"

The station switched affiliations with WCPO-TV in June 1996, becoming a CBS affiliate once again. WCPO, which would take the ABC affiliation as part of a corporate affiliation deal its owner E.W. Scripps Company cut back in 1994, had to wait for WKRC's affiliation contract with ABC to run out before switching its network affiliation. Around this time, 12 News began displaying "Texta" – an on-screen banner consisting of the current story's headline – for the duration of the station's newscasts. Later, most Cincinnati stations would add news tickers to their morning newscasts; WKRC added theirs below the Texta headline. For a few years, the station aired its Good Morning Cincinnati newscast live from the ground floor of Fifth Third Bank's headquarters downtown, with Fountain Square as the backdrop.

In 2006, Clear Channel ranked WKRC-TV the top CBS affiliate in the United States. On April 26, 2006, WKRC announced a partnership with WSTR-TV to produce a 10 p.m. local newscast beginning on August 21, 2006.^[2] On November 16, 2006, Clear Channel announced that it would sell all its television stations, including WKRC,^[3] after being bought by private equity firms. On April 20, 2007, Clear Channel entered into an agreement to sell its entire television stations group to Providence Equity Partners.^[4] As a result, WKRC will have its fourth owner in 20 years.

From 1977 to 1992,^[5] WKRC's news division was branded "Eyewitness 12 News", a moniker that WLWT-TV would reuse in 1998; afterwards, the station was usually announced as "12WKRC" and its news unit "12 News". Although owned by Clear Channel, the station changed its branding to "Local 12" in 2003. This branding was inspired by the "Local Mandate", a station standardization branding adopted by Post-Newsweek for its own television stations. There are two other known non–Post-Newsweek stations to have used the "Local" branding was KFMB-TV in San Diego, California, which used "Local 8" from 2001 to 2005, and WDIV-TV in Detroit, Michigan which began using "Local 4" from 2004 to the present.

WKRC airs the The CW on digital subchannel 12.2 / 31.2 under the name CinCW. The station airs the entire CW schedule in-pattern, while outside of network hours, airs classic sitcoms, dramas, films, and second runs of WKRC's syndicated programming, along with regional wrestling programming on Saturday afternoons and evenings. Repeats of WKRC's local DIY shows Homeworx and Nuestro Rincon also air on CinCW.

As WKRC picked up the CW affiliation, Cincinnati cable viewers feared that CinCW would face the same problems as WBQC (Channel 38), the area's former UPN affiliate. For years, Time Warner Cable had refused to carry WBQC full-time, eventually airing the station's prime time programming on a low-profile channel. However, as Time Warner Cable is owned by Time Warner, half-owner of The CW (with CBS Corporation), it was in the company's best interest to air CinCW over their systems, and by late in the day September 17, Time Warner Cable agreed to carry CinCW, only hours before the network's launch.

The station launched on Time Warner Channel 2 in primetime, only to start out with, and 24/7 on digital cable Channel 913, before earning a full-time broadcast basic berth on Channel 20 as of October 18, 2006,^[6] displacing WBQC and a commercial access channel. CinCW can thus be viewed by 66% of the local population, due to carriage by Time Warner Cable in Ohio, Insight Communications in Northern Kentucky, and DirecTV.^[7] The station launched on Insight and DirecTV under WBQC's former channel slots on September 17.

This short section requires expansion.

• Glenn Ryle, a staff announcer in the 1960s, was also a children's show host, taking the on-air name "Skipper Ryle". His morning program competed with "Uncle Al" Lewis on competitor WCPO-TV.
• Nick Clooney, father of George Clooney, was a news anchor for most of the 1970s until 1984. He later worked for other stations across the country before attempting a run for Congress in 2004 in Northern Kentucky.
• Ira Joe Fisher, weather reporter through most of the 1980's and known for writing backwards on plexiglass, is currently the weather reporter for The Saturday Early Show on CBS.
• Bob Shreve hosted The Past Prime Playhouse, a show that aired movies on late night Saturdays from 1975 to 1988.
• Dayna Eubanks solo anchored the noon and First at Four broadcasts. Later she anchored 5, 5:30 with Rob Braun, Kit And Now on LOCAL 12 News. and Cammy Dierking now anchors Local 12 News at 10 on My64 WSTR with longtime partner co-anchor Dave Burchell, also formally a noon news anchor.

• Kit Andrews
• Rob Braun
• Dave Burchell
• Cammy Dierking
• Brad Johansen
• John Lomax
• Paula Toti
• Anna Townsend
• Howard Ain
• Deboarah Dixon
• Jeff Hirsh
• Dan Hurley
• Rich Jaffe
• Dennison Keller
• Joe Webb
• Larry Davis
• Liz Bonis
• Shawn Ley
• Bob Herzog
• Jessica Donnellon
• Tara Pachmayer
• Richard Jordan
• Jen Dalton
• Tim Hedrick
• Steve Horstmeyer
• Michelle Boutillette
• John Gumm
• Jeff Creighton

1. ^ Nelson, Bob (2004-04-17). Origins of many Call Signs. Southwest Museum of Engineering, Communications and Computation. Retrieved on 2007-04-12.
2. ^ Sinclair Broadcast Group (2006-04-24). WSTR & WKRC Enter Into 10PM News Share In Cincinnati. Press release. Retrieved on 2006-05-20.
3. ^ "Ch. 12 a prime draw in sale", The Cincinnati Enquirer, Gannett Company, 2006-11-17, p. 15A. Retrieved on 2006-11-17. 
4. ^ Clear Channel Communications (2007-04-20). Clear Channel Agrees to Sell Television Station Group to Providence Equity Partners. Press release. Retrieved on 2007-04-20.
5. ^ Old TV Newscast Titles (2007-04-10). Retrieved on 2007-04-28.
6. ^ Kiesewetter, John. "Digital channel debuts", The Cincinnati Enquirer, Gannett Company, 2006-09-18, p. 1D. Retrieved on 2007-10-12. 
7. ^ Kiesewetter, John (2006-09-17). A Time Warner-CW Deal!. Cincinnati.Com Blogs. Gannett Company. Retrieved on 2007-04-12.

• WKRC-TV Official Site
• CinCW Official Site
• Current CinCW schedule
• www.cincinnati.com
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WKRC