, identified on-air as '''''UPN 43''''', is the local
UPN affiliate in
Cleveland, Ohio . Its transmitter is located in
Parma, Ohio .
WUAB had the humblest of beginnings.
United Artists Broadcasting was its original owner, bringing the station to life on
September 15 ,
1968 . Its main studio was in a trailer in downtown Cleveland. The
Federal Communications Commission licensed WUAB to
Lorain, Ohio , 25 miles to the west of Cleveland. WUAB quickly overcame a shaky start to become one of the country's top independent stations. The station's talents, such as Linn Sheldon, had been polished TV personalities with experience on Cleveland's network affiliates.
Originally, WUAB's slogan was ''Channel 43 Plays Favorites''. Most of these favorites were cartoons, syndicated off-network sitcoms, movies, and religious shows. WUAB broadcast these shows out of a new facility on Day Drive in suburban
Parma , which opened in the early 1970s.
WUAB was one of two independent stations in the market back in the early 1970s. Its competitor
WKBF 61 (owned by Kaiser) had a similar format. Both stations went head to head and struggled to be profitable. Both signed on everyday at around 10 AM and went off the air by 1 AM.
By
1974 , United Artists was planning to exit the broadcasting industry, and sold WUAB to Kaiser (which had been wanting better programming for its Cleveland station). Kaiser took over WUAB in the spring of
1975 , and merged WUAB's programming assets with WKBF's. The combined station chose to remain on channel 43 as WUAB, and the channel 61 license was returned to the FCC. WKBF went off the air in 1975, and WUAB was now the only independent station in town. By that time, WUAB signed on at 6 AM and signed off very late at night.
In
1977 , Field Communications bought the rest of Kaiser's share in its television outlets. WUAB was sold separately to the Gaylord Broadcasting Company in 1977. Gaylord moved quickly to shore up the station's programming in
1980 by winning the broadcast rights to the
Cleveland Indians Major League Baseball team. The station's relationship with the city's baseball team lasted some 22 years, until the final game with the
Toronto Blue Jays at the end of the
2001 season. The station also became broadcast home of the NBA
Cleveland Cavaliers . During this time, it appeared on several cable systems in Ohio, as well as
West Virginia ,
Pennsylvania ,
Kentucky , and
Western Ontario .
WUAB faced new competitors as Channel 61 returned to the air as WCLQ in
1981 , and later, when
WOIO Channel 19 and
WBNX-TV 55 signed on
1985 . WOIO became a
Fox affiliate in
1986 , and overtook WUAB in the ratings.
WUAB launched Cleveland's first 10 PM newscast on
January 4 ,
1988 , with anchors Romona Robinson and Bob Hetherington, with weather anchor Frank Carivello. But the most notice came from veteran sportscaster Gib Shanley, who came out of retirement from
WEWS to be the WUAB's first sports director. Familiar local news anchor Jack Marschall later replaced Hetherington.
In
1989 , Gaylord sold WUAB to Cannell Broadcasting, owned by TV writer and producer
Steven J. Cannell . Though the station performed adequately in the ratings under Cannell ownership, the company was unable to restore the station to its former glory.
In
1994 , Malrite (
WOIO 's owner) signed a
Local Marketing Agreement (LMA) with Cannell, and as a result, WOIO and WUAB became sister stations. WUAB was still technically owned by Cannell, but the station was now managed in tandem with WOIO. Both stations moved to a location at downtown Cleveland's Reserve Square, where the stations remain today.
WOIO became the market's
CBS station after an affiliation switch in
1994 , and moved most of its sitcoms and non-Fox cartoons to WUAB. At that time, WUAB began producing two daily newscasts to be aired on WOIO - in addition to their own 10 PM newscast - under the name ''Cleveland Television News''.
WUAB ceased to be an independent station in
1995 , when it became the market's affiliate for both the
UPN and
WB networks. The dual-affiliation did not cause the station any problems at first, as both networks only programmed for a few nights of the week. However, in
1997 , WUAB became solely affiliated with UPN, and The WB signed an affiliation with
WBNX-TV .
The station, along with WOIO, is currently owned by
Raycom Media (Malrite's successor since the late 1990s), making WUAB the largest UPN affiliate not to be owned and operated by UPN parent
CBS Corporation or the second-largest UPN affiliate owner,
Fox Television Stations Group . WOIO produces a 10 PM newscast Monday-Sunday under the name ''19 Action News at 10''.
Like WOIO, UPN 43 is with Dominion. It is teamed as always.
WUAB ranked #24 in overall ratings among all the UPN affiliates during the November 2005 ratings sweep period. Source: TV Week.
{Link without Title}
WUAB is the longtime "free TV" home of the
Cleveland Cavaliers , airing some 25-30 games per year and therefore, periodically pre-empts the primetime network programming.
Thanks in large part to
LeBron James , Cavaliers games have been big ratings grabbers for the station over the past few years.
CBS Corporation and Time Warner announced on
January 24 ,
2006 that they will close their respective UPN and WB networks and jointly launch the CW Network in
September 2006 . Shortly after the announcement of the CW Network,
News Corporation announced that it would launch
My Network TV for stations left out of the merger.
On
March 7 ,
2006 , 6 days after competitor
WBNX gained the CW affiliation, WUAB was announced as an affiliate of My Network TV, along with two other Raycom Media-owned stations.
{Link without Title}
