WDTN (channel 2) is a
television station
A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the earth's s ...
in
Dayton, Ohio
Dayton () is a city in Montgomery County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of cities in Ohio, sixth-most populous city in Ohio, with a population of 137,644 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The Dayton metro ...
, United States, affiliated with
NBC. It is owned by
Nexstar Media Group
Nexstar Media Group, Inc. is an American publicly traded media company with headquarters in Irving, Texas, Midtown Manhattan, and Chicago. The company is the largest television station owner in the United States, owning 197 television station ...
, which provides certain services to
Springfield, Ohio
Springfield is a city in Clark County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It is located in southwestern Ohio along the Mad River (Ohio), Mad River, Buck Creek, and Beaver Creek, about west of Columbus, Ohio, Columbus and northeast of ...
–licensed
WBDT (channel 26), a ''de facto''
owned-and-operated station
In the broadcasting industry, an owned-and-operated station (frequently abbreviated as an O&O) usually refers to a television or radio station owned by the network with which it is associated. This distinguishes such a station from an network af ...
of
The CW
The CW Network, LLC (commonly referred to as The CW or simply CW) is an American commercial broadcast television network which is controlled by Nexstar Media Group through a 75% ownership interest. The network's name is derived from the firs ...
, under a
local marketing agreement (LMA) with
Vaughan Media. The two stations share studios on South Dixie Drive in
Moraine, Ohio.
WDTN's transmitter facility is located off Frytown Road in an
exclave
An enclave is a territory that is entirely surrounded by the territory of only one other state or entity. An enclave can be an independent territory or part of a larger one. Enclaves may also exist within territorial waters. ''Enclave'' is s ...
of
Jefferson Township surrounded by the southwest Dayton neighborhoods of Germantown Meadow, Highview Hills and Stoney Ridge; through a
channel sharing agreement, it shares its digital channel with WBDT, along with unrelated
Richmond, Indiana–licensed
Ion Television O&O
WKOI-TV (channel 43).
History
Early years
The
construction permit
Planning permission or building permit refers to the approval needed for construction or expansion (including significant renovation), and sometimes for demolition, in some jurisdictions.
House building permits, for example, are subject to bu ...
for what is now WDTN was awarded to the
Crosley Broadcasting Corporation of
Cincinnati
Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...
on April 4, 1947. It was the first broadcast television license granted by the
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains j ...
(FCC) to Dayton. However, due to several delays, the station did not actually go on the air until March 15, 1949, as WLWD, on channel 5, twenty days after
CBS affiliate
WHIO-TV began broadcasting. From the very first day, it has operated from a studio and office facility located in a former skating rink on Dixie Drive in Moraine. (The property has changed jurisdictions since the original airdate: first it was within the now-defunct Van Buren Township, which voted to incorporate as
Kettering
Kettering is a market town, market and industrial town, industrial town in the North Northamptonshire district of Northamptonshire, England, west of Cambridge, England, Cambridge, southwest of Peterborough, southeast of Leicester and north- ...
in November 1952; in 1953, the western portion of Kettering, which included the property, voted to secede, forming Moraine Township, which in turn incorporated as Moraine in 1957.)
WLWD was the second link of a group of inter-connected stations which made up the "WLW Television Network", and was named for Crosley's
flagship
A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of navy, naval ships, characteristically a flag officer entitled by custom to fly a distinguishing flag. Used more loosely, it is the lead ship in a fleet of vessels, typically ...
Cincinnati radio station
WLW
WLW (700 AM broadcasting, AM) is a commercial radio, commercial news/talk radio station city of license, licensed to Cincinnati, Ohio. Owned by iHeartMedia, WLW is a clear-channel station, often identifying itself as "The Big One". Its studios ...
; the "D" referred to Dayton. The other stations were
WLWT in Cincinnati and WLWC (now
WCMH-TV) in
Columbus, both also owned by Crosley. The three outlets shared common regional programming, most of which was produced in Cincinnati and sent by way of
microwave link to Dayton and Columbus (such as ''The 50-50 Club'' with
Ruth Lyons, and later
Bob Braun; ''The
Paul Dixon Show''; and ''
Midwestern Hayride''). All three stations were also NBC affiliates, and had secondary relationships with the
DuMont Television Network; WLWD also carried
ABC programs. The first program shown on WLWD was NBC's ''
Texaco Star Theater
''Texaco Star Theater'' is an American comedy-variety show, broadcast on radio from 1938 to 1949 and telecast from 1948 to 1956. It was one of the first successful examples of American television broadcasting, remembered as the show that gave M ...
'', with
Milton Berle. To reflect their connection to each other, the WLW Television stations hyphenated their call signs on air; the Dayton outlet was known as WLW-D. The Crosley television group would later expand to include WLWA (now
WXIA-TV
WXIA-TV (channel 11) is a television station in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by Tegna Inc. alongside MyNetworkTV affiliate WATL (channel 36). The two stations share studios at One Monroe Place on the north end ...
) in
Atlanta
Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...
, WLWI (now
WTHR) in
Indianapolis
Indianapolis ( ), colloquially known as Indy, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Indiana, most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana, Marion ...
, and
WOAI-TV in
San Antonio
San Antonio ( ; Spanish for " Saint Anthony") is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in Greater San Antonio. San Antonio is the third-largest metropolitan area in Texas and the 24th-largest metropolitan area in the ...
.

The release of the FCC's ''Sixth Report and Order'' in 1952 resulted in shifts of VHF channel assignments in the Midwest region. In Ohio, WLWD's channel 5 allocation was moved to Cincinnati and given to sister station WLWT, with the Dayton station reassigned to transmit over channel 2. WLWD's channel change took place on April 27, 1953. WHIO-TV, Dayton's only other station at the time, also shifted channels (from 13 to 7) as a result of the same ordinance. Along with the channel shift WLWD was also forced to operate with a shorter transmission tower, to reduce the overlap of its new channel 2 signal with the relocated signals of WLWT (which moved from channel 4 to channel 5) and WLWC (which shifted to channel 4 from channel 3). The analog channel 2 signal
traveled a very long distance under normal conditions.
WLWD lost DuMont in 1955, a few months before the network shut down. It lost ABC in 1965 (though it cleared some ABC daytime programming until 1971 as a
secondary affiliate) when then-
independent WONE-TV (channel 22, now
WKEF) picked up ABC's
prime time
Prime time, or peak time, is the block of broadcast programming taking place during the middle of the evening for television shows. It is mostly targeted towards adults (and sometimes families). It is used by the major television networks to ...
programming.
In 1968 the Crosley group took on the name of its parent company and became known as Avco Broadcasting, a subsidiary of the Aviation Corporation (later known as
Avco). After the FCC restricted the
common ownership of stations with overlapping signals in the late 1960s, it
grandfathered Avco's common ownership of WLWD, WLWT, WLWC and of WLW radio in Cincinnati. Even from its shorter tower, WLWD's city-grade signal reached as far as Cincinnati and as far north as the Columbus suburbs, while WLW radio's 50-
kilowatt
The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), quantify the rate of Work ...
signal covered nearly all of Ohio and overlapped with all three television stations.
In 1975, Avco decided to exit broadcasting. As a result, WLWD lost its grandfathered protection, and had to be sold off separately from WLWT and WLWC. WLWD ended up being the last of Avco's television stations to be sold off, going to
Grinnell College in
Iowa
Iowa ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the upper Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west; Wisconsin to the northeast, Ill ...
for $13 million in June 1975; the acquisition made Grinnell College one of a few universities in the country to own a commercial television station. The school changed the call letters to WDTN shortly after the sale closed on June 16, 1976. Not long after Grinnell took over, WDTN increased the height on its broadcast tower and began operating at full effective radiated power, increasing its coverage area. (The WLWD
call sign
In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally as ...
was used from April 2003 until April 2010 for an
FM radio station serving
Lima
Lima ( ; ), founded in 1535 as the Ciudad de los Reyes (, Spanish for "City of Biblical Magi, Kings"), is the capital and largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón River, Chillón, Rímac River, Rímac and Lurín Rive ...
, now
WBKS. The call sign has been used since October 12, 2010, by
Daystar station
WLWD-LD (channel 20), licensed to
Springfield.)
Switch to ABC
By the mid to late-1970s, ABC was searching for stronger affiliates in order to cement its status as the leading network in the United States. Its existing Dayton affiliate, WKEF, was a distant third in the ratings, and only ran ABC's prime time and
sports
Sport is a physical activity or game, often competitive and organized, that maintains or improves physical ability and skills. Sport may provide enjoyment to participants and entertainment to spectators. The number of participants in ...
programming, plus whatever daytime programming was preempted by two
Taft Broadcasting
Taft Broadcasting Company (also known as Taft Television and Radio Company, Incorporated) was an American media conglomerate based in Cincinnati, Ohio.
The company was rooted in the Taft family, family of William Howard Taft, the 27th President ...
–owned ABC affiliates in adjacent markets,
WKRC-TV in Cincinnati (now with CBS) and WTVN-TV (now
WSYX) in Columbus. WKEF also did not have a functioning news department until 1979. Meanwhile, WKRC-TV and WTVN-TV were not only preempting ABC's daytime programs, but also its late night shows and some of its
Saturday morning cartoons. ABC also wanted a station in Dayton with both stronger ratings and signal, and one which could reach portions of the Cincinnati and Columbus markets. In summer 1979, ABC approached WDTN and reached an affiliation deal. Almost by default, NBC was then left to go with WKEF. On
January 1
January 1 is the first day of the calendar year in the Gregorian Calendar; 364 days remain until the end of the year (365 in leap years). This day is also known as New Year's Day since the day marks the beginning of the year. __TOC__
Events ...
, 1980, WDTN and WKEF swapped network affiliations. Five months after joining ABC, in May 1980, Grinnell College announced it would sell WDTN to the
broadcasting division of the
Hearst Corporation. The sale was finalized over a year later, in September 1981 for a price of over $47 million.
In August 1997, Hearst's television group merged with Argyle Television Holdings II to form what was then known as Hearst-Argyle Television. Argyle had purchased WDTN's former sister station, WLWT, that January, as part of a trade deal between Argyle II and
Gannett Broadcasting which caused WLWT and its
Oklahoma City
Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Oklahoma, most populous city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat ...
sister station,
KOCO-TV, to swap ownership with
WZZM in
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Grand Rapids is the largest city and county seat of Kent County, Michigan, United States. With a population of 198,917 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census and estimated at 200,117 in 2024, Grand Rapids is the List of municipalities ...
, and
WGRZ-TV in
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is a Administrative divisions of New York (state), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York and county seat of Erie County, New York, Erie County. It lies in Western New York at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of ...
. For the same reason that forced the breakup of Avco's television group 20 years earlier, Hearst-Argyle could not keep both stations (common ownership of stations with overlapping city-grade signals would not be allowed until 2000). It opted to keep the larger WLWT and trade WDTN, together with
WNAC-TV in
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence () is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Rhode Island, most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. The county seat of Providence County, Rhode Island, Providence County, it is o ...
, to
Sunrise Television for
WPTZ in
Plattsburgh, New York
Plattsburgh is a city in and the county seat of Clinton County, New York, United States, situated on the north-western shore of Lake Champlain. The population was 19,841 at the United States Census, 2020, 2020 census. The population of the sur ...
,
WNNE in
Hartford, Vermont, and
KSBW in
Salinas, California
Salinas (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Salt pan (geology), Salt Flats") is a city in the U.S. state of California and the county seat of Monterey County, California, Monterey County. With a population of 163,542 in the 2020 Census, Salinas is ...
. The sale was finalized on July 2, 1998.
In May 2002, Sunrise merged with
LIN TV
LIN Media was an American holding company founded in 1994 that operated 43 television stations. All except one were affiliates of the six major U.S. television networks. One of the remaining stations was a low-powered weather station in In ...
; both television companies were owned by private equity firm
Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst.
Return to NBC
In early 2004, NBC landed a new affiliation agreement with LIN TV; in response to this agreement, ABC signed an affiliation deal with
Sinclair Broadcasting Group, which renewed the network's affiliations with the group's existing ABC affiliates and caused WKEF and its sister stations in
Springfield/
Decatur, Illinois
Decatur ( ) is the largest city in Macon County, Illinois, United States, and its county seat. The city was founded in 1829 and is situated along the Sangamon River and Lake Decatur in Central Illinois. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 ...
(
WICS and
WICD), to switch to that network. On August 30, 2004, in a reversal of the 1980 switch, WDTN returned to NBC after 24 years away to take advantage of the network's then-stronger programming. Ironically, several months after the affiliation shift, ABC's ratings overtook those of NBC and the network wouldn't rebound for nearly a decade; in 2014, NBC had regained the lead over ABC.
On May 18, 2007, LIN TV announced that it was exploring strategic alternatives that could have resulted in the sale of the company. In early June, WDTN's website (along with those of several other LIN TV-owned stations not affiliated with
Fox such as
WNDY-TV,
WWHO,
WAND,
WWLP, and
WLFI-TV) underwent a redesign. The web addresses were then operated by the Local Media Network division of World Now for a little over a year until October 2008, when LIN TV relaunched most of its station websites through
Fox Interactive Media (later spun off as the independent company known today as EndPlay). Prior to the World Now contract, the web addresses were powered by Web Pros.
On October 3, 2008, LIN TV pulled WDTN (and its other stations) from Time Warner Cable, due to a dispute over "retransmission fees". Time Warner replaced WDTN with a free preview of
HBO Family.
On October 29, LIN TV and Time Warner Cable reached an agreement, restoring WDTN, as well as offering it in high definition on the cable system for the first time.
On June 4, 2010, it was announced LIN TV would begin operating CW affiliate WBDT (then owned by
ACME Communications) through
shared service and
joint sales agreements. Three months later, LIN TV exercised an option to purchase that channel along with another LIN-operated ACME station, fellow CW affiliate
WCWF in
Green Bay, Wisconsin
Green Bay is a city in Brown County, Wisconsin, United States, and its county seat. It is located at the head of Green Bay (Lake Michigan), Green Bay (known locally as "the bay of Green Bay"), a sub-basin of Lake Michigan at the mouth of the F ...
. LIN TV requested WBDT's license be assigned to a subsidiary of Vaughan Media (owner of CW affiliate
KNVA in
Austin, Texas
Austin ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Texas. It is the county seat and most populous city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and W ...
, which was also operated by LIN TV). The company holds a 4.5% equity stake in Vaughan Media, but controls most of that company's voting stock, effectively making it a
shell corporation
A shell corporation is a company or corporation with no significant assets or operations often formed to obtain financing before beginning business. Shell companies were primarily vehicles for lawfully hiding the identity of their beneficial ...
for LIN TV. WBDT was integrated into WDTN's facilities and the merger between the two stations occurred sometime around October 2010. WBDT originally had studios at Corporate Place in
Miamisburg, along Byers Road.
On March 4, 2011, LIN TV's contract with
DISH Network expired, and all TV stations owned or operated by LIN, including WDTN and WBDT, were pulled from DISH. On March 13, LIN and DISH entered into a retransmission consent agreement, and all affected channels were restored.
On March 21, 2014,
Media General announced that it would buy LIN. The FCC approved the merger on December 12, 2014, but a condition of the deal requires Media General to end the JSA between WBDT and WDTN due to tighter scrutiny such deals are getting by the FCC. Media General received a two-year waiver to end the JSA between WDTN and WBDT. The merger was completed on December 19, reuniting WDTN with WCMH-TV (the former WLWC).
On January 27, 2016, it was announced that
Nexstar Broadcasting Group would buy Media General for $4.6 billion, and WDTN became part of "Nexstar Media Group". The deal was approved by the FCC on January 11, 2017, and it was completed on January 17.
A
carriage dispute with
AT&T
AT&T Inc., an abbreviation for its predecessor's former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the w ...
, lasting from 11:59 p.m. on July 3 to August 29, 2019, resulted in the removal of WDTN, along with more than 120 other Nexstar stations across 97 markets, from AT&T's
DirecTV
DirecTV, LLC is an American Multichannel television in the United States, multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital Satellite television, s ...
,
DirecTV Now and
U-verse platforms.
A carriage dispute with Dish Network, beginning at 7 p.m. on December 2, 2020, resulted in the removal of WDTN and sister station WBDT from the platform, along with 164 Nexstar stations in 115 markets.
A carriage dispute with DirecTV from July 2 to September 17, 2023, resulted in the removal of WDTN, along with 158 other Nexstar stations, from DirecTV, U-verse and
DirecTV Stream.
Programming
Game show host and announcer
Johnny Gilbert hosted his own local daytime variety/talk show on WLWD immediately after the local airing of WLW television's ''Paul Dixon Show'' in the mid-1960s.
Phil Donahue (former news anchor and radio talk show host at
WHIO radio) began hosting a talk show on WLWD in 1967, called ''
The Phil Donahue Show'', that was then more issue-oriented (greatly reducing the station's program budget). Donahue's show went national in 1970. Since most programs on the WLW television regional network originated from WLWT in Cincinnati, it was the first time WLWD was the originator of a program.
Aside from Paul Dixon's weekday morning show, other Cincinnati-based programming that aired on WLWD included: ''The 50-50 Club'', hosted by Ruth Lyons (succeeded by Bob Braun after Lyons' 1967 retirement), and the Saturday evening country music program ''Midwestern Hayride''.
Due to WLWD's heavy local and regional programming schedule, many network programs from NBC and ABC were recorded on film as a
kinescope for later airing. On rare occasions when a program was unavailable (sometimes due to network technical difficulties or if fill time was available before or after a network sportscast), a half-hour series entitled ''Star Performance'', consisting mostly of drama
pilots from the 1950s, would air. Fifteen-minute mini-documentaries or newsreels would also air as a time filler under the title ''Miniature Theater''.
During the summer of 1983, WDTN was exempted from running ABC's
soap opera
A soap opera (also called a daytime drama or soap) is a genre of a long-running radio or television Serial (radio and television), serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term ''soap opera'' originat ...
s after 2 p.m., since WKRC-TV's signal easily covered Dayton. As a result, the station ran cartoons and off-network
sitcom
A sitcom (short for situation comedy or situational comedy) is a genre of comedy produced for radio and television, that centers on a recurring cast of character (arts), characters as they navigate humorous situations within a consistent settin ...
s in place of ''
One Life to Live
''One Life to Live'' (often abbreviated as ''OLTL'') is an American soap opera broadcast on the American Broadcasting Company, ABC television network for more than 43 years, from July 15, 1968, to January 13, 2012, and then on the internet as ...
'' and ''
General Hospital
''General Hospital'' (often abbreviated as ''GH'') is an American daytime television soap opera created by Frank and Doris Hursley which has been broadcast on American Broadcasting Company, ABC since April 1, 1963. Originally a half-hour seria ...
''. By the late 1980s, these were replaced with first run talk shows such as ''
The Oprah Winfrey Show'' (at 4 p.m.), ''
The Montel Williams Show'', and ''
The Jerry Springer Show
''Jerry Springer'' is an American first-run syndicated talk show that was hosted by Jerry Springer. The show ran for twenty-seven seasons from September 30, 1991, to July 26, 2018, in which it broadcast 3,891 episodes. It was taped at the NB ...
''. WDTN would begin its talk block at 2 p.m. during the week. In 2000,
Time Warner Cable (Dayton's largest cable system) dropped the Cincinnati network affiliates to make room for new cable channels. The Cincinnati stations had been available on cable in the Dayton area ever since cable arrived there in the mid-1960s. As a result, ABC soap viewers could no longer see ''One Life to Live'' or ''General Hospital'', while over-the-air viewers could still pick them up on
WCPO-TV (which had become Cincinnati's ABC affiliate in 1996). In the fall of 2000, ''General Hospital'' returned to WDTN's schedule; after the station came under the control of LIN TV in May 2002, ''One Life to Live'' was added to the schedule as well. From this point on, WDTN aired the entire ABC schedule in pattern until the station returned to NBC in 2004.
News operation
In the 1970s and 1980s, WDTN used the ''
Eyewitness News'' branding. For most of its history, its newscasts have been a runner-up to market leader WHIO-TV. On April 11, 2012, the station announced that it was in the process of reconstructing its studios in preparation for the production of high definition content. After June 8, 2012, newscasts were moved to the station's newsroom as the new news set was being built in the same location as the old one. The first high definition newscast was at 6 p.m. on Saturday, July 21, 2012. WDTN was the second station in Dayton to have made the upgrade to HD newscasts; the shows on WBDT were included in the upgrade.
On August 20, 2007, the station began to produce a nightly prime time newscast for WBDT, known as ''2 News at 10 on Dayton's CW''. This show achieved higher ratings than
WRGT-TV's nightly prime time news in Dayton's metered market households on the 26th day of its broadcast. That year, ''2 News'' won the "
Edward R. Murrow Award for Overall Excellence" for the second straight year.
In May 2011, the station changed the name of its weekday 5–7 a.m. newscast from ''2 News Sunrise'' to ''2 News Today''. On November 14, 2011, the station moved ''2 News Todays start time to 4:30 a.m., probably in response to WHIO-TV's similar lengthening of its morning news on August 15.
In August 2011, the station announced plans to replace its weekday hour-long newscast, ''2 News at Noon'', with a local lifestyle talk show called ''Living Dayton'', starting in early January 2012. It was planned that anchor Marsha Bonhart, Holly Samuels and meteorologist Jamie Jarosik would deliver news and weather at the top of the broadcast, and that the show would cover any breaking news. ''Living Dayton'' premiered on February 6, 2012, with newly hired hosts Nathalie Basha and
Zuri Hall. Later on February 6, it was announced that Jim Bucher would join the show as a contributor. The inclusion of news headlines and a weather forecast began on February 9; on the same day, Basha and Hall began providing a brief commentary-style discussion of topical issues, sometimes with a guest contributor, immediately following the news/weather segment.
On January 7, 2013, WBDT began to air a weekday news program from 7 to 9 a.m., called ''2 News Today on Dayton's CW''.
In January 2015, the station renamed its hour-long 5 p.m. weekday newscast ''Five on 2'', and included more features, interviews and longer-form stories.
On September 11, 2017, the station added an hour-long 4 p.m. weekday newscast, ''2 News First at 4''; it is the first and only 4 p.m. local newscast in the market.
On April 4, 2020, WDTN debuted a weekend morning newscast airing Saturdays and Sundays from 6 to 8 a.m.
On July 23, 2021, WDTN debuted a new set, with updated graphics having been rolled out in the preceding weeks.
On September 2, 2021, Mark Allan, anchor for over 25 years, retired from broadcasting. Allan arrived at the station in fall 1995 from
KAKE (TV) in Wichita, Kansas, first anchoring coverage of the then-ongoing
Dayton Peace Accords.
WDTN includes segments from the syndicated consumer and personal finance series ''Money Talks with Stacy Johnson'' as part of its newscasts.
The station maintains news partnerships with several area newspapers. In addition to its main studios, WDTN operates bureaus in Springfield (on West Main Street) and in
Xenia (in the ''Xenia Daily Gazette'' newsroom on South Detroit Street).
WDTN operates its own
weather radar
A weather radar, also called weather surveillance radar (WSR) and Doppler weather radar, is a type of radar used to locate precipitation (meteorology), precipitation, calculate its motion, and estimate its type (rain, snow, hail etc.). Modern w ...
known on-air as "Live Doppler 2 HD" (formerly as "Live Doppler 2X"). The station's weather reports are branded as "Storm Team 2" and ''were'' sometimes branded as "Live Doppler 2X".
For many years,
Charlie Van Dyke was the voice heard on WDTN's
station IDs, news intros,
promos, and other
voice-over work. In September 2011, Van Dyke was replaced by
Roger Rose.
Notable former on-air staff
*
Len Berman – news and sports reporter, now retired (formerly at
NBC Sports
NBC Sports is an American programming division for NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, that is responsible for sports broadcasts on their broadcast network NBC, the Cable television, cable channels NBC owns, and on Peacock (streaming service) ...
and
WNBC-TV)
*
Fran Charles – weekend sports anchor (now at
MLB Network)
*
Julie Chen – reporter & anchor; now host of
the U.S. version of ''Big Brother'', former co-host of ''
The Talk'' (both on
CBS)
* Jodine Costanzo – reporter (now at
WPXI)
*
Phil Donahue – host of ''The Phil Donahue Show'', as described above
*
Johnny Gilbert – local talk-variety show host in mid-1960s, as described above (now announcer on ''
Jeopardy!
''Jeopardy!'' is an American television game show created by Merv Griffin. The show is a quiz competition that reverses the traditional question-and-answer format of many quiz shows. Rather than being given questions, contestants are instead g ...
'')
*
Gordon Jump – host of ''Gordon Jump's Fun Time'' and ''High Time''; also WLWD's director of special broadcast services (1961-1965)
*
Jessica Moore – reporter (now at
WCBS-TV
WCBS-TV (channel 2), branded CBS New York, is a television station in New York City, serving as the flagship of the CBS network. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division alongside Riverhead, New York–lic ...
)
*
Dan Patrick – sports anchor (now at NBC Sports)
*
John Seibel – anchor (now
executive director of a
nonprofit organization
A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...
)
Technical information
Subchannels
On January 1, 2016, WDTN added the Escape network (now
Ion Mystery) to its lineup on its second digital subchannel, replacing a
standard-definition
Standard-definition television (SDTV; also standard definition or SD) is a television system that uses a resolution that is not considered to be either high-definition television, high or enhanced definition. ''Standard'' refers to offering a ...
feed of the main WDTN programming previously airing on that subchannel. On January 31, 2016, the station added the
Justice Network to its third digital subchannel. On February 1, 2018, the Justice Network was dropped, replaced by
Ion Television, which was moved from sister station WBDT's DT3 subchannel.
On June 7, 2018, unrelated
WKOI-TV began sharing WDTN's digital channel, with Ion Television programming appearing on virtual channel 43.1.
WDTN also continued to carry Ion Television on virtual channel 2.3.
Sister station WBDT began sharing WDTN's digital channel on June 29, 2018;
on that date, virtual channel 2.3 was dropped.
Analog-to-digital conversion
WDTN shut down its analog signal, over
VHF channel 2, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United States
transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition
UHF channel 50,
using
virtual channel 2. WDTN moved its digital signal from channel 50 to channel 31 on November 8, 2019, as part of the FCC's
spectrum reallocation process.
See also
*
Channel 2 virtual TV stations in the United States
*
Channel 31 digital TV stations in the United States
*
List of television stations in Ohio
*
List of television stations in Ohio (by channel number)
*
List of television stations in the United States by call sign (initial letter W)
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wdtn
1949 establishments in Ohio
Ion Mystery affiliates
NBC affiliates
Nexstar Media Group
Television channels and stations established in 1949
DTN