WKYC (channel 3) is a television station in Cleveland, Ohio, United States, affiliated with NBC and owned by Tegna Inc. Its studios are located on Tom Beres Way (a section of Lakeside Avenue in Downtown Cleveland named after the station's longtime political reporter who retired in 2016),[2][3] and its transmitter is located in suburban Parma, Ohio.

[8][9] In May 1955, NBC agreed to trade WNBK and WTAM-AM-FM to Westinghouse Electric Corporation in return for KYW radio and WPTZ television in Philadelphia.

Almost as soon as the ink dried on the trade, the FCC and the U.S. Department of Justice launched an investigation, claiming NBC extorted and coerced them into agreeing to the deal.

In a reverse of what took place in 1956, some radio and television staffers who worked for Westinghouse in Cleveland moved to Philadelphia along with the KYW call letters.

Other Westinghouse employees—such as Linn Sheldon, Clay Conroy (who played Barnaby's sidekick "Woodrow the Woodsman" before getting a spinoff show of his own), and staff announcer Jay Miltner (who had been with the station since its inception in 1948)—remained in Cleveland.

Evening sports anchor Jim Graner, who had joined the station in 1957 while also serving as the color commentator for the Cleveland Browns radio network, remained through the transition; he stayed on until his death in 1976.

[4] After years of sagging ratings and continuing to be the lowest-rated of the network's owned and operated stations, NBC sold majority control of WKYC (51%) to Multimedia, Inc. in 1990.

At that time, Multimedia's entertainment division (now part of NBC's syndication arm) produced a number of syndicated daytime talk shows, and as a result Multimedia productions such as Jerry Springer (who himself had come from then-sister station WLWT in Cincinnati), Sally Jessy Raphael and Donahue ended up on WKYC's daily schedule.

In September 2022, channel 3 moved Crawford to its newly established 4 p.m. newscast, and signed former CNN anchor and Bellevue, Ohio, native Christi Paul as a co-anchor at 5 p.m.

In 1961, channel 3 originated a local 90-minute weekday daytime variety talk show with former band singer Mike Douglas, which went up against WEWS' One O'Clock Club.

One show that made the jump from Philadelphia to Cleveland was the award-winning documentary series Montage, produced and directed by Dennis Goulden.

In March 2013, the station made national headlines when it preempted NBC's Thursday night sitcom lineup for two weeks with Matlock telefilms.

Coming so shortly after it was announced about NBC's then sagging ratings, the decision was perceived to be a result of the lineup's poor performance, though WKYC's manager reminded many who had not noticed that the station has typically preempted the lineup for Matlock telefilms quite often for the past ten years (usually to provide "make good" ad slots for local advertisers whose pre-scheduled inventory was preempted by breaking news or sports coverage), and the move had nothing to do with ratings, and that NBC had begun to push new programming on those March evenings without much advance notice; WKYC had originally scheduled the films when it was expected the night would carry mainly encore programming.

[36][37][38] Currently, the station's only preemptions outside of breaking news and weather situations mainly involve over-the-air simulcasts of Cleveland Browns games from ESPN's Monday Night Football.

With the Cleveland Browns' move to the newly formed American Football Conference after the completion of the AFL-NFL merger of 1970, channel 3, by way of NBC's rights to carry the AFC games, became the station of record for the team, replacing WJW in that role.

For much of the time between NBC's repurchase of the station and the dawn of the 21st century, WKYC-TV's news department was usually a very distant third in the ratings, well behind WJW-TV and WEWS.

Given Cleveland's status as a mid-major television market, most of the promising reporters or anchors that NBC employed at WKYC could end up being promoted to other higher-profile NBC-owned outlets, especially New York City flagship WNBC-TV or WMAQ-TV in nearby Chicago.

From 1973 to 1984, WKYC tried to use the Action News branding several times while also using the music and graphics associated with the other NBC-owned stations, which employed the NewsCenter name.

Various anchors—such as Virgil Dominic, Doug Adair, Mike Landess, Dave Patterson, Mona Scott, Judd Hambrick, Leon Bibb and Dick Feagler—set designs, and imaging campaigns were tried out, usually with little to no success.

Mosbrook retired in 2002, while Donahoo was co-host of Today in Cleveland with Tom Haley until 1997 and a feature reporter (under the "Del's Folks" banner) until 2006.

[4] Despite the more interactive approach, WKYC did not immediately reap any benefits coming from longtime CBS affiliate WJW's switch to (and eventual purchase by) Fox in 1994.

This practice would be modified in July 2000 when Nightly News was moved back to its traditional 6:30 p.m. slot, and the second half-hour was used to start a 7 p.m. newscast, which continues to air.

[4] WKYC finally became a factor in the Cleveland television news race in 2003, after it had picked up the then brand new Dr. Phil program and placed it in the 5 p.m. time slot.

This move proved to be very successful since all of the other local major network affiliates were broadcasting news at 5 p.m. and this gave viewers an alternative; it also allowed WKYC to be able to get many viewers to change channels at the end of WEWS's 4 p.m. broadcast of The Oprah Winfrey Show so as to watch Dr. Phil (which was a spinoff of Oprah) at 5 p.m. (the syndication contracts for both shows disallowed them from airing against each other).

Additionally, despite fears due to a weakened NBC prime time schedule, WKYC retained its top spot at 11 p.m. which it has held for 17 straight ratings periods.

From 2000 to 2007, its weeknight news team consisted of Tim White and Romona Robinson, chief meteorologist Mark Nolan and sports director Jim Donovan.

The long-standing team was broken up in 2007 when Nolan was reassigned to anchor the morning newscast, and weekend meteorologist Betsy Kling was promoted to weeknights.

[44] A park on the east side of Cleveland was named for Helen Simpson, an advertising and promotions manager at WKYC, who was murdered in 1972 on her way home from work.

[45] In 2016, after 37 years of serving as the station's political reporter, longtime channel 3 newsman Tom Beres announced his retirement after covering the election.

As part of the SAFER Act,[53] WKYC kept its analog signal on the air until June 26 to inform viewers of the digital television transition through a loop of public service announcements from the National Association of Broadcasters.