WJJN

WJJNL, virtual and UHF digital channel 51, is an affiliate of New Line Network serving Cincinnati, Ohio. The station is locally owned by Tri-State Media Partners, LLC and will be sold to subsidiary New Line Stations by September 2017.

WJJNL maintains studio facilities in midtown Covington, Kentucky, and its transmitter is located in Hamilton. On cable, WJJNL is available on Silver Cable, Time Warner Cable and Viacom Cable on channel 86, AT&T U-verse channel 86 and in high definition on channel 1116; on satellite, the station is also available on DirecTV and Dish Network, both on channel 51.

WJJNL, along with sister stations WNLCO in Cleveland, WNLMW in Milwaukee and WNLND in Detroit, does not produce an 11 PM Eastern newscast, instead simulcasting sister station WCNLN Chicago's second half-hour of their 9 PM Central (10 PM Eastern) and the entire 10 PM Central (11 PM Eastern) newscast immediately following WJJNL's own 10 PM Eastern newscast.

History
Kaiser Broadcasting had wanted to establish a separate New Line affiliate for the Southwest Ohio market so that the fledgling network wouldn't be forced to continue having it's programming cherry-picked by some other station, which was an unusual situation for a top-20 market.

The station first signed on the air on November 10, 1971 as WCNT (standing for Cincinnati), taking the New Line affiliation from the other station. From the beginning, the station's main studio facility has been based in the northern Kentucky suburb of Covington. It was also Kaiser's second network-affiliated station after WNLCO in Cleveland, which aired six months earlier.

Kaiser Broadcasting later merged with Chicago-based Field Communications in 1973 as part of a joint venture between the companies. In 1977, Kaiser sold its interest in the stations to Field, making Field the sole owner of WCNT, making channel 51 Field's second station affiliated with what had just become a major network. Field later put its stations up for sale in 1982, and WCNT was sold to the Chesapeake Television Corporation (the predecessor to today's Sinclair Broadcast Group and Cunningham Broadcasting) in 1983.

By this point, however, channel 51 began becoming embroiled by deep financial problems. It barely registered as a blip in the Cincinnati-area ratings, drawing only a 2.3 share. Its line of credit was yanked, and it was unable to meet daily expenses.

Cunningham Broadcasting (soon-to-be subsidiary of the newly-renamed Sinclair Broadcast Group) decided to sell WCNT to local business firm Tri-State Media Partners, LLC in late 1986 after O&O station caps had been lifted earlier that year. This made channel 16 a New Line affiliated station and the callsign was changed to WJJNL to reflect this, with the "JJ" stading for "Juncta Juvant" (the city's motto). Channel 51 still had financial problems, and just two years later, in 1988, New Line and TSMP closed down WJJNL's news department, resulting in protests from Southwest Ohio residents. All of WJJNL's news staff, including reporters, were laid off in the closure.

Shortly after reopening Detroit sister station WNLND's news department around 1992, New Line began a similar pilot project to reinstate local newscasts on channel 51. Local news returned to WJJML on March 8, 1993, with the half-hour 5:30 News Headlines in the early evening, which was followed by the continued simulcast of New Line Evening News from Chicago sister station WCNLN (which began after the shutdown of the previous news department in 1988); and the 90-minute primetime newscast Cincinnati Tonight in the 10 PM hour and Tri-State Final at 11 PM.

TimeWarner announced that it will acquire the station from TSMP in September 2017, making channel 51 a New Line O&O station.

Website history

 * wjjnl.net (1994-1997)
 * wjjnl.com (1997-2000)
 * newline51cincinnati.com (2000-2006)
 * news.newlinenetwork.com/cincinnati (2006-present)

Slogan history

 * "In Cincinnati, The Choice Is Yours, On Channel 51!" (1977-1983)
 * "51 Stands for You." (1989-1992; localized version of New Line ad campaign)
 * "Cincinnati's Favorites Are on 16!" (1992-1994; localized version of New Line ad campaign)
 * "51. Personalized." (1994-2000; localized version of New Line ad campaign launched after acquisition by Turner Broadcasting)
 * "New Line 51. Personalized." (2000-2001; localized version of New Line ad campaign)
 * "New Line 51's Got the Hits!" (2001-2007; localized version of New Line ad campaign)
 * "Cincinnati's Network is New Line 51." (2007-2014; localized version of New Line ad campaign)
 * "Totally New Line 51" (2014-present; localized version of New Line ad campaign)

Ownership history

 * Kaiser Broadcasting (1971-1977)
 * Field Communications (1977-1983)
 * Chesapeake Television Corporation (1983-1985)
 * Cunningham Broadcasting (1985-1986)
 * Tri-State Media Partners, LLC (1986-2017)
 * New Line Stations (2017-present)

News operation
WJJNL presently broadcasts 24½ hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 4½ hours on weekdays and an hour each on Saturdays and Sundays). In addition to its main news department in Cincinnati, the station also operates a Northern Kentucky news bureau in downtown Covington.

The early-evening newscast on WJJNL and other New Line sister stations were reduced to a half-hour on October 2, 2000, to eventually make room for the hybrid local-national news program New Line Live by 2002, before it expanded back to an hour on January 9, 2006, in turn cutting New Line Live to 30 minutes.

In September 2009, most New Line stations began to carry a 120-minute block of local news from 5 to 7 p.m. Eastern Time each weeknight; however, WJJNL continued running their early evening newscast at 90 minutes from 5 to 6:30 p.m. WJJNL, however, debuted a half-hour extension of their existing 10 p.m. newscast, titled New Line News 51 NightDesk, on October 26, 2009.

On August 27, 2012, WJJNL restored a midday newscast to its schedule with the launch of a 60-minute weekday noon newscast.

On September 2, 2013, WJJNL finally followed the lead of it's sister stations by expanding its early evening newscast as well to 120 minutes from 5 to 7 p.m., while it discontinued the second half-hour of its 10 p.m. newscast and its 11 p.m. newscast in turn; this differed from most New Line O&Os in other markets where stations carry both a 120-minute early and 90-minute late evening newscast; in lieu of its own second-half hour of the 10 p.m. newscast and 11 p.m. newscast, WJJNL simulcasts the second half-hour of the 9 p.m. Central newscast and the entire 10 p.m. Central newscast from WCNLN instead following WJJNL's own half-hour 10 p.m. Eastern newscast (the WCNLN simulcasts at 10 p.m. Central are also done at sisters WNLMW Milwaukee and WNLND Detroit, who also discontinued their 11 p.m. Eastern newscasts on the same date).

News theme history

 * November 1, 1998-present: Magnum (V.1, V.2, V.3) (615 Music)

Analog-to-digital conversion
WJJNL permanently shut down its analog signal on UHF channel 16 on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate, and moved digital broadcasts from UHF channel 52, among the high-band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting after the transition, to the former UHF channel 51 analog position.

Cable coverage in Canada
The station is available over-the-air to Kingsville, Leamington, and Pelee Island, and was once one of several Cleveland stations carried on local cable providers in those three locations until 2000 when Cogeco displaced Shaw Cable as the cable provider for Essex County. WCNT was also carried until 1977 by the Maclean-Hunter system (now Rogers Cable) in the southeast third of London, Ontario.

On October 16, 2009, the Windsor Star had notified readers that digital subchannels of the Detroit and Toledo stations would be added, while the Cleveland and Cincinnati stations (such as WNLCO and WJJNL) and some Toledo stations would have to be dropped from the listings to make room for them, starting with the next issue of the TV Times, released the next day.