Francis Jay Miltner (September 29, 1917 – died April 29, 1991) was an
America
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
n radio and television announcer and
news anchor
A news presenter – also known as a newsreader, newscaster (short for "news broadcaster"), anchorman or anchorwoman, news anchor or simply an anchor – is a person who presents news during a news program on TV, radio or the Internet. ...
, long associated with
WKYC-TV
WKYC (channel 3) is a television station in Cleveland, 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 stati ...
in
Cleveland
Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...
, Ohio and its onetime sister radio outlet for four decades.
Miltner's association with the then-
NBC-owned Cleveland outlet began with its
radio station
Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...
,
WTAM
WTAM (1100 AM) is a commercial radio station licensed to Cleveland, Ohio, and carries a news/talk/sports format commonly known as "Newsradio WTAM 1100". Owned by iHeartMedia, WTAM serves Greater Cleveland and much of surrounding Northeast Ohio ...
, in 1947, where he frequently appeared as a singer.
Cleveland Classic Media, March 2008 entry on WKYC-TV's 35th anniversary special from 1983, with audio clip of one of Miltner's musical numbers
/ref> When in 1948 NBC launched its television station, originally called WNBK on channel 4, Miltner joined as announcer and newscaster. He remained with the station all through its nine-year (1956–1965) run under Westinghouse Broadcasting ownership as KYW-TV, and stayed after NBC was forced back to Cleveland in 1965.
After the station adopted its current call letters of WKYC-TV, Miltner was one of the first hosts (with Bud Dancy and Linda Hunt) of a mid-afternoon show, ''Three on the Town'', which ran with a succession of hosts through 1968. He continued, over the years, as a live booth announcer with channel 3, to the point where he became known as the "Voice of WKYC." In his final years with the station, he was the opening announcer for the morning show ''AM Cleveland''. He retired from WKYC in 1986.
Miltner died in Cuyahoga County, Ohio
Cuyahoga County ( or ) is a large urban county located in the northeastern part of the U.S. state of Ohio. It is situated on the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the Canada–United States border, U.S.-Canada maritime border. As of the 2020 U ...
of lung cancer at age 73.
References, sources and links
* Obituary in Variety, June 17, 1991.
Articles in Cleveland Classic Media blog relating to Jay Miltner
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Miltner, Jay
Deaths from cancer in Ohio
Radio personalities from Cleveland
Television anchors from Cleveland
Deaths from lung cancer
Radio and television announcers
1917 births
1991 deaths
Journalists from Ohio
20th-century American journalists
American male journalists