Denny Janson

Denny Janson’s broadcasting career started humbly in 1965 when the Elder High School sophomore was hired to answer the WSAI-AM Radio request line. It was immediately clear this Price Hill native would quickly rise through the ranks.

Case in point: reporting his first breaking news story. Janson was a UC freshman in 1968 selling Christmas trees at Rinks. On the way work early one morning, he came across a fire at the Red Barn Restaurant and quickly called the station with a first-person account. A very impressed 1360 Action News Director Carl Eckels offered him a job writing copy for reporter Doug Anthony and fact-checking other stories.

By 1972 Janson was doing sports filling in for Paul Sommerkamp on WKRC Radio. In 1974, he was hired to do afternoon drive news and traffic reports on Dayton radio stations WONE-AM and WTUE-FM. Television wasn’t far behind. That was the same year he began doing sports on WLWD-TV (now WDTN).

Janson was back in the Queen City in 1977 running the Chapter 13 bar in Mount Adams.

However, the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire that May brought him back into broadcasting. He was hired by WKRC-TV to help ABC edit film of the tragedy that claimed 165 lives.

That prompted WKRC-TV News Director Bill Crafton to hire him to do Sunday sports for $50 a show. It wasn’t long before he landed the permanent sports anchor role.

By 1984, changes at WKRC-TV led Janson to WCPO-TV as a sports anchor. He became one of the most recognizable broadcasters in Cincinnati in that position.

He retired at the end of 2013.