would air commercial, advertiser-supported programs during the day and scrambled STV programs to paying subscribers at night. A construction permit was awarded by the FCC in 1978, and WCLQ-TV began broadcasting on March 3, 1981, with a special prime time airing of the movie The Deer Hunter as its marquee program on launch day. Four days later, WCLQ-TV began airing STV programs from Preview, a division of Time Inc.'s American Television and Communications, after 8 p.m. on weekdays and 7 p.m. on weekends; the remaining time was occupied by a general-entertainment independent lineup. The station even revived a character from the old WKBF-TV—The Ghoul, portrayed by Ron Sweed—when it added a horror movie showcase on September 25, 1982. Preview's run on WCLQ-TV initially boasted a subscription base of nearly 35,000 at its peak in February 1982. The service carried select Cleveland Cavaliers games starting with the 1981–82 season, with executives mentioning a possible alliance with Cavaliers owner Ted Stepien's "Total Entertainment Network" as an additional programming tier. Ultimately, Preview lost nearly half of their subscription base to cable television systems in the market's affluent suburbs, along with piracy from different decoder boxes and a struggling area economy. Preview added a secondary service—the "adult"-themed Niteview—which only attracted half of Preview's subscribers, while the service itself was largely criticized for poor marketing and customer service. In addition to Preview's struggles, WCLQ-TV faced low ratings and a lack of media exposure, with general manager Gary Brandt publicly musing about The Chronicle-Telegram in Elyria listing the station as "WQLC". The station did make a further attempt at local programming with Video Arcade, a daily variety show aimed at older children with various old films, cartoons, music videos via Video Jukebox, and a local version of TV Powww. When Time Inc. announced the closure of Preview in Cleveland on May 12, 1983, the service only had 22,000 subscribers; for its final day on August 31, that number dropped to 14,000. The shutdown announcement caught station executives off guard, as syndicated programming for the coming television season had largely been committed to months earlier. WCLQ-TV filled the loss of Preview with a traditional mixture of off-network reruns, movies and Independent Network News (anchored by former Cleveland newscaster Bill Jorgensen); it also picked up CBS Late Night, which WJKW declined. WCLQ-TV also began carrying various sports packages—including Big Ten Conference football and basketball, Cleveland State Vikings men's