CINCINNATI – John A. Butte, a seasoned television executive whose credentials include founding The Ohio News Network cable television channel, has been named vice president and general manager of Cleveland’s WEWS-TV, Channel 5. WEWS is owned and operated by The E. W. Scripps Company. Butte, 58, was named to the top position at WEWS after serving 18 months as the station’s news director. He has been acting general manager at WEWS since August 2005. “We’re tapping John Butte’s considerable expertise in broadcast television management to help guide and strengthen our company’s legacy station,” said Bill Peterson, senior vice president/television station group for Scripps. “In his roles as news director and acting general manager at WEWS, John has clearly demonstrated his ability to motivate journalistic excellence and solid financial performance. We’re fortunate to have someone with John’s impressive background leading the station that bears the initials of our company’s founder.” Butte came to Scripps in August 2004 as news director at WEWS after serving as interim news director at WTOL-TV in Toledo. He also was working as a private broadcast television management consultant immediately prior to joining WEWS, During the preceding seven years, Butte founded and served as vice president and general manager of The Ohio News Network, an innovative statewide cable news network owned and operated by the Dispatch Broadcast Group in Columbus, Ohio. From 1994 to 1996, Butte was acting general manager, and then vice president and news director for WTHR-TV Indianapolis. Butte began his broadcast television career in 1970 after graduating from Indiana University as a reporter for WHAS-TV in Louisville. He went on to anchoring and producing in larger markets, including San Francisco and Detroit, before going into newsroom management in Asheville, N.C., Baltimore and Tampa. In 1993 he also ventured into national syndication as executive producer and creator of Buena Vista Television’s investigative news magazine, “The Crusaders.” About Scripps The E.W. Scripps Company (NYSE: SSP) is a diverse and growing media enterprise with interests in national cable networks, newspaper publishing, broadcast television stations, electronic commerce, interactive media, and licensing and syndication. The company’s portfolio of media properties includes: Scripps Networks, with such brands as HGTV, Food Network, DIY Network, Fine Living, Great American Country and HGTVPro; daily and community newspapers in 18 markets and the Washington-based Scripps Media Center, home to the Scripps Howard News Service; 10 broadcast TV stations, including six ABC-affiliated stations, three NBC affiliates and one independent; United Media, a leading worldwide licensing and syndication company that is the home of PEANUTS, DILBERT and approximately 150 other features and comics; Shop At Home, which markets a growing range of consumer goods directly to television viewers in roughly 57 million U.S. households and online through shopathometv.com; and Shopzilla, the online comparison shopping service that carries an index of more than 30 million products from approximately 60,000 merchants.