If you’ve lived anywhere near Cincinnati in the last thirty years, you’ve basically grown up with Tricia Macke. She’s the face of FOX19. She’s the person you see right before you go to bed and, lately, the one greeting you during the early evening hours too. But there is a weird thing that happens when you see someone on a screen for decades. You start to wonder about the stuff the camera doesn't quite show.
Usually, that leads to one specific question: How tall is Tricia Macke? People ask this constantly. Maybe it’s because she shares the desk with Rob Williams, or maybe it’s just the natural curiosity that comes with local celebrity status. Whatever the reason, the answer isn't just a simple number—it’s actually a pretty interesting look into her past life before she became the Queen City's news icon.
The Short Answer on Tricia Macke’s Height
While there isn't a "government-verified" height chart for news anchors, several industry sources and biographical snapshots place Tricia Macke at approximately 5 feet 9 inches tall. Honestly, in the world of TV news, that’s on the taller side for women. Most anchors are average height, and set designers use all sorts of tricks—think "apple boxes" or adjustable chairs—to make everyone look even. But Tricia doesn't really need the help.
5'9". It’s a height that makes sense when you look at her history.
Why the height makes sense
Before she was dodging news scripts and reporting from Bosnia or Israel, Tricia was actually a professional model. Back in the early '90s, she was working for local giants like Van Leunen’s and McAlpin’s.
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You might remember the famous story about her career transition. She was working three jobs at once: radio, freelance TV, and modeling. One Sunday, the FOX19 general manager opened his newspaper and saw Tricia modeling lingerie. He told her she had to choose. She chose the news, and the rest is history. But that modeling background? It usually requires a certain "presence" and, you guessed it, height.
Tricia Macke on the Basketball Court
If you follow Tricia on social media or catch her "Tricia’s Team" segments, you know she isn't just a spectator. She is a massive basketball fan and a long-time coach.
She has spent years coaching the KY Royals, a girls' traveling basketball team. When you see her standing on the sidelines next to high school athletes, her 5'9" frame is even more obvious. She looks like a coach. She has that athletic build that suggests she could probably still sink a three-pointer if you handed her a ball during a commercial break.
In fact, she once joked in an interview with The Northerner that her backup career plan—if the whole news thing didn't work out—was to be the first female Harlem Globetrotter. You don't aim for the Globetrotters if you're 5'2".
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Perception vs. Reality: The "TV Effect"
Television is a total liar. You've probably heard that the camera adds ten pounds, but it also messes with your sense of scale.
- The Desk Factor: Anchors are almost always seated. This levels the playing field.
- The Co-Anchor Gap: Rob Williams is a tall guy. When Tricia stands next to him for "tosses" or special segments, they look fairly proportional, which can hide the fact that she’s taller than the average woman.
- The Wardrobe: Tricia is known for being style-conscious. High heels are the standard for TV news, often adding 3 or 4 inches to an anchor's standing height.
So, if you see her out at a Bengals game or grabbing dinner in Newport and think, "Wow, she's taller than I expected," it's because she probably is. When she's in heels, she’s pushing 6 feet tall.
A Career Built on More Than Just Presence
It's easy to get caught up in the physical details, but Tricia Macke’s longevity in the Cincinnati market is actually kind of insane. She’s been at FOX19 since the news department literally started in 1993.
Think about that. In an industry where people jump from city to city every three years to climb the ladder, she stayed. She grew up in Newport, went to Northern Kentucky University (NKU), and decided to prove her professors wrong when they told her she'd have to leave town to make it big.
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She’s covered everything from the O.J. Simpson trial to space launches. She’s raised five kids while anchoring multiple newscasts a day. The height is just a footnote to a career that has basically defined local journalism for a generation of Ohio and Kentucky residents.
What to take away from the Tricia Macke "height mystery"
Next time you're watching the 10 o'clock news and the height question pops into your head, just remember the 5'9" rule. She’s a former model, a basketball coach, and a hometown hero who happens to have a bit of a vertical advantage.
If you really want to see the scale for yourself, keep an eye out for her community appearances. She’s famously approachable and still very much a part of the "great big small town" that is Cincinnati. Seeing her in person is usually the only way to realize that the person you've watched on a 50-inch screen is actually a real-life, fairly tall human being.
Next Steps for Fans:
If you're interested in more than just the stats, check out the FOX19 archives for Tricia’s 30th-anniversary specials. They dive deep into her early modeling days and her first field reports—it’s a great trip down memory lane for anyone who remembers Cincinnati in the 90s.