Notes From The Newsroom: 8/2/10

By Frank Macek

Time for another behind the scenes look at what's happening at the WKYC Digital Broadcast Center.

Three years ago today (August 2, 2007), a freak summer storm left Channel 3 an island in downtown Cleveland as heavy rains flooded not only the parking garage, but several roadways around the station. 4.45 inches of rain fell in one hour. It was quite a day to see former General Sales Manager Tom Humpage with his suit pant legs rolled up and mopping water out of the garage along with many others. To see pictures and read the original story: CLICK HERE

Congratulations to our WKYC blogging colleauge Eric Mansfield for his strong showing in the Akron Life And Leisure Magazine's "Best Blog" contest. Eric's blog "Have I Got News For You." earned him runner up status. Eric jokingly says he got beat out by one called "Rubber City Bullsheet." With a blog name like that, the blog just had to win.

Browns Preseason Football is just around the corner. Once again, WKYC is your "official local television home of the Browns" with all preseason games on WKYC-DT beginning with next Saturday's game in Green Bay against the Packers. This year's games will be called by WKYC's Jim Donovan and former Browns Quarterback Bernie Kosar. The Director will once again be my colleague, Allen Wohl.

Our preseason schedule includes:

• August 14th - 8 pm - Browns at Packers
• August 21st - 7:30 pm - Browns vs. Rams
• August 28th - 5:30 pm - Browns at Lions
• September 2nd - 8 pm - Browns vs. Bears 

In addition, Channel 3 will continue to bring you the best coverage all season long with plenty of special Browns programming including:

• The PreGame Huddle: Sunday mornings at 11:30 a.m.
• Browns Tonight: Sunday nights at 11:30 p.m.
• The Point After wtih Jim Donovan, Sam Rutigliano, Tony Grossi, and Doug Dieken: Monday at 7 p.m.

July sweeps ended last Thursday, July 28, and the station continued to perform extremely well in the local news ratings. In the all important demographics Adults 25-54, WKYC continued to be rated #1 at 6 & 11 p.m., despite summer reruns of Dr. Phil at 5 p.m. and a lackluster NBC primetime lead-in that falls short of expectations.

WKYC's 7 pm newscast saw its shares increase from June even with the launch of a competing newscast on WJW. WKYC was ahead of WJW is all key demos. Also, WKYC's 11 pm newscast rose 28% from last July and continues to be the market leader for late, local news following on the heals of a strong May.

Channel 3 News Today from 5 to 7 a.m. remains a solid number 2 for early morning news, while Good Company fared well against "The Robin Swoboda Show" on WJW between the two locally programming stations in the 10 a.m. hour.

As always, please don't forget to become a friend of Channel 3 News and Channel 3 Weather. We have special on-line content just for our Facebook friends including your chance to be our Facebook Friend of the Day, daily behind the scenes promos, sneak peeks at NBC shows, a daily programming guide of what's on Channel 3 and much more.

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