Monday, November 30, 2009

Notes from the Newsroom: 11/30/09

By Frank Macek

It's time again for an edition of "Notes from the Newsroom" as your blogger shares some of his thoughts on our little corner of local broadcast television.
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The Thanksgiving Holidays are over and now we look forward to Christmas and finally kissing off the worst year in the 22 years I have been a Cleveland broadcaster. Fortunately, advertising is beginning to rebound, according to various trade publications - particularly at the national level.

Now, some programming notes:

Don't forget next Thursday night, December 10th, Channel 3 will bring you to the Browns vs. Steelers game from Cleveland Browns Stadium. Kickoff is 8:20 p.m.

Our lineup that evening will include the following:

*6 pm - Channel 3 News at 6
*6:30 pm - Browns Pre Game Huddle
*7 pm - NBC Nightly News
*7:30 pm - Channel 3 News at 7
*8 to 11:30 pm - Browns vs. Steelers
*11:30 pm - Channel 3 News at 11

Cleveland Magazine is featuring a number of former Channel 3 personalities in an article called "Where Are They Now?" Sounds very familiar, doesn't it - if you are regular blog reader. Anyways, you can read the latest on such personalities as Wayne Turney and Cassandra Wolfe from "Hickory Hideout", Elwood Edwards - the voice of "You've Got Mail" (who just happens to sit next to me in the Channel 3 Newsroom), Doug Dieken and coach Sam Rutigliano (both are current analysts for Channel  3 & Sportstime Ohio) and former WKYC evening weathercaster Amy Murphy (Hasten) - who we just discovered has left being on-the-air for another job in Los Angeles. You can find the article in their December edition.

Our "Jay Leno Show" update shows Jay trending upward finally after some tweaks to the show format. We continue to get many comments from our readers about his show being boring and not what they expected. No additional word on any additional changes. NBC is trying really, really hard to keep the show on the air. Prime time ratings in the 10 to 11 pm hour are down 42% from last year.

Finally, November sweeps are over. Our 6 pm show continues to lead the pack at 6 pm in all key demographics. Our 11 pm show trended downward, in large part due to Leno - but did hold its own where other stations across the country fared worse. However, Leno also brought Channel 3 News more men in the 25 to 54 demographic than NBC Prime did last year. Channel 3 News Today from 5 to 7 am continues to hold a firm second place rating and is very attractive to advertisers, which is what matters most.

We posted a new job opening at WKYC if you haven't seen it for Sale Account Executive. These are the folks who sell the advertising to clients and is a thankless job. If you are interested in applying for the position, see the earlier post and links.

Talk to you soon!