Director's Cut Blog with Frank Macek

By RYAN NAKASHIMA AP Business Writer LOS ANGELES -- It appears Fox won't accept Time Warner Cable's offer to carry its broadcast signal while a fee dispute continues. Chase Carey, chief operating officer of Fox owner News Corp., told staff in a memo that a signal interruption was likely when the current deal over fees expires at midnight Thursday, halting service to millions of viewers. Carey says an interim deal would simply help Time Warner without fair compensation to Fox. Fox argues it needs to be paid more for broadcast signals that are retransmitted to subscribers of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks. Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt said Wednesday the cable operator will agree to binding arbitration and whatever steps are necessary to preserve uninterrupted access to Fox signals. Fox will respond formally later Wednesday.

NEW YORK -- Anchor changes at ABC's two biggest newscasts have so far done nothing to shake NBC's dominance in the ratings. The Nielsen Co. says Diane Sawyer of ABC's "World News" finished behind NBC's Brian Williams on her first night and first week in competition. NBC's "Today" show handily beat ABC's "Good Morning America" during the first week of the George Stephanopoulos-Robin Roberts anchor team. Sawyer moved from "Good Morning America" to "World News" to replace the retired Charles Gibson. Stephanopoulos moved up from Washington to take her morning job. ABC says the ratings were about what they expected them to be. The network has downplayed those debut weeks to avoid outsized expectations and to emphasize they're in it for the long haul. --- Source: The Associated Press

By Frank Macek After two weeks of quiet time with the family, your blogger has returned to the WKYC Digital Broadcast Center with plenty of news for this edition of "Notes from the Newsroom." --- First the good news - Darrielle Snipes is joining the Channel 3 News family starting on January 4th. She comes to us from KOCO in Oklahoma City where she was most recently as weekday reporter and weekend anchor. Before that, she worked at television stations in Baltimore, Detroit, Indianapolis and Fort Wayne. Darrielle is originally from Chicago and will join Channel 3 News Today as a morning reporter. Now the bad news - former WKYC Director Anthony Harris passed away last week after a heart attack he suffered while driving home after work. After leaving WKYC in January 2006, Anthony headed to Houston where he was most recently a beloved Director at KPRC, our NBC sister station. While at WKYC, Anthony directed many of the shows you sa...

A Note from the Editor: As Christmas nears and the year (and decade) winds down, the Director's Cut Blog would like to recognize my colleagues here at WKYC-TV and SportsTime Ohio who have worked so hard and tiredlessly to bring you the market's best local news and sports coverage in a year that was so devastating from an economic standpoint. We had good days, and some were bad. There were heartbreaking stories to cover, but also stories of hope. Some of our long time friends are gone, but now we have new friends and colleagues to build new memories with. We celebrated with the Cavs, who came so close. But, the Indians and Browns have a long road ahead. We were a little nervous about the transition to all digital in June, but our new tower was built with days to spare and the transition turned out not so bad. You may have noticed our news set got a tweak or two. We added a little color to the nightly colorcasts. You did...

Our partners at USA Today are tracking the success of this Fall's television season. These ratings are season to date since September 20th and shows how the networks are faring through this week.

By Frank Macek WKYC General Assignment Reporter Dave Summers  steps into our "Get to Know Team 3" Spotlight this time around. Dave sat down with us in the Channel 3 Newsroom recently to answer a few questions the Director's Cut Blog had about Dave's past and interesting things you might not know about him. Question: What stations have your worked for during your career? Dave: I have been around the Buckeye State. My career stops have included WCMH-TV in Columbus, WLWT-TV in Cincinnati, WJW-TV in Cleveland and most recently here at WKYC-TV. Question: Which do you like better - being an investigative reporter or general assignment reporter? Dave: I like each position equally. There are great rewards doing both. It's great to be in on the daily fast pace, but also in taking more time with a story and peeling the layers that makes it an interesting challenge. Question: What are some of the questions fans ask you when you meet them on the street? Dave: ...

As you know, several WKYC staffers have left during the past year due to economic reasons and have moved on in their careers. We get emails almost weekly about where these folks have landed and we thought we'd share some of those with you. So, here's our latest list: Abby Ham - WBIR/Knoxville Carole Sullivan - KGTV/San Diego Lydia Esparra - WOIO/Cleveland Obie Shelton - City of Cleveland Clerk of Courts Spokeman Eileen McShea - WEWS/Cleveland Joy Benedict - WEWS/Cleveland John Kosich - WEWS/Cleveland

By the end of this week, the Cleveland Browns will have played two games... Sunday afternoon's game was against the San Diego Chargers. Thursday night's game will be against the Pittsburgh Steelers and airs on WKYC beginning at 8 p.m. As a result, WKYC will air a second edition of "The Point After" this week on Friday at 7 p.m. following NBC Nightly News. WKYC's Jim Donovan, former Browns Coach Sam Rutigliano, the Plain Dealer's Tony Grossi and Browns radio booth color analyst Doug Dieken will break down the Browns vs. Steelers Game. If you can't watch it live on Channel 3, you can also watch "The Point After" on wkyc.com at 7 PM or on-demand following the broadcast.

From: Jill in Mayfield Heights Q: I was wondering when the Dec. 10th episodes of Community, Parks & Rec., The Office & 30 Rock will be rebroadcast due to the showing of the Browns vs. Steelers game? A: The Jay Leno Show will air early Friday morning from 3:30-4:30 a.m. The other shows will be broadcast from 2 - 4 a.m. on Sunday morning. This includes "Community," "Parks and Recreation," "The Office" and "30 Rock." You can email your questions to me: fmacek@wkyc.com

NEW YORK -- Former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw and his wife say they were involved in a three-car accident on a New York City highway that killed one woman. Neither Brokaw nor his wife was hurt. The accident happened Friday afternoon on the Bruckner Expressway. Brokaw says he was driving in the highway's left lane when an SUV driver lost control of her vehicle in the right lane. Brokaw and police say the SUV driver, an unidentified woman, slid into the middle lane, forcing a mail truck in front of Brokaw's car. Brokaw says his car collided with the mail truck. Police say the SUV driver was thrown from the car and killed. The 69-year-old Brokaw and his wife, Meredith, were not injured. --- Source: The Associated Press

CLEVELAND -- WKYC.COM and Gannett's ContentOne are launching a new page dedicated to the coverage of climate change and how it affects you. Our new page features local and national stories about our climate, interesting videos from our Gannett partner sites and photos that show how climate change is happening around you every day. We invite you to bookmark the site and visit it often for daily updates, new developments, conferences and debates and a chance for you to voice your concerns with our on-line Twitter feed. You'll find the site on our weather page ( wkyc.com/weather ) or at the following link below:

Special to the Director's Cut Blog By Deborah Yao & Stephen Manning, AP Business Writers PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- The Associated Press has learned that Comcast is expected to pay General Electric $13.75 billion in cash and assets for control of NBC Universal. The deal, which was set to be announced Thursday morning, calls for the nation's biggest cable TV provider to spend $6.5 billion in cash and contribute cable channels worth $7.25 billion for a 51 percent stake in NBC Universal. That is according to people familiar with the talks who spoke on condition of anonymity because the agreement has not been made public. The new NBC Universal also is expected to borrow $9.1 billion -- part of which will be used to cover the $5.8 billion that GE is giving to Vivendi SA. General Electric Co. had to buy Vivendi's 20 percent stake in NBC Universal before selling a controlling interest in the movie and TV company to Comcast Corp. --- Source: The Associated Press (CL...