By Frank MacekIt's hard to believe the WKYC Digital Broadcast Center is a decade old after we moved in December 2000/January 2001. In that time, we have celebrated the good times with Cleveland - and the bad.
Our first major experience in this "new" building was September 11th as the nation was stunned by the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C. Your blogger remembers the chaos of the moment and how emotional we all were. Some of our colleagues were in shock. But, we had a job to do - to bring a Cleveland perspective to the day that changed our nation. And we did.
Other memorable moments covered from here include the SuccessTech shootings that occurred right next door to our studios. Imagine the shock of arriving at work that day to find how difficult it was to get into work. All the roads were blocked and police were everywhere.
Other exciting events we covered include a major August blackout that left many states in the dark and the great recession that left our business a much smaller place.
In those ten years, we have dramatically changed the way we cover the news beginning with the technology. When we first moved in, we were digital - but not high definition. Today, all our productions are done in high def including our newscasts, sports specials and locally produced programming like Good Company Today.
Second, our news gathering has changed. When we moved, our newsroom was based on the AVID I-News and editing systems. Just this year, we upgraded to the Associated Press' ENPS system, Edius editing and BitCentral's video playback system that enables us to do news quicker and smarter.
Also in this time, many station jobs have been combined to create greater efficiencies as we moved from a newsroom to an information center concept originated by Gannett, our parent company.
And we have added a regional sports channel to our family, SportsTime Ohio, which airs all the Cleveland Indians games in high definition from inside the WKYC Digital Broadcast Center. That partnership, along with being the official television home of the Browns, has made our sports programming unmatched.
For your blogger, one of the biggest opportunities came when the director and technical director positions were combined. Today, I both call and punch my own shows which can be trying at times, but is fun. As a result, many of the control room functions have been automated to give me easier control over everything that goes on the air.
Finally, the biggest change of the decade was the switch from our analog to digital only broadcast signal. Channel 3 analog was signed off in July 2009 and we moved from digital Channel 2 to Channel 17, our present home. This included a complete rebuilding our tower location with one new tower going up, and the old coming down.
So, it's been a wild ride with many challenges. But as we look forward, we find it also fun to look back on some of the images of our old East 6th studios. Yes, we are feeling nostalgic 10 years later.
A Look at the Old East 6th Studios in January 2001
A look at the 1999 construction