By Frank MacekIt's time for another behind the scenes look at what's happening at the WKYC Digital Broadcast Center.
Your blogger has plenty of news to report in this exciting edition...although some of it is not good.
As you have been reading in the Plain Dealer and elsewhere on-line, WKYC has announced some on-air changes including the departure of long-time Channel 3 News weekend anchor Jeff Maynor and WKYC Meteorologist AJ Colby.
Jeff joined WKYC in 1993 after spending seven years at WEWS/TV and eight years at WJW/TV in Cleveland. Most recently, Jeff anchored the weekend 6 & 11 PM editions of Channel 3 News, although much of his time was spent on the weekend morning show with co-anchor Kim Wheeler before the great recession forced WKYC to move to one anchor show formats in most dayparts. Jeff's last day at WKYC was Sunday, April 6th.
Meteorologist AJ Colby will also be leaving Channel 3 at the end of May. AJ first worked at Channel 3 as a freelancer beginning in January 2005 and was hired in 2007 after WKYC Chief Meteorologist Mark Nolan moved to the anchor desk of "Channel 3 News Today." Betsy Kling replaced Mark weeknights, while AJ moved into her old weekend evening 6 & 11 PM slot. Prior to working for WKYC, AJ worked at WEWS/TV and WJW/TV. No plans to replace AJ or Jeff have been announced.
Channel 3 has a slightly redesigned graphics look that launched, in part, last Wednesday, April 9th. This look is a little cleaner than the previous design from the Gannett Graphics Group (G3) in Denver who provides all of the Gannett stations with our graphics after local departments were eliminated a few years ago. Part two of the redesign will air this week with new lower third graphics that will provide our viewers more topical information on stories as part of an initiative created by Dave Lougee, President of Gannett Broadcasting.
Our mobile signal has finally been fired up and is testing mode. Looks like Channel 3 will be announcing plans soon for what type of programming will be available sometime this year. Stay tuned on this one!
Do you want to know if there's been a crime in your neighborhood? WKYC now has an easy way for you to find out. WKYC has launched SpotCrime, an interactive feature where you can see where crimes have been committed. You can also have crime alerts emailed to your inbox by entering your email address.
The page also has an interactive map that shows the locations and the types of crimes -- arrests, arsons, assaults, burglaries, robberies, thefts, vandalism and more. Just go to the News tab on the top of the WKYC.com main page and select "crime" from the drop-down menu. For now, SpotCrime is only mostly active in the Greater Cleveland/Cuyahoga County area and parts of Lake County but will be expanding soon.
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, previews of NBC shows, a daily programming guide of what's on Channel 3 and so much more.
