Director's Cut Blog with Frank Macek

By Frank Macek It's time for another "behind the scenes" look at what's happening inside the WKYC Digital Broadcast Center. Channel 3 News New Look By now you probably noticed that WKYC launched a brand new graphics look last Tuesday, January 22th that is being rolled out by our parent company, Gannett, on all broadcast stations. The new look is a much simpler, cleaner look that uses a main information bar, the rundown of upcoming stories and the time and temperature. Also, stories are color coded by category based on the USA Today theme including news (blue), weather (yellow), sports (red), life (purple), tech (orange), money (green), travel (aqua) and opinion (gray). We also have begun using the entire 16x9 screen for our broadcasts. As a result, 4x3 viewers on cable and satellite will notice we are letterboxed. The technology called AFD or (Active Format Description) allows us to trigger your television set to see the correct sizing of standard...

Can't see all the type on your TV set? Here's how to see the full on-screen graphics. This week, WKYC launched a brand new on-air look for Channel 3 News. One of the exciting new features of this new graphics package is that we are now utilizing the full 16:9 widescreen space available to give viewers more information about the stories they are watching. For some viewers, this new design may look like their TV set is cutting off some of the words on the screen. On our old graphics, much of the content was protected for viewers who were still center-cutting their picture. For example, they may have not seen the rundown at all.  While we have been broadcasting in Letter-boxed (widescreen 16:9) for some time, there may be viewers who have their TVs set to the wrong aspect ratio. With the new graphics package, having their TV in the wrong aspect will be much more obvious on the new graphics as large amounts of text and information will be cut off. In the vast majo...

WKYC Assignment Editor Danielle Fink Danielle Fink, Channel Three News assignment editor, was killed in a car accident in North Olmsted late Saturday or early Sunday morning. Her car struck a tree and she was found just after 8:30 Sunday morning. Danielle was a beloved friend and colleague at WKYC and respected by journalists, law enforcement and community leaders throughout Northeast Ohio. She loved Cleveland and Northeast Ohio passionately. She was a loyal fan of the Indians, Cavaliers and Browns. Dani celebrated all that made her hometown special. The family is making arrangements and will release more information as soon as possible. We offer our sincere condolences to her family and share in their grief.

Special To The Director's Cut Gary Levin, USA TODAY Last year I came here right off the top and said we had a bad fall," NBC Entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt said at a TV critics' conference Sunday. "I'm not saying that this year." In an unusual development — NBC has been the No. 4-ranked network for the better part of the past decade — it's now operating from a position of strength. NBC's audience has grown 19% this season, the only major network to show an increase, and ranks second behind CBS and first among the young-adult audience it sells to advertisers. Most of fall's gains stemmed from the decision to add a fall run of The Voice, the singing competition that handily beat Fox's rival The X Factor. That, in turn, helped launch two companion series — the J.J. Abrams drama Revolution on Mondays and the Matthew Perry sitcom Go On on Tuesdays: They're the No. 1 new drama and comedy among the young-adult audience. Now, it fa...