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WKYC News & Notes: 12/9/13

By Frank Macek

It's time for another "behind the scenes" look at what's happening inside the WKYC Digital Broadcast Center as we get ready to wrap up 2013.

The November sweeps period was a solid one for WKYC-TV/3 as Channel 3 News at 6 & 11 PM won the conveted 25-54 age demographic (NSI overnights. Nov 2013. A25-54).

According to WKYC President/General Manager Brooke Spectorsky, "While we were extremely fortunate to have Dr. Phil land the Michelle Knight interview, our numbers even without those nights still won the time period. Other top rated stories included an expose of local doctors and medical professionals who had been suspended and/or stripped of their licenses and an investigation into tanker cars carrying toxic chemicals through local neighborhoods."

Under the leadership of WKYC News Director Brennan Donnellan, Channel 3 News is putting a strong emphasis on investigative and enterprise reporting which viewers have responded positively.

Technically, we have been very busy installing a new Miranda graphics system which is now on the air. And, our enginering team led by Jim Miller has spent the last few weeks rebuilding portions of both the Channel 3 News and Fox SportsTime Ohio main control rooms. For the time time, we'll now have multi-viewer monitoring that will allow us to better manage all feeds coming into the control rooms in full color. (No more black and white CRT monitors.)

Our social media platforms continue to be an important outlet for us to reach you in the community. Recently, our WKYC Facebook page surpassed 100,000 likes while our main WKYC Twitter account passted 30,000 follower mark.

Chris Tye
WKYC's Chris Tye will be returning to the anchor desk as co-anchor of the weekend editions of Channel 3 News at 6 & 11 PM with Lynna Lai, Bruce Kalinowski and Dave Chudowsky beginning in early January. Chris will continue to report for our evening newscasts three days per week.

We have a few new faces around the building to share with you. Julie Flynn has joined Channel 3 News at 11 p.m. as Executive Producer, replacing Jennifer Nickels who moved to Louisville, Kentucky. Julie spent more than a decade at WEWS-TV/5 in various roles, most recently as their 11 p.m. producer. Julie will work with me and producer Grant deBruin to continue building Channel 3 News at 11 pm into a consistent ratings winner as we enter 2014.

Also (re)joining our WKYC family is Dave Pincura. He is now the WKYC Business Manager, replacing Larry Giele who left earlier in the year for Dallas. Pincura was mostly recently Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for Fox SportsTime Ohio.

And, congratulations to WKYC Multimedia Journalist Jason Nguyen who is moving to Salt Lake city where he accepted a reporter position there and plans to spend plenty of time on the slopes this winter.

Don't forget the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics are just 59 days away. Complete coverage of the games will be on WKYC and wkyc.com with our team of reporters heading to Sochi to bring you not only the international flavor of the games, but also the many local angles of our athletics as well. You'll also enjoy our local "Olympic Zone" show every night leading into prime time coverage of the games.

Have a great holiday season. Please follow me on Twitter @frankmacekwkyc and on Facebook at facebook.com/frank.macek
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