Director's Cut Blog with Frank Macek

Jim Donovan Special to the Director's Cut Blog By  Matthew Florjancic Sometimes, all a person needs to do is dream. WKYC Sports Anchor Jim Donovan always dreamed of being a sportscaster like the ones he grew up listening to and emulating in his hometown of Boston, Massachusetts. And through the nurturing of his father and an intense drive to succeed mixed with a passion for sports, Donovan has been living out his dream for more than 30 years, a career that will be honored at the 16th annual Greater Cleveland Sports Awards Thursday night. STARTING WITH A DREAM Donovan’s journey to the top of his profession started long before he ever moved to Cleveland. In fact, it started with a dream growing up in his hometown of Boston, where he and his father, Jim Donovan Jr., had season tickets to the Bruins’ hockey games, and a Christmas wish for a tape recorder. “At first, when they gave me a tape recorder, I was doing the games off the television set and I turned the volu...

By Frank Macek WKYC is celebrating its 15th anniversary at its state of the art digital broadcast center at 13th and Lakeside in downtown Cleveland. The building which officially opened for business in January 2001 was built just east of downtown Cleveland on the area known as Davenport Bluffs. Construction kicked off in late 1999 and would take just over a year to finish. During the end of December 2000, the station's technical operations first moved into the new building including master control and the main control room where all the newscasts were switched prior to the launch of the new studio on the Monday after the Super Bowl that year. The newscasts themselves continued to originate from the studios at the old building on E. 6th Street through an fiber optic connection to 13th and Lakeside until the end of January 2001. Since then, the technology has continued to be upgraded as the station transitioned from the standard SD format to high definition broadcasting...

WKYC is proud to be the first television station in the Buckeye State to earn StormReady Supporter recognition from the National Weather Service. A StormReady Supporter is an organization that has met stringent guidelines for weather preparedness. Businesses, schools and other non-governmental entities can earn the designation through a qualification process involving application, documentation and site inspection. Chief Meteorologist Betsy Kling led the initiative. From severe weather awareness to safety plans, it ensures the organization's policies and guidelines help protect employees and visitors in weather emergencies. WKYC now has a newly drafted Severe Weather Action Plan, custom StormReady plaquards to identify each of the station's eight severe weather shelters and better communication with employees before and during weather events. Businesses, schools, and other non-government entities can earn the designation. Some of the other northern Ohio Storm...

TEGNA, parent company of WKYC-TV, announced today that TEGNA Media and NBC have agreed to a renewal of the affiliation agreements of all 17 TEGNA Media NBC stations (including WKYC-TV). TEGNA’s entire portfolio of NBC stations will now be under one common, long-term agreement.  TEGNA Media is the largest independent NBC affiliate group. “We are pleased to be extending our deep and longstanding partnership with NBC,” said Dave Lougee, president, TEGNA Media. “NBC’s content, from sports to news to primetime, combined with TEGNA Media’s trusted, innovative and impactful local programming is highly valued by our viewers.” “We are happy to extend our affiliation with TEGNA, NBC’s largest affiliate station group,” said Jean Dietze, President, Affiliate Relations, NBC Broadcasting. “We’ve had a strong, successful partnership with Dave and his team for many years. We look forward to continued collaboration to provide high-quality network broadcast content to complement TEGNA’...

Cleveland sports fans, have we got an app for you! WKYC's "Unleashed" is the first local sports app devoted to all Cleveland sports fans! Browns! Cavaliers! Indians! Local colleges and high schools too! Stats, scores, fantasy and more from Northeast Ohio's best television sports team. Download the FREE app now and you can enter for a chance to win a $500 Best Buy gift card! Just text WKYC to 25543 and we'll send you a link to the app or click here to see all available WKYC apps. --- Follow Frank Macek on Twitter  @frankmacekwkyc --- Click to watch WKYC's Jim Donovan explain the new app below:

By Frank Macek It's time for another "behind the scenes" look at what's happening inside the WKYC Digital Broadcast Center at 13th and Lakeside. 2016 will mark the 10th year of the Director's Cut Blog that started as a little project back in 2006 by your blogger as a way to connect with those in the industry, the community and anyone else interested in what happens at Channel 3. Along the way, I have made plenty of friends, and some enemies at the other tv stations for promoting the great work we do here at WKYC - but it's all been worth it for me, now in my 22nd year at the station. December 2015 ended on a high note for Channel 3 News with another number one sweep of adults 25-54 at 11 pm. This marks one full year now that our late newscast has been the top performing newscast at 11 p.m. in the Cleveland market. Get ready for a new feel coming to Channel 3 News at 11 very soon. Pat Murray We say so long to Pat Murray, long time Director of Cleve...