Director's Cut Blog with Frank Macek

Channel 3 crews have rescued a dog that has been stuck on the ice north of Bay Village, Ohio, on Lake Erie for more than a day. Coast Guard crews had said it was too difficult for an air mission, but WKYC partnered up with local company Air1Airboats to take a trip out onto the ice with Channel 3 reporter Mike O'Mara and cameraman George Payamgis to look for the dog The Coast Guard and Bay Village Fire and Rescue attempted to rescue the dog Thursday but it ran from them. Concerned residents say they'd been watching the dog, likely a young black Lab for days. Local animal lovers, including Friendship Animal Protective League Executive Director Greg Willey and Lorain police officer Rick Broz were on hand to assist. Click on the video below to watch the rescue:

By Frank Macek It's time for another "behind the scenes" look at what's happening inside the WKYC Digital Broadcast Center. This November has been quite a busy time for all of us at WKYC. In addition to November sweeps, we are right in the middle of our installation of a new production system that will allow us to bring you Channel 3 more efficiently. The system, called Sony ELC (Enhanced Live Production Control System), will go online before Christmas. Photo Courtesy: David Hrvatin Last Tuesday was an exciting day at WKYC as the station hosted a company wide video presentation looking forward to our goals and aspirations for 2015. Gannett Broadcasting President Dave Lougee hosted the discussion that was fed via satellite to our 46 Gannett stations. In a previous posting , we mentioned WKYC will begin airing a brand new television channel called Justice Network starting in January on subchannel 3.2 replacing our current weather programming. The Justice ...

Special to the Director's Cut By Mike O'Mara If you are watching Channel 3 using a trusty old TV with a rabbit ears antenna, time is running out. Friday June 12, we're switching to the new all digital TV format, along with all major TV stations across the country. John Gensel, a DTV expert at hhgregg is pumped up. "Its finally here, it's the switch over we've all been waiting for and we're finally moving from analog into digital." But Gensel warns that thousands of people in the Cleveland area are still unprepared for the end of analog when those old sets that have no converter box and no digital antenna suddenly go to hash instead of video. On Cleveland's near west side, community activists say that several thousand people could be out of luck when DTV takes effect. Irma Colon runs the DTV walk in center at Lin's Omni Square on Fulton Road. "Honestly, I thought I would be done with my job in a month", Colon said, "but I think I...

Special to the Director's Cut Blog By WKYC Reporter Mike O'Mara NORTH OLMSTED -- "Time is ticking, time is ticking!" said Mohammed Wahdah, the DTV guru at the hhGregg store in North Olmsted. Standing by a stack of digital converter boxes, Wadah has been trying to get the message out to consumers. "Look at the beautiful picture on this television," says Wadah. "In 100 days, if you want this kind of quality, you'll need a digital ready TV or one of these converter boxes." By law, full-power television stations nationwide must begin broadcasting exclusively in a digital format on February 17, 2009. Digital television (DTV) is an innovative type of broadcasting technology that will give you crystal-clear pictures and sound, and more programming choices than ever before. While the benefits of DTV are remarkable, millions of households risk losing television reception unless they take a few easy steps to receive a digital signal. "...

As you know, we like to have a little fun here at the WKYC Digital Broadcast Center and our flip cams we use to shoot "web extras" like our daily news promos. So, my fellow director Matt Babb decided to go behind the scenes of Mike O'Mara who went behind the scenes of me shooting our nightly promo with Producer Dan Stadler. Slap stick comedy you'll never see again - for good reason.

How many of these familiar faces can you remember from the Channel 3 News team back in 2008? Here are the correct answers! #1. Barbara Gauthier (reporter, anchor) #2. Mike O'Mara (reporter, anchor)   #3. Obie Shelton (reporter, anchor)     #4. Joe Brown (sports anchor) #5. Dave Summers (reporter) #6. Abby Ham (morning anchor)