Director's Cut Blog with Frank Macek

By Frank Macek It's time again for an edition of "Notes from the Newsroom" as your blogger shares some of his thoughts on our little corner of local broadcast television. --- The Thanksgiving Holidays are over and now we look forward to Christmas and finally kissing off the worst year in the 22 years I have been a Cleveland broadcaster. Fortunately, advertising is beginning to rebound, according to various trade publications - particularly at the national level. Now, some programming notes: Don't forget next Thursday night, December 10th, Channel 3 will bring you to the Browns vs. Steelers game from Cleveland Browns Stadium. Kickoff is 8:20 p.m. Our lineup that evening will include the following: *6 pm - Channel 3 News at 6 *6:30 pm - Browns Pre Game Huddle *7 pm - NBC Nightly News *7:30 pm - Channel 3 News at 7 *8 to 11:30 pm - Browns vs. Steelers *11:30 pm - Channel 3 News at 11 Cleveland Magazine is featuring a number of former Channel 3 p...

By Frank Macek It's time again for an edition of "Notes from the Newsroom" as your blogger shares some of his thoughts on our little corner of local broadcast television. --- Thanks to everyone involved in our station wide event called "Heroes Help Northeast Ohio" that took place all day on Thursday, October 22nd. Over 17 bins of food were collected and lots of cash that will provide for over 30,000 meals for our local needy. Also, 312 coats were received for area childen and a room full of toys will delight northeast Ohio children this holiday season. A big thank you from all of us at WKYC, the Cleveland Foodbank, "Coats for Kids" and "The Salvation Army" and to WKYC producer Jon Adkins who made the day so successful. Surf in tonight (Tuesday) to WKYC.COM from 7:30 until 8 p.m. for a webcast followup to the "Road to Reform" special that aired on WVIZ last Friday Night and WKYC on Sunday morning hosted by WKYC Senior Politica...

By Frank Macek It's time again for an edition of "Notes from the Newsroom" as your blogger shares some of his thoughts on our little corner of local broadcast television. --- WKYC is gearing up for our station wide event called a "Heroes Help Northeast Ohio" that will benefit several different groups this holiday season. From 5 am until 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, you can stop by the WKYC Digital Broadcast Center to make your donations to help benefit the Cleveland Foodbank, Salvation Army and Coats for Kids. WKYC will broadcast live throughout the day on WKYC and SportsTime Ohio's "All Bets Are Off with Bruce Drennan" show. We'll even have the Perry High School Marching Band to play for us during the morning hours. And, you'll be able to see our live, all day web stream at http://www.wkyc.com/video/livestream/channel3news.aspx . Please come and make this year's outreach to the community our biggest yet! WKYC, WVIZ/PBS & 90.3 WCPN...

By Frank Macek Time for another edition of "Notes from the Newsroom" as your blogger shares some of thoughts on our little corner of local television. --- Congratulations to several WKYC staffers who take top honors in Cleveland Magazine's annual "Best of Cleveland" poll. This year's winners include Romona Robinson for best female anchor, Mark Nolan for best male anchor and Jim Donovan for best sports anchor in Cleveland. Also, SportsTime Ohio's Design Director Greg Goyla and his 80's cover band the "Spazmatics" were recognized for rocking 80's music like no other local group. They have even performed for former President George W. Bush. The "Best of Cleveland" party will be held on Friday, October 16th at 7 p.m. at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. WKYC.COM has launched a new project called "Tributes" that uses the power of wkyc.com to spread the word about the passing of our local residents through ...

By Frank Macek Time for another edition of "Notes from the Newsroom" as your blogger shares some of thoughts on our little corner of local television. --- No news is good news, so they say in this business. Fall continues where summer left off at the WKYC Digital Broadcast Center - not much new - which is why we've been a little scarce in doing a regular edition of "Notes from the Newsroom". The biggest thing going on right now is Fall Premiere Week(s). So far, we've seen mixed results for NBC with their schedule. The Jay Leno Show has fallen from its huge premiere on Monday, September 14th, but is still helping NBC and WKYC in the 10 pm hour. The always important final quarter hour of Jay's show (10:45 - 10:59 PM) has been a good lead-in for Channel 3 News at 11 PM in the demographics we need for our advertisers. It's funny how the tabloid news programs have been calling for the show to be cancelled. While I personally don't believe w...

By Frank Macek Time for another edition of "Notes from the Newsroom" as your blogger shares some of thoughts on our little corner of local television. --- As you have seen by now, WKYC will indeed be broadcasting the Browns vs. Lions game this Saturday. Although several thousand tickets remain, the Browns and the station apparently reached an agreement that will allow us to show the game. The first week's ratings for the game were very good, although the same can't be said about the Browns overall performance. Hopefully this week will be better. Catch the game this Saturday night at Cleveland Browns Stadium at 7:30 p.m. The Pregame Huddle will air at 7 p.m. We are in the process of doing some set tweaks that you will get to see on our newscasts over the next week or so. The biggest improvement will be brand new HD monitors in the newsroom that will be behind Romona in the background. Old Herbie the painter was hard at work Thursday taking down the old monitors and doi...

By Frank Macek Time for another edition of "Notes from the Newsroom" as your blogger shares some of thoughts on our little corner of local television. --- An update to our earlier story about our General Sale Manager, Tom Humpage: he is headed to Portland, Maine as General Manager of the Sinclair station. One of Tom's long time ambitions has been to become a General Manager, and we know he will do very well. We'll miss Tom very much, but wish him nothing but success in his new role. The WKYC Production Department is gearing up for another season of Browns football - one we hope will be more exciting than last year, or the year before, or the year before. Once again, this year's preseason games will be directed by my colleague and WKYC Production Manager, Allen Wohl. Al is responsible for coordinating all aspects of our coverage from reserving facilities to getting graphics designed, to doing interviews with players to broadcasting the actual production on Channel ...

By Frank Macek Time for another edition of "Notes from the Newsroom" as your blogger shares some of thoughts on our little corner of local television. The Director's Cut Blog is finally back from our scheduled furlough which we actually enjoyed as an extra week of time off this summer. So much to do, so little time. But, your blogger always uses his time wisely to get projects done at work and at home. Time to get you caught up on some things happening around the WKYC Digital Broadcast Center while we were gone. July sweeps ended on Wednesday, July 29th and it was another very solid book for WKYC. In fact, WKYC retained its number one position at 6, 7 & 11 PM in Households, Adults 18+, Adults 25-54, Women 25-54 and Adults 18 to 49. Those are pretty much the important ratings to win during a sweeps periods as advertisers look to these demographics for making buys. This was the first book for us to be able to compare numbers year to year since the official introduction ...

By Frank Macek Time for another edition of "Notes from the Newsroom" as your blogger shares some of thoughts on television. Although Walter Cronkite worked for a network competitor, CBS, everyone seems to have an opinion of what an impact "Uncle Walter" had on the industry - the "Most Trusted Man in America." I found it fascinating to watch the network newscasts over the weekend and all the stories people had to share. Everyone who has been anyone in the news industry had nothing but praise on the one man many idolized. Even WKYC's Romona Robinson shared a story with viewers Friday Night at 11 PM after the news broke of his passing about what an impact Mr. Cronkite had on her. At one point, she received a letter from him after he saw her work and was highly complimentary. Uncle Walter touched many lives and will leave a huge void in our industry. Finally, some encouraging news from the financial world after Gannett reported higher profits during the ...

By Frank Macek Just sitting here in the WKYC newsroom getting ready for a 7 p.m. telecast and wondering what to write about. This summer has been so boring in terms of big news coming from the WKYC Digital Broadcast Center. It's almost a major let down after the transition to all digital television on June 12th and our new tower construction. The business offices of SportsTime Ohio moved into the building in June, so we are all one big, happy family. If only the Indians could turn things around. Prior to the move, only the productions were done here with the business office off site. June 26th we finally turned off our analog transmitter for the final time. WKYC was a "night light" station for the local market which aired non-stop programming in English and Spanish for those viewers who still had not made the conversion. The July sweeps period started last Thursday, July 2nd, and runs through Wednesday, July 29th. The drama of the Michael Jackson story is finally beginnin...