Director's Cut Blog with Frank Macek

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. --- It's hard to believe it is September already and fall is just a few short weeks away. We'll be kicking off a new fall schedule in just 12 days with the new "Jay Leno Show." NBC affiliates are a little apprehensive - to say the least - about NBC's new approach to Prime Time. For his part, Jay is ready to go and excited about being part of their new revolution. Time & the ratings will tell. Many of you have weighed in on our new set tweaks, designed to add a little more color and depth to our background. Some of you like it, some of you don't. The single biggest complaint is the fact we didn't do live monitors for the right side of background. Given the high cost of buying many monitors and the current economic climiate, we decided to go with the "fake" monitor wall for now o...

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 More and more broadcasting executives are coming to the realization the economy is not turning the pivotal corner. Advertisers continue to spend less and want more for their money in this new environment that has evolved in this recession. As we mentioned in an earlier post, the advertisers are the ones driving the bus right now. And they are digging in their heels for cheaper rates. Many folks thought the stimulus plan would have helped to jump start the economy. After all, $787 billion is a good amount of money. But as of Sunday, Secretary of the Treasurer Timothy Geithner was pitching the notion on CNN and other media outlets we must be patient. The stimulus relief is coming soon. However, can the media afford to wait? Jobs are being lost at an alarming rate in all arms of the media. It doesn't take much perusing of the trades to find stations laying off people almost daily. Newspapers, magazines, radio and tv are all suffering from the sticker shock of how their ...

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...