Director's Cut Blog with Frank Macek

After our initial postings about the Akron Canton News not being seen in all of Summit County, did TWC finally get the message that people really DO want to see what's happening in their neighborhood? Power to the People! From Eric Mansfield's Blog: "Don't touch that dial: The official announcement is coming Friday from Time-Warner Cable but it looks like the Adelphia customers in Summit County will now be able to see Akron-Canton News as early as next week. I don't have all the details yet, but it will help our newsroom finally reach a major component of the audience. I've heard from so many viewers in Copley, Fairlawn, Hudson, and all points in between, who've been frustrated with no access to the evening news. Watch for the full details later this week. " Courtesy: Eric Mansfield's blog: http://www.discoverneo.com/features/letters_mblog.phtml

March 1st was an important date that most of you probably didn't celebrate. Neither did the folks who produce analog TV's . Though, it was good day for digital broadcasting and HDTV. As of March 1st, 2007, the government officially implemented a ban importing analog TVs from foreign countries or trafficking in interstate commerce of analog sets. This means that retailers of "analog only" TVs aren't allowed to buy any more to sell to you. This is good news for the consumer, because it means ALL TV's being sold after March 1st MUST have a digital tuner ( ATSC ). This doesn't mean you have to buy an HDTV, it just means you will be buying a TV that can receive the new digital signals. Which leads me to say that you would be crazy at this point to go out and buy a TV that isn't at least a flat screen or plasma. With the HD transition date of February 17, 2009 getting closer, it would make sense to spend the money and get an HD TV. More and more programmi...

From: Tristan in Cleveland Q: I like your blog on Channel 3's website. It gives me a look at what goes on at a television station. I was wondering on a few things: 1. How did you decide to become a television director?; 2. What was it like doing radio? (Especially at WDOK and WRMR); 3. Are you looking for interns? I am interested in a summer internship in production, as I am taking a television production class with John Ban at Tri-C West. A: Cool - a multiple part question. 1) I became a director after working in engineering for the first year or so here at Channel 3. After observing what the directors did, I thought that it might be a good fit for me, so I gave it a try; 2) Radio was fun, but got dull in 1996 when the FCC allowed the media giants to cobble up large amounts of stations. From a "business stance", it made sense. From an "opportunity standpoint" for the DJ's, it was bad news. Many DJs were replaced with automation and voicetracking. I enjoyed ...

From: Matthew in Perry Q: Do you ever have to work weekends? A: Yes. When you a director, you find yourself working all kinds of weird schedules - including weekends. We only have so many directors that when someone takes a vacation, the other directors' schedules often get affected - including mine though I normally work only weeknights. Working weekends is fun because it is more laid back than weeknights which tend to be more intense. They are many more shows to direct and less time to prepare between them. Fortunately, the weekend night crew is cool (as is the weekend morning crew too). Scott Newell , Lydia Esparra , Betsy Kling and Brian Colleran are a lot of fun to work with so I don't mind it. Plus, I get to work with the ever popular weekend producer, Carrie Young, who tries to work us into a sweat with cramming lots of stories into a half hour show - but that's the challenge - a good challenge. Send your emails to me at: fmacek@wkyc.com

WKYC-TV has won the regional Edward R. Murrow Award for "Overall Excellence" in television news. This is about the highest award a news operation can receive, and it covers the stations in 4 states: Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana. This means our news operation in 2006 was judged to be better than any other - including stations in cities like Chicago, Detroit, Columbus, etc. The Award encompasses all aspects of the news operation (including newscasts), spot news, special projects, community involvement, sports, and weather. The official presentation will be made next week.

After seven months of negotiations, the deal got done after all. News Corp. and NBC Universal announced a partnership for the digital age yesterday, planning a new jointly-run entertainment portal - as yet unnamed - that will aggregate the biggest collection of TV content on the web and create "the largest advertising platform on earth." The agreement will encompass the vast libraries of television and film content from each of the companies' broadcast, cable and film brands. The deal also contains a distribution component that will make video content available across the leading portals of the net AOL, MSN, Yahoo and MySpace, who will share in the ad revenue and customize its delivery as they see fit.

From: Tim in Canton Q: I really am enjoying your blog...lots of interesting info. The reason I am writing is I just tonight again watched a videotape that I recorded October 27, 1998 - "WKYC-TV 3, 50 Golden Years". It was fun to relive some old memories and see some people that I haven't seen in years. My question is this: I saw your name on the special's end credits (It took me a minute to realize where I had seen your name before). I'd like to ask how much vintage video there is in the Channel 3 archives and is there more that has been found since 1998? Also, are there plans at all for a 60th anniversary celebration in 2008 A: Thanks for the nice words. It's always good to hear from folks - especially those who recognize my name from somewhere...Ha! Regarding your inquiry, we archive every story from every show on tape backup. This has been going on since the 1980s. Prior to that, only those memorable moments were saved. Hopefully we'll be going to a d...

From: David in Cleveland Q: When will WKYC HD go live on Dish Network? Dish Network is claiming that the local affiliates are holding everything up because they want more money. Do you have any information on this? A: I posed this question to our Research Director who shared the following: "We don't negotiate with Dish Network locally and we haven't heard any news on DISH local HD signals lately. There are probably a number of reasons why DISH doesn't have local HD signals available, the least of which is local affiliate demands. They have a small market share here, so Cleveland HD may not be a priority. We know that Direct TV had to launch a new bird to have the ability to offer service, so DISH might have technical issues as well. Direct TV has all of the local HD signals available now, as does Time Warner and all the major cable providers in town. So "local affiliates" haven't prevented DISH competitors from providing local HD service." Send your ...

The number of television channels that the average U.S. home receives has now reached a record high of 104.2, an increase of almost eight channels since 2005, according to Nielsen. * In 2006, the average household tuned to 15.7 of the 104.2 channels available for at least 10 minutes per week. * General dramas still dominate the lineup, comprising 50% of the primetime programs. * The 30-second commercial is still the TV advertising standard in primetime, accounting for 57% of all commercials. * On average, there are 111.4 million TV homes in the U.S.. * 28% of U.S. TV homes have Digital Cable . * 82% of U.S homes have more than one TV at home. * 84% of U.S. homes have a DVD player. Number of Channels Available in the Average U.S. Home Year (# Available) (# Viewed) 2006 (104.2)(15.7) 2005 (96.4)(15.4) 2004 (92.6)(15.0) 2000 (61.4)(13.6) 1995 (41.1)(10.1) 1990 (33.2)(N/A) 1985 (18.8)(N/A) Types of Primetime Programs on Broadcast Networks Program Type (# of Programs in 20...

All U.S. households with TVs that use analog technology will be eligible for $40 discount coupons to buy digital converter boxes, the Commerce Department has announced. That means consumers who have only analog TVs and rely solely on free over-the-air television will be eligible for the coupons. An estimated 20 million households now rely solely on free over-the-air television. The price of a converter box is expected to cost between $50 and $60. The coupon program will begin January 1st.

More information from the Sportstime Ohio Press Conference held today at WKYC...with the launch of the brand new "Studio C" at the WKYC Digital Broadcast Center. ---- CLEVELAND, OH - SportsTime Ohio today announced that the network will have programming 24 hours a day starting April 1 and has hired Cleveland radio icon Bruce Drennan to host a weekday talk show. Bruce Drennan has over 35 years of experience both on radio and television. He was voted Best Cleveland Sportscaster in 1997 and 1998. Drennan was inducted into the Radio/Television Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 1999. "I'm very happy to be back and thrilled to be working for SportsTime Ohio with our focus on all things local," said Drennan. "I can't wait to get back in the booth and talk sports with the best fans in the country." SportsTime Ohio's show will be called "All Bets Are Off with Bruce Drennan" and will make its debut on April 1 live at 7:00pm. Fans will be able to cal...

Just announced today...from Sportstime Ohio at the WKYC Digital Broadcast Center at the new unveiling of "Studio C"... --- CLEVELAND, OH - SportsTime Ohio today announced that the network will have several new features during Indians games for the 2007 season as well as exclusive reports with Eric Wedge. SportsTime Ohio has also signed an agreement with Sports Media to provide advanced features during Indians games. Complementing a new graphics package, these features include a pitch track, zoom lens, batters spray chart and text messaging capabilities. In addition to these elements, STO will periodically return to the studio to check in at the STO Update Desk offering highlights from around Major League Baseball and all sports action of interest to the region's fans. "Indians fans can expect an increase in the quantity of Indians programming on STO this year as well as a game presentation which will inform and entertain viewers in ways they have never seen during a ...

We were the first to post this information several weeks ago here on the "Director's Cut Blog." But today, we hear "officially" from the network that NBC News is indeed becoming the first network evening newscast available across the country in HDTV, beginning next Monday, March 26th at 6:30 PM on WKYC. "Nightly News" will originate from Control Room 1A, the same state-of-the-art HD control room used by the "Today Show." Brian Williams will continue to anchor from "Nightly's" longtime home, Studio 3C in 30 Rock. Working off the model established for "Today" has sped "Nightly News" transition into HDTV. For this purpose, new Sony HDC-1500 HD studio cameras have been installed in 3C. Brett Holey, director of "Nightly News," says that the program's existing set was built with high definition in mind and looks even better in the new format. There has had to be some tweaking of the opening segment an...

Here are some pictures of Channel 3 News, including the main studio, weather center, newsroom and control room. Click on a picture to view it in a separate window.

The Top 5 womanizers on TV, according to MSNBC : 1. Arthur "The Fonz" Fonzarelli (Happy Days) 2. Sam Malone (Cheers) 3. Dan Fielding (Night Court) 4. Cosmo Kramer (Seinfeld) 5. Gob Bluth (Arrested Development) Courtesy: MSNBC

From Bob in Bainbridge: Q: I just bought a new HDTV and love it. The picture difference is amazing. Do you know where I can find a good listing of all the programs in HD on your station and the others? A: Yes, I use the CheckHD.com website which offers a detailed daily listing of all HD programming for both the Cleveland Market stations and others. Click on the following link button: Send Your Questions to the Mailbag: fmacek@wkyc.com

To read more about Dawn's husband, Larry Mendte: CLICK HERE ------------------- This week, I'm starting a new feature on the "Director's Cut" blog called "Where Are They Now?" I'll focus on Channel 3 personalities who have worked here and gone on to other career opportunities through the years. We'll kick if off with with Dawn Stensland who was an anchorwoman at WKYC (6 & 11 PM) and then at KYW -TV ( 5 PM) in Philadelphia during the 1990s. Dawn also was a host of "Saturday Morning" on CBS for about 2 years. It was during this time that she anchored live coverage with Dan Rather for several hours the morning that John F. Kennedy Jr.'s plane crashed. Currently, Dawn is co-anchor of the 10 p.m. news at WTXF -TV, Philadelphia's Fox affiliate. She is married to Larry Mendte , a former WABC -TV anchorman and former Access Hollywood co-host who currently anchors the 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. anchor at KYW where Dawn worked prior to W...

February sweeps are finally over.... Channel 3 has seen growth from the November sweeps period. WKYC continues to be the #1 weeknight newscast at 11 PM. The weeknight 7 pm and weekend morning shows were the high points of the sweeps period...seeing nice increases with both. The ratings which show the demographics will be available March 19th and we'll comment on those at that time. Onward to May sweeps which run April 26 through May 23rd.

As I mentioned earlier this week, today was Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson's 2 nd State of the City address. Channel 3 was the "pool feed," meaning our station provided the live broadcast to other media outlets who aired the broadcast, in addition to WKYC. What goes into doing a live show like this? Quite a bit. First, there are two separate crews who take part in the broadcast. One crew is located on site including a technical director, audio person and audio assistant, floor director, camera operators and other maintenance personnel. They arrive early and set up the equipment, test the audio and video feeds from the cameras & microphones and make sure everything is ready to go at air time. We utilize a little homemade setup that is fairly mobile and allows us to set up inside, near the event. Plus, we have an on-site Director. For today's show, it was our Production Manager and co-worker, Al Wohl , who was responsible for overseeing the production on site and c...

Today marked the launch of WKYC's first web/broadcast simulcast of "Good Company" - Channel 3's live and local weekday morning show that airs from 10 - 11 AM. Hosted by Fred Griffith, Andrea Vecchio, Michael Cardamone and Eileen McShea, the show is now available worldwide on the "Good Company" homepage: www.wkyc.com/goodcompany Note: the show is only viewable during the live broadcast from 10 - 11 AM weekday mornings. At this time, no archive is available of the programs.

From: Matt in Pepper Pike Q: How old is the WKYC building where you are located on Lakeside Avenue now? A: We just celebrated our 6th Anniversary at 1333 Lakeside Avenue after "officially" moving into the building in January 2001. Although the newscasts were produced and directed from here starting in December 2000 while the building was being finished around us, the anchors remained at the old building at E. 6th St. until the night of the Superbowl: Sunday, January 28th, 2001. During the transition time, the cameras were fed via fiber optic to the new building. Scott Newell, Kristin Anderson, Eileen McShea and Chuck Galeti were the first to anchor a newscast in the new building (though from a temporary set in the newsroom). Tim White, Romona Robinson, Mark Nolan and Jim Donovan debuted our new main set the following night at 6 PM.

This week's blog will focus on technology and the difference between buying a single-layer and a dual-layer DVD burner if you are in the market. Both cost about the same at this point, so it's always better to opt for the dual-layer which will soon become the "standard." Here's why: Generally, a standard single-layer recordable DVD will hold about 4.7GB of information, which is a lot less than most movie DVDs hold because those already use the dual-layer technology. And you would think dual-layer would hold twice the information, or about 9.4GB of data. But, the truth is you lose about 10% capacity because of how the data is written to the second, or upper layer of the disc, leaving less usable space. The consumer dual-layer discs you buy at the store are semitransparent, and burners and players make a very small adjustment in the focus of the laser's lens to read the upper layer of the DVD through the bottom layer. In contrast, pressed movie DVDs use a reflec...

From: John in Hudson Q: I still can't receive the Akron Canton News on Time Warner here in Hudson - Wasn't that going to change last week? A: The "Akron Canton News" did indeed move back to TWC Channel 23 in the Akron Canton area as we mentioned here on the blog. However, TWC still has not added the show to the Northern Areas of Summit County as part of their local programming channel (or to the former Adelphia Cleveland or Comcast areas as far as we know) . If you'd like the Akron Canton News, feel free to contact a good friend of the "Director's Cut" blog, TWC PR man Bill Jasso. His email is: bill.jasso@twcable.com Southern Summit County viewers can see the "Akron Canton News" on TWC Channel 23 at 6:30 after "More Sports and Les Levine" and at 10 PM.

The Academy Awards are the 800-pound gorilla of award shows, but the People's Choice trophy outweighs the Oscar statue by more than 5 pounds. Here's a breakdown from USA Today (WKYC's sister newspaper, published by Gannett) on just how much trophies weigh. 1. People's Choice trophy (14 lbs) 2. Oscars (8 lbs, 8 oz) 3. Grammys (6 lbs, 8 oz) 4. Golden Globes (5 lbs, 7 oz) 5. Emmys (4 lbs, 12 oz) Courtesy: USAToday.com

The last couple of days have been long ones for everyone at WKYC as we, along with other media outlets, brought you expanded coverage of the severe winter storm that pummeled our area. It was 36 hours of hunkering down and covering the storm all across Northeast Ohio. Many people take the media for granted. After all, we are in the public service industry. Our job IS to keep viewers informed, but there are risks involved that people at home don't think about. Everyday our reporters and photographers put their lives in danger when they go out to cover stories. You may have seen the story of one of our photographers who was injured recently at Tower City covering a story about kids causing trouble around Public Square. As it turned out, a safe story turned out very differently as the video shows: http://www.wkyc.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=62803 During this winter storm, our crews had to face the same frustrations and treacherous conditions that other motorists faced while cov...

From: nwitcraft via email Q: Why is the picture on WKYC-HD stretched when the iAlert school closing graphic is on the screen? The picture above the school closings looked distorted. The picture would look better if it was 4:3 with the sidebars like normal. Everything else is great, I like the new news graphics. A: We believe this problem has been fixed now. The graphics were too big for the screen, which caused us to squish the picture too much, thus giving you a distorted image. Part of the problem is our Master Control is not HD yet, so we are doing this as a bypass through the HD Control Room direct to air.

From: Luke in Canton Q: I just discovered your blog yesterday via the blog Ohio Media Watch; I've just caught up on all your posts. Pretty cool job so far but there is something that I think could really add to it -- pictures. Give us pictures of the graphics your talking about and give us before and after pics of the Channel 3 set changes etc. A: I'm currently working on adding pictures to the blog...but it might take me a few weeks before that happens, mainly for technical reasons. We have to figure out the best way to upload the pictures so everyone can view them. Honestly, I didn't think we'd get so many hits on the blog so quickly.. But, that's GREAT thing!

This week, I'll talk about our Akron Canton News (ACN) since it's been a focus our blog lately with it's move back to Time Warner Cable Channel 23 starting this Thursday. First a little background information on how this came about. Following the purchase of WAKC from ValuVision in 1996, Paxson Communications abruptly shutdown the "The North Ohio News Station" and its ABC affiliation which left everyone unemployed and Akron without it's own newscast. Only infomericals and home-shopping shows aired on the station on over-the-air Channel 23. In June 2001, Paxson entered a partnership with NBC - which included Gannett and WKYC - to produce nightly newscasts that first aired at 6:30 & 10 PM. This came at a time when Pax began airing regular shows in the evening timeslots. During that time, the late news shifted to 9 PM, then back to 10 PM after advertisers failed to like the change in time. Unfortunately, that agreement ended on June 30, 2001. The newscast mov...

From time to time, I'll include some tidbits about TV that aren't directly related to WKYC or Cleveland, but are from the wacky world of TV. This one caught my eye over the weekend: Top 10 Most Memorable TV Cars: 1. KITT, 1982 Pontiac Trans Am in "Knight Rider" 2. THE GENERAL LEE, 1969 Dodge Charger in "The Dukes of Hazzard" 3. THE MYSTERY MACHINE, in "Scooby Doo" 4. FERRAIR 308 GTS, in "Magnum P.I." 5. BATMOBILE, modified 1955 Lincoln Futura concept car, in "Batman" 6. 1975 FORD GRAND TORINO, in "Starsky and Hutch" 7. 1973 CHEVROLET EL CAMINO, in "My Name is Earl" 8. 1983 GMC G-Series, in "The A-Team" 9. MACH 5, in "Speed Racer" 10. 2005 MASERATI QUATTROPORTE, in "Entourage" Courtesy: Cars.com

"NBC Nightly News" on Channel 3 is about to become the first national evening news broadcast to go hi-definition.The show will begin broadcasting in the format in March although an exact date is not yet decided. The broadcast will join fellow NBC News production the "Today" show, which started broadcasting in HD in September. NBC's "Dateline," which is also produced by NBC News, is not yet making the jump, an NBC spokesperson said. Though local news markets have increasingly embraced HD as a way of keeping viewers coming out of HD prime-time programming, national evening news departments have been slow to embrace the format. In addition to the cost of overhauling a studio, the department has to replace field cameras around the world. For "NBC Nightly News," most field reports will continue to use standard-definition cameras until early 2008. Courtesy: TVweek.com