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Gray's 19/43 Officially Leaving Reserve Square

T

thenetwork

Per today's NeoTrans.blog

WOIO-WUAB-WTCL TV seek Independence – NEOtrans

neo-trans.blog neo-trans.blog

So it will NOT be the original Independence lot Gray purchased next to Top Golf during COVID but rather across from Independence City Hall on Brecksville Road.

So 19 and 43 both go back into the burbs. Originally, 19/WOIO started it's life at Shaker Square and WUAB/43 was born on Day Drive in Parma.

In any event, they plan to leave the problem-plaqued Reserve Square complex by sometime next year.
 
It's kind of ironic. Channel 43 left Parma for downtown so their reporters would be closer to city hall, the sports venues, etc. Now, they are leaving downtown and heading back to the suburbs.
 
WOIO and WUAB moved downtown because the owner, Malrite Communications, was a big supporter of downtown Cleveland and wanted them there and nearer their corporate headquarters in Tower City. While there was some practicality to being closer to the "action", technology has advanced since 1995 and present-day communication methods make physical proximity less important.
Plus for employees it's easier to get to for most, free parking and its perceived safer.
I myself will shed no tears for Reserve Square.
 
As an addendum, i can tell you that the staffers at both 19 and 43 were not happy to leave Shaker Square or their big building on Day Drive to move into the basement of a downtown apartment. The move was frought with problems of all sorts, some which dog them to this day.
And the 43 people were not happy that they were taken over as they liked working for Steve Cannell.
 
19 and 43 were big rivals back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, especially when 19 overtook 43 in the ratings during its FOX years. It seems that both stations had issues when they merged operations, and it continues to this day. 19 became the bigger station, while 43 faded into the background.
 
When Raycom was acquired by Gray Media, they inherited what I assume is free advertising for The Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail in Alabama.

I'm sure the Gray station viewers outside of the Southeast part of the country could care less about going to Alabama to golf. Just as long as the "suits" at Gray get their free golf vacations there...
 


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