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Cleveland TV Revolving Door

Maybe we should start a new discussion of the move to Independence? Perhaps the recent posts here can be moved there as well?

Anyways...

I was looking at the vacant land where they intend to relocate to, and it looks pretty tight the way it is with the surrounding businesses that are already there. By they time the building, parking lot, satellites and the studio transmitter link tower are all built, put in and installed, it's going to be very cramped. I think the biggest reason why they want to move there is that both of their transmitter towers are only a few miles away and are practically in line with each other from that location. So unlike now where they have two STL's pointed in slightly different directions, they can aim both in the same general direction.
 
The old WUAB building was rather small, wasn't it? (I know that OfficeMax/Planet Fitness is currently where the studios used to be, so there couldn't have been that much room there.)

Was there a few times when Lanigan was doing the Prize Movie. What I can recall is that they had a small corner set up as a studio and other sets stored in various places. While the movie was going on, you had people building sets and other things. Basically it seemed like a large garage with a section set aside as a "studio", sorta like what a kid would make for a "pretend" TV station. Rather boring in between the "live" sections. Probably wouldn't work today, most places would "voice-track" the "live" shots all in 45 minutes and they talent would be outta there. Probably would say "send an email to......with your movie guess and we'll randomly pick a winner and announce it on the next prize movie. They'd probably have a winner every time cause that would give people a chance to google what the movie clip was from. No way to do that back then early/mid 80s. The best time was when Lanigan was taping promos for the next show. Took him 28 tries and everybody was busting a gut laughing cause he was cracking up also. Got a round of applause after he finally nailed it.
 
Northcoast43 said:
The former bowling alley was actually "Parmatown Lanes" on Day Drive. Shortly after WUAB signed on they built their own studios almost directly in front. I think Planet Fitness holds their address today, but a new building further back. Didn't plan it that way, but I recall shopping and seeing the old building being razed. (Wonder the year, but maybe 1995?)

Superhost, The Prize Movie and Newsbreak 43/Wall Street Report/Sportsbreak 43 (All Gary Short) filmed in a shipping area in which sets were easy to move in and out. (Somewhere, there may be a youtube video of Superhost showing this.)

I don't know if an addition was made in order to accommodate the Ten O'Clock News. But prior WUAB had other "Studio Shows" such as Barnaby, The Coffee Shoppe/43 A.M., The Lorain News (Sundays) and Lorain Conversation (Sundays). So they must of have some studio space.
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Ask and ye shall receive.
 
snowdog88 said:
I was looking at the vacant land where they intend to relocate to, and it looks pretty tight the way it is with the surrounding businesses that are already there. By they time the building, parking lot, satellites and the studio transmitter link tower are all built, put in and installed, it's going to be very cramped.
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That part of Independence is really overbuilt with all the buildings and the sea of parking lots. They don't need to add any more buildings IMO. And Topgolf is rather unsightly. I wish they would have built it in a location that is not so highly visible.
 
skiwest said:
That part of Independence is really overbuilt with all the buildings and the sea of parking lots. They don't need to add any more buildings IMO. And Topgolf is rather unsightly. I wish they would have built it in a location that is not so highly visible.
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While the Topgolf may look unsightly to you, Independence must have wanted it along with all of the other commercial related businesses there which allows the city to maintain its low taxes as well as bring in a different crowd that will spend money at other eateries and other establishments.

What other city would you propose that WOIO/WUAB go to that is centrally located, safe, has low taxes and has some vacant land?
 
WEWS ABC 5 weekend PM meteorologist Remeishia Shade has left to become the weeknight weather anchor for KRIV Fox 26 in Houston.

For the immediate future, weekend AMer Katie McGraw moves to evenings, and Kyle Adams over from The Block Communications cluster in Lima (they own all the network affiliates over there) holding down the fort during weekend AM (as I said, for now)

For what it's worth, Adams has local roots - North Canton native and graduate of THE Ohio State University.
 
Brad Hamilton - son of longtime Indians/Guardians announcer Tom Hamilton - has just been brought in by WJW as a utility reporter (a little news, a little sports).

Brad - an Avon Lake native and Kent State grad - previously was a reporter in Madison Wisconsin
 
MediaLover said:
WKYC has announced who is anchoring the news between 4pm and 6:30pm starting next month:

4pm - Jay Crawford and Betsy Kling

5pm - Christi Paul and Carmen Blackwell

6pm - Russ Mitchell and Laura Caso

WKYC Studios to expand early evening news programming to 4 p.m. starting September 12
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On top of that, NBC's new 1p show NBC News Daily will have a slice set aside for local news, which will be anchored on WKYC by Stephanie Haney with Betsy Kling on weather.

With Betsy now working earlier hours, Matt Wintz takes over the 11p weather duties full time and will tag team with Betsy at the weather desk from 4-6:30p
 
Nexstar is now officially the majority owner of The CW network as of today. The CW is currently seen on WUAB 43 while Nexstar owns WJW 8. Does anyone see any changes locally?
 
MediaLover said:
Nexstar is now officially the majority owner of The CW network as of today. The CW is currently seen on WUAB 43 while Nexstar owns WJW 8. Does anyone see any changes locally?
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Not likely, unless Channel 8/Nexstar really doesn't want Gray to use the CW as a base for Channel 43 and it's CBS 19 companion. (Both News top-heavy - Like WJW. :rolleyes: )

However, what WJW could do would seem limited. Give the CW back to "News less"/Less competition Channel 55 (Which probably is better off without it). Or put it on a TV 8 sub-channel with whatever limited syndicated programs it could find? {...Hopefully, not adding Newscasts to CW 8.5/or whatever.} Those choices just don't seem logical.

As of now, you wonder if WUAB feels the CW as maybe a lame duck network and destined to move. With the CW's limited programming, could a better option be for Nexstar to purchase/contract a current low power to carry the CW? Even there, I'm not prepared to answer "Which low-power is available".

I can't see main WJW ever dropping Fox in favor of becoming "CW 8". It would be a bigger disaster than the CBS/Fox swap of 1994.
 
Nexstar would be foolish to give up Fox's sports coverage in favor of The CW. The only way I could see Fox and 8 parting ways is if Disney somehow gets involved and folds Fox programming into ABC's lineup in the same way that The WB and UPN merged into The CW in the first place. At that point, I'd be willing to bet that WJW would become an independent station a-la TV55 and just syndicate NewsNation's programming to fill in the blanks left by a Fox vacancy. All you're really missing out on that 8 would have to fill in is the 2-3 hour primetime blocks that Fox programs, and most of Sunday, but they could get rights to some low-cost movies and just put those up or just put more NewsNation programming up in place of all of the sports coverage. There's always the other option of infomercials... or maybe just putting AntennaTV on the main channel on Sundays to fill the void.

I don't see The CW leaving WUAB. If anything, I'd sooner expect Nexstar to snatch WUAB from Gray and lump it in with Fox 8. They could easily just simulcast their newscasts between the two stations by rebranding the news with both Fox 8 and CW43 branding in the same way that one of the Florida stations produces newscasts under the "NBC2/ABC7" banner. Either that, or build a smaller news set - maybe they have some old set pieces lying around - elsewhere in the station building and just have some of the other staff run newscasts under the CW43 banner while the main team does them under the Fox 8 banner.
 
Why would Gray TV want to keep something on THEIR airwaves that is a direct competitor to them.? I mean, they'd be forking over money to Nexstar which owns FOX8 who'd probably like to take all of WUAB's viewers. That's like telling a burglar that breaks into your house "Hey, I left the safe combination under the microwave in the kitchen." I could see Gray telling Nexstar "We don't want your crappy channel anymore; put it on one of FOX 8's digital sub-channels."
 
MegaBlue said:
The only way I could see Fox and 8 parting ways is if Disney somehow gets involved and folds Fox programming into ABC's lineup in the same way that The WB and UPN merged into The CW in the first place.
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I'm pretty sure Disney just owns 20th Century FOX (the production studios) and not the FOX network.

MegaBlue said:
I'd sooner expect Nexstar to snatch WUAB from Gray and lump it in with Fox 8.
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Nexstar can't buy WUAB without first selling off WJW as FCC rules only permit a broadcast group to own 1 station in a market. The reason why Gray can own both WOIO and WUAB is that the rules were different in the past when both stations fell under the same ownership, and are grandfathered under the revised rules. Since FCC rules are not as strict for low power stations (excluding class A's), Gray was able to acquire WTCL-LD (then WLFM-LD) as well as WOHZ-CD, the latter for use as a WOIO/WUAB repeater in the Canton area. From what I hear, Gray is also acquiring another low power station in the Canton area, possibly to use as a replacement for WOHZ-CD as both WOHZ & WTCL use the same frequency and have a very large overlap in the southern Akron area.
 
snowdog88 said:
I'm pretty sure Disney just owns 20th Century FOX (the production studios) and not the FOX network.
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I thought they owned the network, too, but I could be wrong. I know they own the cable assets - FXX, Fox Movie Channel, FX - and The Simpsons (maybe Family Guy, too?), but I'm not sure about everything else. I figured "Disney buys Fox" meant they got everything lock, stock, and barrel. If Disney doesn't own the Fox network but owns everything else, that was a pretty odd buyout.

snowdog88 said:
Nexstar can't buy WUAB without first selling off WJW as FCC rules only permit a broadcast group to own 1 station in a market. The reason why Gray can own both WOIO and WUAB is that the rules were different in the past when both stations fell under the same ownership, and are grandfathered under the revised rules. Since FCC rules are not as strict for low power stations (excluding class A's), Gray was able to acquire WTCL-LD (then WLFM-LD) as well as WOHZ-CD, the latter for use as a WOIO/WUAB repeater in the Canton area. From what I hear, Gray is also acquiring another low power station in the Canton area, possibly to use as a replacement for WOHZ-CD as both WOHZ & WTCL use the same frequency and have a very large overlap in the southern Akron area.
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Didn't Gray buy out Raycom after the rules changed? You'd think that doing a purchase when the rules changed meant that you'd have to spin things off to adhere to the new rules, not remain grandfathered in, but I'm not in the FCC game, so it's all a foreign concept to me.

As far as "a direct competitor" to anything else Gray owns, I doubt that CBS is worried about whatever future The CW has. However, with the way media companies like to own their affiliates of their networks, I could see Nexstar pressuring non-Nexstar affiliates to drop The CW if they were unable to purchase the outlets themselves. Although, I thought WUAB was simply a digital net of WOIO now, or something to that effect. Again, the broadcasting world is foreign to me and I'm simply going off of tidbits I've read on Wikipedia (I know, that's hardly a trustworthy resource) and on the old RadioInsight forums, so I'm probably wrong about that.

Also, if Nexstar can't own two stations, maybe they'd look into simply reworking The CW into a programming block for their stations to run during weekday hours, in lieu of picking up other syndicated programming? If the corporate overlords are going to serve up a two-hour daily block for you to run instead of spending your budget on purchasing programming, wouldn't you snatch it up?
 


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