Thursday, February 15, 2007

More Les And More Rants

These two items also revolve around local sports personality Les Levine and his two local TV shows, oddly enough.

MORE LES: It's something we thought might happen in one of our earlier items.

Levine announced on his "More Sports and Les Levine" show last night that the Time Warner Cable show will expand to the company's entire Cleveland/Akron/Canton footprint starting with tonight's program.

Well, at least to the original Time Warner areas such as Akron/Canton, which were specifically mentioned. We also believe we heard him mention former Comcast areas like Mentor and Elyria.

We don't know if that means the company's local programming "main" channel will be consolidated, or if that means the WKYC-produced "Akron/Canton News" will start showing up in the former Adelphia service area in Summit County, at least.

Yes, as we've said about three dozen times by now, former Adelphia subscribers living within the Akron area - in the former Northampton Township in Akron or Cuyahoga Falls, along with Bath and Copley - still can't see the newscast ostensibly aimed at them...

MORE KIM: And Les' other television show, FSN Ohio's "Cleveland Rants", will gain another radio personality in addition to new co-host Kendall Lewis.

We didn't know this one until we stumbled onto the new FSN Ohio page for "Rants", but here it is:

New to Rants this season is WNCX morning host, Kim Mihalik. As a roving Rants reporter, Mihalik will frequent some of northeast Ohio's hottest lunchtime spots to get the pulse of Cleveland sports fans for the show. Fans can expect to see Kim and her camera crew at their favorite restaurants beginning next month.

The co-host with "Mud and Mike" on WNCX/98.5's morning drive show, of course, has something of a sports-related radio background...as the former co-host of the sports-heavy WTAM/1100 afternoon drive show with Mike Trivisonno.

Fans might also expect to see a new picture of Lewis on the page. Right now, his bio is next to a picture of WKNR/850's Neil Bender, who was last year's co-host...

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

OT..Is WNIR on reduced power? Their signal sucks.

Anonymous said...

Les Levine is the man. Karmazin should do whatever it takes to get him on the air. He actually does something different, as opposed to all the other shows that just take calls - BORING!! Do some bits, that's what successful shows do. And that' why Les is the man.

Anonymous said...

Just so the record is clean here I am not against Time Warner Cable or everyone in the Akron or Cleveland office. And I would love to keep my Friends there to so In no way I am not against Time Warner Cable or anyone in the Cleveland, or Akron Office.

This is for all the Time Warner Cable people in the Akron Office and Cleveland Office. This met cause a fire storm today but I have said this before and no one seems to listen to me. So I thought that fire storm needs to be started.

As for the Akron/Canton News and Northen Summit areas like Twinburg,Copley, Bath. The only reason that TWC won't add the Newscast is because they don't care about it. I have ask this question to the Top people at TWC in Akron and they don't seem to care about it.

But Channel 3 care about the people I have talk to the Top people there and they have told me that they want the NewsCast added to all the Summit areas and many more areas but it is TWC they won't do that.

Also I want to bring this up for a Big Fire Storm in the clevealnd Office and Akron Office today. Channels lineup That should have been taken care in Nov or Oct but still nothing has happen. You would think that Time Warner Cable TOP people would get the idea that they should have taken care of this in Oct or Nov and not wait until sometime in the next year.

I do want to point out that I am not against Time Warner Cable just making a point that things need to change soon. You have people paying 5% more this month and you want to keep those people so I would get moving on some of things that need to get done.

Like Channel lineup,Roadrunner for all of the Adelphias areas,

I will not put down my name but people in the Akron and Clevland Office of Time Warner Cable will know who this is.

Anonymous said...

Give me a "How's come" quickie. WHK Lives On! Back when sports talk was real in cleveland.

Anonymous said...

What happened with the Time Warner press conference?

Anonymous said...

I've asked this question probably a million times and haven't found the answer. WHY DOES WKYC RELY ON TWC FOR THEIR AKRON CANTON NEWS???? We have digital TV now, and they might as well make use of their subchannel, 3-2 for airing Akron Canton news so we don't need cable to watch it.

Anonymous said...

Kim's going on remotes! Wow! Is she just going to sit there on her cell phone and ignore people?

Anonymous said...

Yes, WNIR is on reduced power, we are iced up.

Anonymous said...

Andrew to answer your Questions I have post the link from Frank Macek Senior Producer/Director for Channel 3. But I have also Copy the Article about the Akron/Canton 23 News Please read below or check his web site at.

http://www.wkyc.com/weblog/directors%5Fcut/

Spotlight Article: The Akron Canton News
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 moved to Time Warner Cable, Channel 23 and was rebranded from "Pax 23 News" to "The Akron Canton News." That is where we find ourselves today.

Now the newscast itself. The ACN (as we affectionately call it) is produced and anchored from the Akron Canton Newsroom at the corner of S. Main and Market Street every weekday evening at 6:30 and 10 PM. This is where the newscast is put together from a rundown standpoint by Executive producer Chris Hyser (6:30 PM) and producer Kim Graves (10 PM).

All the local video is shot and edited in the Akron Newsroom by a group of very dedicated professionals, most of whom worked at the old WAKC. That video is then fed via a fiber connection back to the WKYC Digital Broadcast Center in Cleveland. This is where the control room is (the same as the Channel 3 control room).

During the show, anchor Eric Mansfield sits in front a green chromakey wall in front of a camera remotely controlled from Cleveland which allows us to put a virtual set behind him. He reads from a teleprompter being fed from the Cleveland Control Room.

When we go to Weather, Eric tosses to Mark Nolan or Betsy Kling who do their forecasts from the Ch 3 Weather Plus Weathercenter. Sports is done the same way with Jim Donovan, Andy Baskin or Brian Colleran also here in Cleveland.

The newscast is then fed directly to Time Warner Cable where is then distributed to the cable audience.

Currently, there are no plans to do the newscast in High Definition, though technically the newscast is being switched in the HiDef Channel 3 control room. Perhaps that will change in the future as more people gravitate toward HD on cable too.



posted by Frank Macek at 6:10 PM

Anonymous said...

I hope that Frank Macek Senior Producer/Director for Channel 3 does not get mad at me for post his link in here or the Spotlight Article: That he wrote. Which I have to say that Frank Macek is a Great Writer. So I hope you are not mad at me Frank for Posting your Link in here or the Article you wrote which is great.

Great Job Frank you are the Man of the Year.

Anonymous said...

It never ceases to amaze me how Kim Mihalik keeps landing jobs. So many more talented women out there and she is chosen