Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Time Warner Cable Gets The Flu

With growing worldwide attention to the swine flu situation, Time Warner Cable's "Northeast Ohio Network" (NEON) is offering up a special local program on the topic this week.

And OMW readers may be interested in who's hosting it.

From a TWC press release:

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Medical Special About Swine Flu to Air on Time Warner Cable’s Northeast Ohio Network (NEON)

Cleveland Clinic Expert Dr. Thomas Tallman to Discuss Local and National Aspects of the Disease

Akron, OH (APRIL 2009) – With the swine flu outbreak making headlines across the country, many Northeast Ohio residents are seeking a local perspective on the issue. This Wednesday and Thursday, Time Warner Cable’s Northeast Ohio Network (NEON) will air a 30-minute special with an expert from the Cleveland Clinic to address the current health crisis.

Titled “Swine Flu: Crisis or Concern, a Time Warner Cable Special,” Dr. Thomas Tallman, Chairman for Emergency Preparedness at the world renowned Cleveland Clinic, and host Mark Williamson, City of Akron Director of Communications, will put the situation into perspective, focusing on what local, state and national health officials are doing about the problem, and how we as individuals can reduce our risk to the disease.

“Despite all the news coverage, many people still want answers to how this flu outbreak affects them in Ohio,” said Bill Jasso, Time Warner Cable Northeast Ohio Vice President of Communications. “With this 30-minute special, we hope to inform people about what swine flu is, what to look for and how to avoid it, all with a local perspective in mind.”

The show will air on NEON, channel 23, Wednesday and Thursday, April 29 and 30, at 7:30 p.m. NEON is a primetime, local network only available to Time Warner Cable customers in the Northeast Ohio footprint. The network offers 24 hours per week of locally produced programs.

The special will also be available in free, “On Demand” format with Time Warner’s Digital Cable service on Local On Demand, channel 501 or 1.

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Yes, the host will be Mark Williamson, communications director for the city of Akron, in what may well be his first "TV gig" since then-WAKC/23's local news department was shuttered by Pax TV those many years ago.

And of course, the local newscast which became "23 Newsday's" successor in local news, the WKYC/3-produced "Akron/Canton News", ended its own run on that very same Time Warner Cable "NEON" channel...after a run on broadcast 23 after Pax TV agreed to air the renewed cast.

Anyway, media geek excitement aside, it sounds like the special will be informative, not hyped... and sounds like it's well worth a view...

3 comments:

Unknown said...

...And here I was thinking Time Warner Cable "got the flu" because they haven't yet added the new HD channels that were promised for "on or after April 29" in the article here and in the Programming notices section at TWC NEO website. But hey, there's still about 7 hours left in April 29th. And then we're on to the "after"!

And something interesting to note about the channel changes: people with the Tivo Series 3 HD recorders actually received the IPG listings for the new TWC HD channels sometime yesterday. And today there's IPG data for (I believe) 432, 438, 450, 452, 460, 465, 477; but no signs of life on the channels. My TWC boxes both do not have listings yet. The Tivo thing is an anomaly because usually I've heard that Tivo viewers have to wait for their boxes to be updated longer, as they're not controlled by TWC.

As far as the local special, should be a good watch. Anything's better than watching the national news, or the local news which are all trying to "outdo" each other to get better ratings. And to see an old local TV personality.

YEKIMI said...

Yeah, a paid public flack who tries to put the best spin on his boss' work.....I don't think I'd beleive a thing that comes out of his mouth now that he has checked his journalistic ethics at the city hall door. If he ever got back into news I'm pretty sure I wouldn't watch because don't think I'd be able to beleive if he was telling the truth or not.

Unknown said...

Several years ago I was a lowly intern lugging a photog's bag around an Akron press event for a Cleveland TV station, and met Mark. He actually came over to me, introduced himself, and made small talk when there were lots of other who's who type names in the room to schmooze.

Politics and agendas aside, bottom line, Mark is a class act guy.