No, not the iconic 1970’s sitcom with Carroll O’Connor and Jean Stapleton, which airs weeknights on Antenna TV (Tribune’s WJW/8.2 locally)…
FIRST FAMILY OF LOCAL TV: A shuffling at Gannett NBC affiliate WKYC/3 brings top management of the station officially into the same family.
WKYC’s long-time top advertising and promotions executive has been promoted, according to our friend and blogging colleague Frank Macek at his “WKYC Director’s Cut” blog:
“I am pleased to announce the promotion of Micki Byrnes to VP/Station Manager for WKYC-Cleveland,” announced Dave Lougee, president of Broadcasting for Gannett Co. Inc. “She will be responsible for WKYC’s daily operation with all departments reporting to her.”
Brooke Spectorsky remains as the station’s president/GM, and as a senior vice president for the Gannett chain, with national responsibilities.
Oh, he also remains Micki Byrnes’ husband.
That’s right…the senior management family at 13th and Lakeside is a family in real life, as Spectorsky and Byrnes have been husband and wife for some time, going back to well before either came to Cleveland.
From the Gannett press release back in 1997, noting Spectorsky’s hiring at WKYC from Orlando:
Spectorsky graduated in 1969 from Kent State University with a bachelor of science degree and a minor in speech and broadcasting. He and his wife, Micki Byrnes, have two children and have been working together in the broadcast industry for the past 11 years.
The 1997 release notes Byrnes’ initial hiring as director of marketing and promotion for WKYC. She was promoted to VP/advertising and promotion for Channel 3 in 2000.
Now, we submit that we may be the only media-affiliated entity in Northeast Ohio that didn’t know this. (Two high-ranking local broadcast executives are married! Can’t get anything past us! Er, maybe you can…)
But our defense is this: we weren’t in the Cleveland TV market when Spectorsky and Byrnes came to WKYC…
MERGING TIME, AGAIN: Youngstown CBS affiliate WKBN-TV/27 has been through so many owners, we have difficulty keeping track.
It’s about to get another owner.
After ending up in the hands of LIN Media when that chain bought the New Vision group, WKBN and its sister stations are heading for Media General.
Media General and LIN recently announced a $1.6 billion merger:
Together, Media General and LIN Media will own and operate or service 74 stations across 46 markets, reaching approximately 26.5 million households, or 23%, of U.S. TV households.
In Youngstown, the combined company (which will be named Media General) will own WKBN-TV, Fox affiliate WYFX-LD/19 (WKBN-TV/27.2) and will presumably take over the SSA to operate ABC affiliate WYTV/33.
There’s an overlap between LIN and Media General in Ohio, though not within the current OMW Coverage Area.
Media General owns former NBC O&O WCMH/4 in Columbus, and LIN owns NBC affiliate WDTN/2 and operates CW affiliate WBDT/26 in Dayton – like WYTV, owned by Vaughan Media.
(A Wikipedia editor helpfully notes that the merger reunites the former WLWC in Columbus with the former WLWD in Dayton.)
The shakeup in the Youngstown TV market dates back to 2007, when new WYTV owner Todd Parkin promised “a continued unique identity for WYTV, including its own news department, after his company takes over”, according to a certain media blog.
Fast forward to 2014. WYTV maintains some separate on-air news staffers, but is run lock, stock and TV barrel out of the WKBN-TV facilities on Sunset Boulevard. Channel 33’s website has been merged into WKBN-TV’s site, with very little mention of WYTV.
And last we saw, the same reporting output was airing on both stations (and little sister “Fox Youngstown”, which also airs in standard definition on WKBN-TV/27.2).
Last time we were watching Youngstown TV news in the market itself, we had a fun time tracking the staggered airings of reporting pieces on WKBN and WYTV.
We don’t know yet how the LIN/Media General merger will affect staffing on Sunset Boulevard…
WELL, OF COURSE: When now-former Radio One Cleveland operations manager Colby Colb went to Washington DC for a corporate programming gig, the company brought in Atlanta’s Bill Black to replace him…off the air, at least.
But Colby also held down the fort on-air in afternoon drive at the company’s hip hop WENZ/107.9 “Z107.9”, a position Bill Black did not take over.
Thus, in the “we already knew they’d do this” department, Radio One is advertising for the afternoon drive position at “Z”.
Z 107.9 (WENZ-FM) Radio One Cleveland has a rare opening for the afternoon drive. Who has what it takes to capture the reigns of Cleveland’s #1 station for Hip Hop and R&B? This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. If you are a hard worker, focused, creative, a good listener, interactive, consistently in the streets and community, a show prep fanatic, pop culture fiend, and social networking warrior with at least 2 years of on-air broadcasting experience, then send your air-check and resume with your creative vision for afternoons to Operations Manager, Bill Black.
//www.radio-one.com/about-us/careers/
Hitting up the link and searching for Cleveland shows a number of other off-air openings as well…
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