The Cincinnati Enquirer from Cincinnati, Ohio • Page 63

THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER Tomorrow: A Summer Scene A visit to The Cone, West Chester's soft-serve ice cream spot that's literally an ice cream cone, three stories high, made of fiberglass Skction Entertainment calendar 4 Datebook 14 Dave Barry ...15 JLi. Sunday July 13, 1997 0 1 i uu-u-jjj J. UO-OOOU i 1 i r. i i i 4 IA fcJ A Beverly: Stadium festival's leading man BY LARRY NAGER The Cincinnati Enquirer Stadium names and even stadiums themselves come and go, but for stadium soul music festival producer Joe Santangelo, one thing doesn't change Frankie Beverly. "The last year they didn't have us, even the promoter said, We really missed having you guys says the veteran soul singer and front man for the group Maze.

"The people asked about us, and there were more than a little bit of inquiries as to why we weren't there." Along with the pride in his voice, Mr. Beverly's position as the stadium fest's leading man (he and Maze have head- -lined five of ItyOUQO the last seven Concert, ticket festivals) also information, E2 has some material benefits, he confesses with a ready laugh. "I think he (Mr. Santangelo) added on a little more (money) because of that." After missing 1995, Maze featuring Frankie Beverly returned to the 1996 lineup, and the Oakland-based group is back to stay, if producer Satangelo has anything to say about it- At a time when there's little longevity in Mr. Beverly's group is a perennial concert favorite.

Selling out concerts without the help of hit records, Maze has become a soul music version of its old Bay area neighbors the Grateful Dead. It's a comparison Mr. Beverly readily acknowledges in discussing his Maze Craze. "Where we are in this mix of the music business is unique. No one is here with us.

We're kind of a cult band, but it's bigger than that," he JIM KNIPPENBERG PSSTl Hot art now playing at bus stop near you Going to prove once again, art is art, even when it's waiting for the bus. Turns out the hot collectible nowadays is bus shelter art You know, the 4-foot by 6-foot posters behind heavy-duty plastic at local bus shelters. Peter Eden runs Media, the ad agency that puts them up. In the past year, he says, bus riders, drivers and pedestrians have wanted to buy them. Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame posters 40 shelters in July of '96 tied up his phones for weeks.

The Art Museum's Mistress of the House, Mistress of Heaven did the same last October. Big seller was an Egyptian princess in full headdress. Eden's staff called her Princess of the Morning because of commuters who saw it and called when they got to work. TheTaft Museum's Romance and Chivalry show of Victorian art had drivers screeching to a halt in January of this year. Several folks got one everyone from Mayor Roxanne Quails to a jogger who just had to have it Now it's the opera, specifically shots touting Lucia, Falstaff, Barber of Seville and Carmen on 10 shelters and 50 buses.

Suggested by assistant manaeine I Ik In hi I AMMI MMoOlt HI MAI I IIAUIII Ol SI VII I HSU Opera ad mi 33 ft ill f.l The Cincinnati EnquirerRob Schuster It time for TV NEWS Frankie UCVC BY JOHN KIESEWETTER The Cincinnati Enquirer More news has been good news for local TV stations. "If you put on TV news, we know people will watch. We know people here are really attracted to local news," says Steve Minium, WKRC-TV vice president and news director. In the past decade, viewers have seen an explosion of TV news: The city's three longtime network affiliates now air more than four hours of local M0r6 news each week- newsmags day, with 90- Network news- minute local magazines morning and late abound this fall, afternoon shows. EH Channel 12, which leads Tris-tate stations with 4 hours of local news, has added two newscasts in 10 months the 43-minute local slice of the 7-8 a.m.

CBS This Morning in September and a 4 p.m. news, which launched July 7. Fox affiliate WXK-TV, which created the city's fourth TV newsroom in 1993, now airs hours of weekday TV news. It debuted the city's first 11:30 a.m. weekday newscast June 16.

more adding newscasts increases the number of local commercials, which increase station revenues. TV news is particularly good business in Cincinnati, where ratings for prime-time magazines like 48 Hours and PrimeTime Live exceed the national average. "There is a higher interest in news here, and news-related matter, than in other parts of the country," says Stuart Powell, Channel 19 general manager. "When news breaks, viewership here goes way up." Mr. Powell's $2 million gamble to create a news department four years ago has paid dividends faster than anticipated.

The city's "first and only 10 o'clock news" averaged a 7.7 rating (58,500 households) in May, the highest ratings since the newscast expanded from 30 minutes to an hour in January 1996. It's also one of the highest-rated 10 p.m. newscasts in the country. "Adding a 10 p.m. news was smart, because some people don't want to wait until 11 p.m.," says J.B.

Chase, Channel 9 general manager. Lifestyle changes also prompted TV stations to expand morning newscasts (Please see NEWS, Page Ell) read identical scripts from the night before. Figuring that few people up that late would be watching so early, TV stations are serving a different audience with the same product But the 6-7 a.m. news, and Channel 19's 7-9 a.m. news also relied heavily on video and quotes from the previous night.

It's not unusual at 6 a.m. to hear the recorded voices of late news personalities Clyde Gray, Dennis Janson, (Channel 9), Norma Rashid, Charlie Luken (Channel 5) and Greg Hoard (Channel 19). Repetition is the morning TV news format, which is more like morning radio than the evening TV news. 'Top stories" mostly rehashes from the previous night are repeated up to five times an hour as busy viewers wake up, shower, eat and start their day. Afternoon newscasts which have expanded to 90 minutes in the past 10 years also continued to repeat stories.

Each half hour, all three stations reported the Chevie Kehoe capture (Please see KIESEWETrER. Page Ell) director Patty Beggs, illustrated by nationally known artist Rafel Olbinsld, designed by Cincinnatian Liz Kathman Grubow, posters are stylized, surreal shots depicting an opera's theme. And yes, calls have begun. Eden has had several. Beggs gets them weekly.

Alan Brown, the designer named on the shelters, has had a batch. So, are they for sale? Beggs says there are two complete sets. "WeH keep one for our offices. The other set, I haven't decided, but I'm keeping a list of people who want them." HAPPY HORRORS: Well, zowie.it looks as if Fright Mares is a go. And not just any go.

It's a go that brings horror film royalty to town. Fright Mares is the Dreamline Productions film that co-producers Lonzo Jones and Steve Grothaus will shoot here in August and at Hocking Hills and other sites. Jones (Unsolved Mysteries, Real Stories of the Highway Patrol, Zombie Cult Massacre) and Grothaus wrote the screenplay and recently began lining up cast and crew. They got some whoppers: Makeup artist Tom Savini, one of the best in this creepy business, will do faces. He has also done Creepshow, Friday the 13th and From Dusk Till Dawn.

Actors Debbie Rochon (Abducted II, New York Undercover); Michael Berryman (Tlie Hills Have Eyes, Die X-Files); Bill Hinzman (Night of the Living Dead). Oh yeah, want to be in it? Or on the crew? There are open auditions for extras ages 18-35 at 9 a.m.-5 p.m. July 27 at the Shera-ton-Springdale Bring a picture and resume. BUG TALES: Got a good bug story? Bug, as in Volkswagen Beetle. Cincinnatian Paul Webahn for his book of anecdotes about Beetles, VW buses and Karmann Ghias.

He already has some: Tales of emergency and cramped childbirth; breakdowns in crazy places; renovation; road trips of all sorts. But he needs more. Got one? Funny, whimsical, bizarre, touching, embarrassing? Call Klebahn's Bug Tales hot line at 956-7459. Or write to P.O. Box 76272, Highland Heights, Ky.

41076.. Contributors get credit a book and a T-shirt. Psst! appears Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Have an item to report? Call Jim Knippenberg at fax: says. "Everybody does- nt hear us, but the people who do hear us hear the (daylights) out of us.

They really are fans and family members for life." Maze has been based in Oakland since the band relocated from its native Philadelphia in 1972. Through chang ing tastes and dozens of styles from disco to hip-hop, the Maze sound has remained the same classic soul with touches of jazz, all held together by Mr. Beverly's gruff vocals. Members of the Maze Craze long (Please see FEST, Page E2) 'Zits' replaces 'The Magic Eye' Starting today, we're adding a new comic strip, "Zits," to the Sunday lineup and dropping "The Magic Eye." "Zits," which debuted in the daily pages Monday, is by Enquirer editorial cartoonist Jim Borgman and "Baby Blues" co-author Jerry Scott. The lead character, Jeremy Duncan, is a 15 year-old budding musician and medium-deep thinker.

Other regular characters are Jeremy's: Parents, Walt and Connie (dad is an orthodontist; mom has a flex-time job). Older brother, Chad (who's away at college so he doesn't appear in the strip). Best friends, Hector Garcia and Sarah Toomey (she's also his budding love interest). Look for other changes in our comics later this summer, as well as the results of our comics poll. We're still compiling and analyzing the response, which was overwhelming.

More than 7,200 of you replied over twice the number of responses to our last poll three years ago. Sara Pearce ftH rri'U Local stations add shows, increase profits Weekend morning news began sprouting in 1992. Tristate viewers can watch 15 hours of local weekend news, including five hours on Saturday morning. Ten years ago, viewers saw only six hours of local weekend news 6 and 11 p.m. half-hour reports on Saturday and Sunday.

National TV news has boomed. Four news cable channels launched last year (MSNBC, Fox News, ESP-NEWS, CNNSD, joining CNN, CNN Headline and CNNfn (financial news). With Bryant Gumbel's CBS magazine debuting this fall, and ABC's new Thursday 2020, viewers will see 10 prime-time news programs in September. In the past decade, TV news has become the profit center for local stations, as live entertainment programming was in the 1950s and 1960s. And JOHN KIESEWETTER TELEVISION Obviously she was asleep when all four stations reported the arrest and broadcast the Wilmington video on their late news the night before.

And she ignored that fact that Mr. Kehoe's surrender had been reported three times that morning, in the a.m. news she anchored with Greg McKinney. It's safe to say that all Channel 5 viewers knew Mr. Kehoe was in custody by 7 a.m.

That story was mentioned four times that hour, for a total of seven times in 90 minutes. On this day, half of the news on the a.m. broadcasts on Channels 5 and 9 were repeats from the previous 11 p.m. newscasts. Sometimes anchors mi'ilJIIillfllfWTW' 1 Ft.

I More newscasts, yes, but not more news More TV newscasts don't necessarily mean more TV news. The hours of local TV news have doubled since 1990, but not the amount of news content. A random review of a June broadcast day more than 16 hours of TV news on Tuesday, June 17 found that viewers get lots of repeated stories, numerous weather updates and plentiful promotion for upcoming reports. A perfect example of TV news recycling was the repetitious airing of the Kehoe brothers' videotaped shoot-out with Wilmington police on the day after Cheyne Kehoe surrendered in Washington. It remained a breaking story on June 17, as authorities captured brother Chevie Kehoe that afternoon.

WKRC-TV (Channel 12) and WLWT (Channel 5) each broadcast all or part of the shootout clip 19 times that day. WCPO-TV (Channel 9) aired it 14 times, while WXIX-TV (Channel 19) played it nine times. "This Kehoe surrender comes as quite a surprise this morning," commented Lisa Cooney on Channel 5's 6 a.m. news. m4 Coming Friday: The 1997 Coors Light Festival, three days of music.

MR III Jeremy from "Zits".