The Akron Beacon Journal from Akron, Ohio • Page 120

fx story by BOB DYER photos by MIKE CARDEW As residents clamor for a new Akron TV station, media companies shuffle the deck 1 I 1 i '') has one. North Platte, has one. Even Glendive, Mont. with 4,030 households has one. Akron doesn't You probably already know, given the photos and headlines, that we're talking about television stations.

But you might not realize exactly how Haute, Ind. barely a quarter the size of Akron has three. The main reason for this sorry state of video affairs is, of course, geography. These other cities don't live in the shadow of a metropolis. Akron is only 29 miles from Cleveland as the TV signal flies close enough for decent reception even with an old-fashioned rabbit-ear antenna.

But geography alone can't explain it. The city of Tacoma, is only 26 miles from bustling Seattle. Seattle is slightly bigger than Cleveland, and Tacoma is significantly smaller than Akron. Yet Tacoma has its own network affiliate. That pattern is repeated all over the continent, with sister cities both closer together and farther apart.

In Dallas-Fort Worth (33 miles) Miami-Fort Lauderdale (26 miles) Tampa-St. Pete (17 miles) San Francisco-Oakland (18 miles) Oakland-San Jose (38 miles) Minneapolis-St. Paul (8 miles) the -smaller city can claim at least one commercial station that's hooked up with a national network. Why has Akron become an anachronism? Bad timing. Bad luck.

Old-fashioned ineptitude. Pick one, pick all. The more important question is whether anyone can do anything about it. As assorted media companies scramble to fill the void, the ultimate answer may involve new technology. Reporter Eric Mansfield and videog- WEWS (Channel 5) co-anchor Lorna Barrett takes advantage of a commercial break during the 6 p.m.

news to check her hair. rapher Carl Bachtel are whizzing along a side street on Akron's northwest side, heading for a fire they heard about on the police scanner at the Akron bureau ofWKYC (Channel 3), the NBC entry in Cleveland. Bachtel stops, grudgingly, at a red light. "Just blow it," Mansfield urges. Bachtel does.

Soon they arrive at a small fire on Oakdale Court. Smoke is coming from an upstairs window at a ramshackle house. Firemen chop away at the siding. Two neighborhood boys start jumping up and down, urging Bachtel to put them on camera. "Back off, please!" he unusual Akron's TV plight really is: This is the second-biggest city in America without its own network affiliate.

Only Newark a mere 13 miles from Manhattan, the media capital of the world has less to show for its size. Heck, the struggling Ohio River town of Steubenville boasts an affiliate. Little Cape Girardeau, has two. Terre PAGE 4 SUNDAY BEACON MAGAZINE June 13, 1999 www.Ohio.com.