The Akron Beacon Journal from Akron, Ohio • Page 128

da As ASSAINT 40 cal WEWS co-anchors Ted Henry and Lorna Barrett deliver a 6 p.m. newscast behind a bank of monitors in the station studio. Continued from page 9 tures and sound. To deliver all the digital information required for such quality, each station needs a wider electronic spectrum. So the FCC handed each existing station the additional frequencies.

As it turns out, though, you don't necessarily have to use that wider spectrum for HDTV; you could also use the extra space to broadcast four, five or even six traditional channels. "I think we're going to see sort of a hybrid system," predicts Dominic. "You will see the full HDTV from the networks in prime time for hit shows like ER but at all other times, the local stations may use those other channels. If that happens, every television station in the country could then become four television stations. Well, they have to put something on those other channels." Shazam! An Akron TV station.

At least part of the time. In whatever form an Akron newscast might take, says Dominic, a longtime Akron resident, it has the potential to make sizable waves. "If we got it on the air and it truly was a quality product, then I think people would watch, and in large numbers. (Akron viewers would) rather watch an Akron-Canton newscast than a Cleveland newscast provided it was of the same quality." In the middle of the 6 p.m. show, Mansfield learns through an e-mail that his superiors in Cleveland want him to MAGAZINE June 13, 1999 rework a big prerecorded story scheduled for 11 p.m.

a package completed and approved long ago. The powersthat-be have decided his piece a look back at the unsolved double murder of two North Hill teens needs more punch. Can't he say there are new leads? No, he says, he can't. Although a new detective is on the case, there are no new leads, and he doesn't want to give false hope to the victims' families. Well, he is told, the piece needs more focus especially during a big ratings month.

Mansfield calls his wife to tell her his eight-hour day is about to become a 15- hour day another day when he won't see his young kids before bedtime. At 7:15 p.m., he drives to Cleveland to rework his story, thinking about ways to "sex it up" without fudging the facts. At 11:17 p.m., about 135,000 Northeast Ohio households are tuned to his report completely unaware of the internal debate. In the end, only five or six words of the 2-minute, 14-second story are changed and there's nothing at all about "new clues." Mansfield has won the battle. Despite the ever-growing frenzy to attract a bigger slice of a constantly shrinking pie, good journalism has triumphed over hype.

This time.B Bob Dyer is a staff writer and columnist for the magazine. He can be reached at 330- 996-3580 or at By the numbers If you could pick up the city of Akron, carry it away from the shadow of Cleveland and plop it down in, say, Holmes County, it would be a medium-size TV market with at least three or four network affiliates. As things stand, however, Akron is a nonentity. The Nielsen ratings company recognizes 214 U.S. television markets, and Akron is not among them.

If you consider the Beacon Journal's primary five-county circulation area Summit, Stark, Portage, Medina and Wayne counties Akron would be the 56th biggest TV market in the country. Its 495,600 households would place it just behind and just ahead of Little Bluff, Ark. Even if you limit your definition of Akron to the federal government's Metropolitan Statistical Area Summit and Portage counties Akron's 262,000 households would make it the No. 100 TV market, just behind El Paso, Texas, and ahead of Savannah, Ga. The Cleveland ratings area, which encompasses 17 counties and nearly 1.5 million TV households, ranks 13th nationally, just behind and directly ahead of Paul, Pete and Lauderdale.

BOB DYER PAGE 12 SUNDAY BEACON wwww.Ohio.com.