The Akron Beacon Journal from Akron, Ohio • Page 39

The Beacon Journal Sunday, July 7, 1991, Page D7 ii. OHSICIS (QLOXOlOrS fflfflOlOl ItW'GFm WAKC ENTIRE LINEN WEAVES 50off! Station is concerned with delivering the news in a direct manner without the entertainment frills STOCK PLUS MANY OTHER FABRICS REDUCED 30 to 50. DMC "it i i ENTIRE STOCK IJ CRAFT SUPPLIES it -REGULAR NOTIONS; i tmtSnUIUtnT MOSS 1 ifr Asia Bte '-li'iili'Mi iraxliimn M-Y'l'sri sir I M3 91 -HkV. XI LOCK "'I 45 Uoweacnea 5PfCIl GROUP1 riFSOFRRIITTdNS SERGER THREAD Mini iSHS. T3X SI cm.

ii am COTTONCALICOS i I ru91 1 I mm land stations. And he's happy his bosses don't pressure him to conform. "I found more people in this community say, 'It's so great watching you because you don't screw around, you don't wear goof-ball clothes, you don't laugh and giggle. I watch you because I just want to know what The station might induce more folks to feel that way with a bigger promotional effort. In 12 years on the air, for instance, Williamson's face smiling or otherwise has never appeared on a single billboard.

Berk does not see a lack of promotion as a major shortcoming: "There's a lot of ways to divide your resources. Our promotions push has been in things like the Children's Hospital telethon. This year, we raised $430,000. We put a lot of importance in that, and put less in the advertising aspects." A commendable outlook in many respects. But given that approach, it should come as no surprise that Channel 23 has failed to generate excitement about its personalities.

The ultimate affront may have come on June 17. When Kambrich wrapped up his late newscast at 11:30, he returned to the newsroom and found reporter Lita Jensen and two interns glued to you guessed it the farewell appearance of Robin Swo-boda. The next day, Kambrich told Williamson: "I looked at them, and it was like there was a strobe coming out of the TV screen. Drool was coming out of the sides of their mouth. They lost all bodily functions.

"You know what it's like for me to bust my chops out there for half an hour and come in and see my own co-workers watching Robin Swoboda say goodbye?" Williamson does, indeed. But Williamson also is a patient man. "It's sort of a Zen philosophy: If you just do it, if you play golf fundamentally the right way, sooner or later you're gonna hit the ball right and you're going to win," he said. I ffy i firm-'' I Hyj ENTIRE STOCK I Ej SPECIAL GROUP I S3 COATS CLARK cunill flFR PMS Si23 Rihhnn siK-IMIlWARQ NEEDLES i 1 i BEADS BY THE YARD a 1 1 w. inuuuii alk, 1 j.aiiESS, -SIS Bta.

WOOLS itf ISS1 I slew (u.i.ij switch." On the other hand, anecdotal evidence suggests that progress is being made. Williamson, a 12-year veteran, and late-night anchor Jim Kambrich, a 10-year vet, are recognized much more often on the street. When Channel 23 airs a feature story about a small business, the business can be inundated with customers the following day. More calls and letters arrive at the station than ever before. But the universally accepted standard when it comes to television the ratings book shows that Channel 23 still has a long way to go.

Officially, the station refuses to acknowledge even a hint of a ratings problem. General Manager Roger Berk grandson of the founder, said he is completely satisfied with WAKC's viewership. He claims Arbitron's numbers are invalid. But despite Berk's protestations that all is well, the station as much as acknowledged its ratings woes with one of its. own long-running promotions.

Until recently, Channel 23 aired Ted Koppel's Nightline a half-hour earlier than did Channel 5. During the first commercial break each night, Channel 23's Kambrich would come on and say something like: "If you were watching Cleveland television news at 11 o'clock, you saw only two stories about Akron. If you had been watching Channel 23, you would have seen 14 Akron stories. In other words, the station knew that many viewers were switching over from Cleveland news to watch Nightline at an earlier time. Berk 'is adamant in claiming people who watch Cleveland stations get virtually no real Akron news.

"They've closed news bureaus in Akron recently, most all of them, through budget cuts," he insists. 5 EXAMS I TISQl 5 EIS I J13'91 I B1 111 a I vtwtm 1 7nQi fc. .......4.. MM I I I F' tNIWE stock I entire stock i I lESJ RFRIII 1R RIITMNS mIBSJ sr.lSSflRSHPINKFRS RUFFLED TRIM 5 I MTIRK STOCK EYELET LACE CRAFT BOOKS lRi i mm i 1 Hiltfl 9 EXPIRES 7- r. .1 i-tk-ii ii" oni ikirk r.

i nni in JI wci cooos ttiort mm TRANS-WEB Si 51 THRFAn I iBl EMBROIDERY HOOPS lll1 premium filling CI1MT 3r I I LUH tww CM our 3 I BtSI 3F cwnifice I EXPIRES X. liliU'K1 a iiif mwi a 1 uii nr "LUC ft 7 IO A 4MlmikKiiAiARMMKl 4 1 1'." i j.iii j.i KHiWHiMmttunTI I tUiJ MWIHO mchih kfuu.im anu ny 12 WORKS LIKE VELCRO5! DRITZ ROTARY CUTTER MAT it HOOK ft LOOP FASTNER Continued from Page Dl Channel 23's "11 o'clock" news and get only a third-quarter Cavs score. Straight news delivery Still more of the station's audience problems derive from Channel 23's unwillingness or inability to inject its newscasts with the entertainment values that have become the norm in Cleveland. "We can't compete with the fun stuff," said Williamson, 34. "We can't compete with the set, the lighting, the clothes, the nice-looking people, the high salaries.

All we can do to compete is give people something they can't get from the other stations" namely, a bundle of Akron news. In another era, that might have been plenty. Williamson thinks it still ought to be plenty. He would rather jump off the All-America Bridge than bring his dog onto the set. "You're not the message, you're the medium," he said, exasperated, when a reporter characterizes WAKC's newscasts as somewhat stodgy.

"You just deliver the news. And you don't tell people how to think. You don't tell them it's an 'awful' murder. Yeah, it's awful that the kid got run over by the steamroller. We don't ask his mother, 'How do you I don't do that because you know how she feels, for crissakes." As he loosens his tie during a long chat following a newscast, a decade of frustration comes flowing out.

"When you're trying to be a bastion of principled journalism in an area where maybe it isn't revered or respected or even acknowledged, I can't see selling out just to get that attention. I do this because I'm serious about it and I really feel it needs to be done this way. Somebody's got to do it." In the past year or so, Channel 23 has made a couple concessions to show biz, equipping its studio cameras with TelePrompTers and finally introducing electronic weather maps. A bigger technological problem is historical: Ever since S. Bernard Berk founded the station 38 years ago, WAKC has been a UHF station, meaning viewers had a tougher time receiving it than a standard VHF station (channels 2 through 13).

Although the growth of cable television has eased that problem considerably, old viewing habits die hard. Overlapping communities And with Cleveland stations offering a smattering of Akron news, there's just not enough incentive to alter long-standing habits. Notes former Channel 23 General Manager Fred Anthony, now a local radio executive: "like it or not, the two communities are much more married today than they ever were. There's much more of an interchange in terms of government and social things. It's very difficult to get people to IWTCDCAP1WP tsa NEEDLESS 111 1 Linnuiiu value 5w Si I IS LUC I mm mm mmmM mmm tmm S3H S20 9S REG $1495 mm ainan fLTU2 I Bl mi mm i ltd I I I I Hi EXPIRES I EXPHES HZ EXPIRES I In 71391 "Jgm" Kill 71391 WW.

W(ii'Si'it'. lj SALE starts SUNDAY thru SATURDAY 3103 mg Id. AcrOMErOM RoRintt AtfM ChapdHflSq. 1431 UttoinRi Akran 2919 W. Marlwt Conlwi liUMPkiio Shopping CmHw OohamRd.

011.8 HJ OPEN DAlLY10to9SUNDAYinO!) Akron bureaus Actually, Channels 3, 5 and 8 all have bureaus here. "Well, maybe they have a phone," Berk responded, "but on a regular daily basis I don't believe any of them have people assigned in Akron full-time any more." That must come as quite a surprise to Paul Rae of WKYC (Channel 3), Don Olson of WJW (Channel 8) and Ross Kirgiss of Channel 5, all of whom remain remain alive, well and working full time in Akron. There's no denying, though, that Channel 23 is the place to turn for those who want an Akron focus. The station's 22 full- and eight part-time news employees devote most of their time to airing stories in and around the city. While the station frequently ventures into Stark, Portage and Medina counties, it rarely goes north of the Summit line.

Williamson doesn't think the highly localized approach chases away potential viewers. He thinks the main problem is that viewers have been conditioned by the song-and-dance routines of the Cleve We Guarantee These Prices To Be The Lowest And Best Values In The TrhCounty Area! Examples of Savings BLAZER Solid color saxony finish Availble in 22 luscious colors Nylon yarn with Scotchguard Stain Release Reg. Price $23.00 SUMMER SIZZLER PRICE ELOQUENCE Very thick and luscious saxony by Karastan Availble in an amazing 75 colors 100 Anso worry free with built-in stain resistance Reg. Price $50.00 SUMMER SIZZLER PRICE TEMPE Multi-color cut loop Anso nylon with Scotchguard Stain Release i Availble in 12 contemporary colors Reg. Price $21.00 SUMMER SIZZLER PRICE WAKC questions validity of ratings SPECTACULAR IMAGE Thick and dense saxony finish Availble in 32 solid colors Nylon with Scotchguard Stain Release Reg.

Price $29.00 SUMMER SIZZLER PRICE INSTALLED 77 77 ml 95 And in the annual County Coverage ratings book, the most damning of all for WAKC, 587 Summit households were included. Granted, even 587 households is not a huge sample. But if the margin of error is relatively high, wouldn't Channel 23 occasionally show up with an overly large rating? "The big money for Arbitron INSTALLED INSTALLED INSTALLED comes from the Cleveland VHS stations, and it's not in (Ar 6 MONTHS SAME AS CASH TO QUALIFIED BUYERS CARPET BUYERS WITH APPROVED CREDIT bitron's) best interest to statist! cally represent us any better than they do," Berk said. So you re saying Arbitron is cooking the numbers? "Absolutely not," he replied just that the NOT ONE CENT INTEREST NOT ONE CENT SPENT UNTIL JANUARY 1992 system is geared toward serving Cleveland stations. All Products Drastically Reduced At A Savings Of 30 50 OFF our regular prices HURRY -SALE ENDS MY 27, 1991 All Prices Include Lifetime Cushion Guarantee 10 Discount on Next Purchase 5 Year Wear Warranty 10 Year Installation Guarantee Free Carpet Cleaning "It's not in (Arbitron's) best interest to take Akron out of the Summit County is 14 of Cleveland market Summit is one of 17 counties that make up a region know as the Cleveland ADI, or area of dominant influence.

Nobody expects an Akron-oriented station to get huge numbers throughout a region that sprawls from Ashtabula County to Tuscarawas County to Erie County. On the other hand, Summit does account for 14 percent of the ADI's population. And the local five-county area Summit, Portage, Medina, Stark and Wayne is home to fully one-third of the people in the Cleveland ADI. In that context, Channel 23's share of the news audience 3 percent of the viewers at 6 p.m., 1 percent at 11 p.m. seems pretty lame.

WAKC General Manager Roger Berk Jr. contends those numbers are statistically invalid: "There are thousands of reasons why the ratings are stacked against us." Asked to count the ways, he said: "The differential of UHF and VHF because they don't use cable homes." Actually, said Arbitron, they do use cable homes in numbers directly proportional to the number of cable homes. "Two or three diaries represent our total ratings one way or the other." Actually, said Arbitron, 141 usable diaries were returned by Summit Countians for the most recent monthly ratings book. That accounts for 12 percent of the diaries in the entire ADI. ENJOY NOW PAY LATER! NOT ONE CENT FOR DOWN PAYMENT ADI and make an Akron ADI." Well, Arbitron responded, that would be impossible: By definition, an ADI is determined by the viewing habits of the people in the mcluded counties.

Said Arbitron spokeswoman Shelly Cagner: "The ADI is based on what the people in the counties are watching. For example, New York City's ADI includes Pike County, because when we review this every year, the majority of viewing in Pike County is New York stations rather than Phila KEMT 1510 S. Water St. (near University Plaza) 673-5178 AKRON 1783 Brittain Rd. (across from Chapel Hill) 633-3030 delphia stations.

Some coun ties switch back and forth every year. "If (Summit Countians) were "We Definitely Treat You Better Than Right" OPEN DAILY 9AM-9PM SATURDAY 9AM-5PM watching TV stations that origi er-CrtrtrtrK)noMonMnloCornpiy nate in Akron, Akron would have rratnc Control tradtnwti o( Monunto Company its own ADI. It's that simple." BOB DYER I.