The Akron Beacon Journal from Akron, Ohio • Page 192

4 Akron Beacon Journal Sunday, April 16, 1978 Akron's only TV station marks its 25th anniversary this year, but life is still a matter of 51 ti tfW I til 3 4t Af i nl tKiAiW'IWMMMMMMMMM8M ft 1 miUft 111 Mil surviving, i Beacon Journal photo by Don Roese i shadow of the monster to the north By GERI COLEMAN 'Hc're hod tome problems getting advertising. IV been a long, uphill Bob Bostian I I I TV signal over Canton, which increased its potential viewing audience to about 000 in Summit and Stark Counties. BOSTIAN SAID 20,000 to 100,000 people tune in any one program on WAKR the average being about 40,0000. That, he admits, is not much compared to Cleveland stations that pull in 500,000 to a million viewers on some programs. WEWS, Channel 5 in Cleveland, also an ABC affiliate, has a average viewing audience of about 500,000, a spokesman there said.

Bostian said several reasons exist for the wide variance in audiences for the two ABC stations. The biggest problem, he said, is Channel 23's identity problem. He said informal phone surveys of people who were watching programs shown exclusively on WAKR revealed that viewers overwhelmingly thought they were tuned to WEWS. "How you get over a problem like that, 1 just don't know," he said. Bostian said the problem was the same with cable television.

WAKR has been See IDENTITY, page Beacon Journal Staff Writer For WAKR-TV, life is a matter of surviving in the shadow of that big monster to the north Cleveland television. With a staff of 100, both full- and part-time, its seven regular locally produced shows plus two daily news broadcasts and some irregularly produced programs WAKR manages to stay alive, despite an operation that has been losing money for years, according to station manager Bob Bostian. In fact, WAKR will celebrate its 25th anniversary in July, he said. HOW DOES WAKR keep its tubes lit despite competition from larger network and independent TV stations in Cleveland? "We give our viewers lots of Akron news and public service announcements," Bostian said. "We are a local TV station in the truest sense of the word." Bostian, who has been with the ABC affiliate since its earliest days, remembers a time when Akron home receivers could not pick up Cleveland TV stations because of their low power outputs.

"That's probably the biggest reason we decided to put a TV station here," he said. assigned solely to Channel 23 with its more powerful transmitter. About 18 months ago, Knight-Ridder surrendered its 45 percent interest in Summit Radio and other related companies. Eventually, Akron's only TV station went to color production. And last November came the ultimate in expansion a SO SUMMIT RADIO a member of Group One Broadcasting, and Knight Newspapers (now Knight-Ridder) applied to the FCC and won a permit to broadcast on Channel 49.

In November 1967, the FCC permitted WAKR to broadcast on both Channels 49 and 23. The following January, WAKR was Call for Free Es timate All Werk Guaranteed and Insured Listed East Ohio Gat Contractor COMPLETE REMODELING SERVICE 027 745-89 (EIXIORE INSTALLATION 1000 more blvd..