The Akron Beacon Journal from Akron, Ohio • Page A003

CCYYMK www.dimitroffsfurnishings.com FURNITURE DESIGN 981 Ghent Rd. Bath, Ohio 330-666-0786 (at the corner of Ghent I-77) Th 10-8, Tues, Fri 10-6 Sat 10-5, Sun 12-5 NEW HOURS Sweet Dreams at Sweet Prices Queen Bed 655 A A A A HENKEL HARRIS BROWN STREET CHATHAM HICKORY WHITE HARDEN LANE BASSETT Over 35 Bedrooms On Display Over One Acre Of Furniture Under Roof News Audience is looking more to the Internet ontinued from Page A1 itaA ndolsensaid Wednesday over lunch at the Crave restaurant with Mansfield andS pector sky a we always have ecause obviously wewill have fewerpeople confident that Eric will give us the meatystories the stories that matter the important thingsthat are going A ndolsen noted that the station sI nternetpresence at http: w.w c.c gives it a place to put some A kron anton stories that make it on air. ansfield already has a blog on the site.) tories will compete till asked if there will bea specific A kron antonsegment on the nightly news, she said, want to say we re going to have anA kronblock and fill it with whatever we can put in there. The Akron stories will compete with news stories from across the area. But, again think with Er i of expertise will see a fair amount fAkron area enever been out of touch even though I vebeen on the evening shift for the last few years ansfieldadded already working on stories for next week.

And one thing never been afraid to do is send additional reporters, additional photographers levelandbase here when a story warrants it. very passionateabout covering the he said. egoing to do our best every day. not justgoing to cover the front page story out of the Beacon or whatever crime of the day third of our service area is Ak n-Ca pectorsky Bu ti area that hasstrug gled to have its own full service newscast for more than a decade. heM ansfield anchored newscast began with greatopti mism on June 13, 2001, morethan five years after Akron had lostits TV news standard bearer telecasts on what was then WAKC hannel2 3).

axson cuts news heA kron newscasts dated back to1953 when the station had gone on the air as WAKR hannel4 uti nFebruary 1996 a new owner, Paxson Co m- munications over Channel 23 and immediately dropped both newscasts and abouttwo thirds of the sstaff axson had previously killeda antonnewscast and cut staff at WOAC hannel6 it took over operations of thatsta tion in November 1995. hileC leveland basedsta tions cover local news and maintain bureaus in the Akron and antonareas they do so aspart falarger mandate to cover ortheastO hio ocalviewers felt they were entitled to their own news, although it did not go unnoticed that the actual audience was small. like when i closed kronM ayorDo nPl s- quellic said at the time. said it was such a shame, and I asked nwas the last time you shopped utA kron in particular demanded local news. Some modest attempts were made.

And, in 1999 city strong armed 300 000out of Paxson for local news initiatives, in exchangefor permitting the constructiono fa new tower for Channel 23. Th efollowing year, owner annett a deal with Paxson to provide services in markets where both had stations Northeast hio Th edeal gave WKYC theoption to produce local and that opened the door for the A kron antonnews A dvertisers were lined up for what was at first known as ax 2 3News The Paxson seed money and another 475 000in local government support helpedfund the creation of a studio. A reporter covering the official announcement of the newscast compared it to a pep rally complete with University of Akron cheerleaders wearing han nel 23 logos. mallviewership he viewership for the 6 30 p.m weeknight newscast wasrel atively small, 14 000 to 20 000 households in the earlydays which was about 1.4 percent of the total TV audiencei nNorth east hio according to Nielsen estimates hat was good enough at first to beat the national news on WOIO( hannel 1 was in the early stages of carrying its own andCBS newscasts hannel3 estimates at the time said the Channel 23 news was drawing about 5 percent of the A kron antonaudi ence utthere were drawbacks from thebeginning 0 p.m. newscast necessitated by hannel3 producing its own news at 6 p.m., started at an odd time for local TV news viewers, and against the majornational network newscasts.

The1 0p.m. newscast added in 2003 had to compete against network entertainment programming and two established 10 p.m. newscasts from leveland A ndS pectorsky said that it was difficult to get attentionfor the Akron operation because it wasn tfundamentally designed for breaking news. hannel3, when we were on2 7 anything happened, we would breaki said. lived and breathednews heA kron anton news just wasn built that It i the airwaves round the clock on WVPX or later onT imeW arner i have afull time ready to go operation a snot i pectorskysaid A ndC hannel3 was the big dog Eric broke a story, andhe broke a lot of them, we were going to put it on the big channel that gets Spector sky said.

The Akron antonr e- porters were scooping themselves putting storieson air before theirown telecast till if the arrangementwith axson had continued, Spector sky said, the newscastsmight have been healthy enough to keep going. Buti nMarch 2005, axson which had problems of its own opted out of the Ga n- nett deal. Soon enough, the news was looking for a home. ove to cable In July 2005, it moved into one nTime Warner able the circumstances were different from what they had beenon hannel2 3.I twas no longer available over the air, or to people not getting Time arner to people getting Time Warner outside ofS ummit tark ayne ortage and Medina ounties he cable ssu b- scribers also had to find it in a new channelposition even being on cable channel 23, as it was i nAkron was confusing toview ers used to finding WVPX broadcast Channel 23 on cable channel 4. An dbeing on cable channels that did not have aregularly watched lineup of entertainment programs made it harder toget people in the habit of turning to that channel, Spectorsky said.

least Pax had some viewer- ship for their other By 2006 the news had six-f i g- ure losses annually. The audience wasminuscule here hannel 3 might have 100 000 homes tuned to itsearly evening news pectorskysaid fwe were getting 2 for the Akron antonnews I wouldbe very In March of thatyear a n- nel 3 warned that it might drop the news if things did not improve lusquellicmet with community leaders and enough support was found to keep the telecasts going. was goingalong losing a little money, then it would break even then lose a little pectorskysaid could deal with that when the big station was doing Bu tthe later downturn inthe economy is affecting media companies and advertisers across the board A growing portion ofthe news audience is lookingmore to the Internet than to traditional news sources, including network TV and print. ucan go online and get anything youw a A ndol sen efound not just the younger people. Mo and more folks in olderage groups are gettingcomputers and our seniors are a growing area of folks that have access to the I nternet Why wait until 6o 0or 10 or 11 to get your news when you thave to a i pectorsky said thosef made it harder to justify thee x- pense ofa nAkron news, especially when he was havingto make cuts in the Cleveland operation eproud of the of theA kronnews he said.

to giveu po nAkron at all. This is strictly aneconom ic hope people will see that we added ansfield stepped up when nobody was stepping up. not likethere was a line of people outside ayorP lusquellic soffice saying want to talk to you about putting a newscast We gave it our best ichH eldenfelswrites about popular culture for the Beacon Journal and in a blog at www ohio com can be reached at 330-9 9 63582 and rheldenfels thebeacon journal com Oil Speculators accused of running up prices ontinued from Page A1 the problem (of soaring prices) disappears he said. till the CFTC action will have a chilling on speculative enthusiasm for energy futures, Simons predict- a tthey re saying ueither stop this or we re going to stop it for ommoditiesmarkets have always attracted speculatorswho try to make fortunes by betting on the shifting prices of everything from pork bellies tooil today commodities markets are flooded with money from deep- pocketed investors such as corporate and government pension funds endowments and foreign ownedinvestment vehicles called sovereign wealth funds heseplayers called index speculators outnumber the investors who plan to take deliv- ery of a barrel of oil or a bushel of corn. Index speculators tend to distribute their money across an index of two dozen or so major commodities andessentially bet that prices will gou p.

In industry parlance, they ol I famajor price drop occurs, this relatively new breed of investors will want out of energy futures at the same time, and it will be like entering a revolving door at the wrong time in the wrong according to ameronH anoverIn c.P resident Peter eutel U.S. Sen. Jef fBingaman chairman of Senate Energy and aturalR esourcesC ommittee earlier this week asked the CFTC to provide the committee with more information about itsover sight of energy commodity markets heN ewM exicoD emocrat said he was concerned about increasing trading activityi nU.S. crude oil taking place overseas and in over the countermarkets ealso questioned the CFTC practice of classifying large investment banks commercial market participants alongside traditional buyers andsellers and continued assertion that noncommercial participants, or speculators follow ratherthan lead oil price ingamano nThursday said he was pleased with the CFTC steps and that a futureh a i will explore how they will address his concerns that the commission lacks a robust understanding of the oil ongressearlier this month voted to give the CFTC greater oversight of unregulatedelec tronic exchanges as a way to protect consumers and deter price distortion andmanipula tion peculationhas been cited as one of many factorscontributing to surging petroleum prices, along with assumptions about new supplies, limited demand growth possible supplydisrup tions overseas and the depressed value against other currencies If speculators are running up oil prices, the obvious next question is by how much. ormerF ederalR eserve chairman Alan Greenspan has guessed that speculators might add at least $10 to the price of a barrel of oil.

Other analysts have put the figure as high as $2 0. latchy ribuneN ewsS ervicecontributed to this report. imeline for the A kron antonnews ebruary1996 sceases at this moment representative of Paxson ommunications tells the staff of WAKC hannel 2 3)on the day Paxson assumes ownership of the station tends a TV news history going back to the station first day on the air in 1953. ecember1999 axson wanting approval of a new transmitter tower from the city, gets permission after it agrees to provide 300 000for local news and public affairs ctober2000 he owner of leveland station WKYC hannel3), makes a deal with Paxson to handle sales and marketing in six areas where both companies own stations. he deal also allows hannel 3 to do some programming for Channel 2 3(now WVPX) the stage for a local newscast arch2001 hannel 3 announces plans for an A kron anton newscast to air early weeknight evenings on hannel2 3.P axson 300 000 plus another 475 000 from local governments help defray the cost of the telecast and a new studio in the nitedB uildingdowntown A WKYC executive estimates that the news will cost closet million over the first year.

une1 3,2001 he newscast premieres at 6:3 0 p.m. Early estimates are that 14 000to 20 000 homes tune in. anuary2003 A second newscast, at 10 weeknights is added. arch2005 axson ends its agreement with annett depriving the A kron anton news of a broadcast home. uly2005 he newscasts move to Time arnerC able arch2006 hannel 3 threatens to pull the plug on the newscast citing a lack of advertising revenue.

Both imeW arner and Channel 3 say the newscast is losing money. The following month, Akron ayorD onP lusquellic meets with community leaders to encourage support of the news, and it continues A pril2008 WKYC announces that it will end the newscasts, blaming economic factors. oday hefinal newscasts air. KEN LOVE A kronB eaconJ ournalphotos ews reporter Eric Mansfield will still be based in the United Building in downtown A kron as he has been since WKYC moved in back in 2001. elevision reporter Eric Mansfield says already working on A kron anton stories for next week, when lreport for WKYC hannel3) in Cleveland hope people will see that we tried.W estepped up when nobody was stepping ERIC MANSFIELD TV news anchor www.Oh i o.c mA kronB eaconJ ournal riday y3 0,2008 A3 Story System AKRE by RSTALLSM Time 22:44:51 Date A 34X Pg.

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