Birmingham Post-Herald from Birmingham, Alabama • 1

DieHard 500 Special Section Owner-drivers a dying breed as racing conglomerates take over racing teams Section Features Show House takes over historic Birmingham home Page El Am Landers Get This Business D7 Horoscope El E2 A2 B1 01 E3 Comics Crossword EdBorials Features E2 Lotteries E2 Metro-State AS Sports El Television wwwpoeUwraldcom Birmingham Post-Herald FINAL EDITION rApril23999 Thursday Uu y- 5-W 5 CgM -f Partly Cionity High 65 Low 42 Weather A2 BUSINESS TELEVISION February TV ratings fr" i vifl Isnrafi State may get $500 million mill Julie HimtaPM-Henld Ratings and stars Hera's how they stack up: Rating is the percentage of households in the total viewing area Share is the percentage of those households watching television at that time In Birmingham one rating point equals 5466 people Some good news for fledgling WIAT-42 By Dario Powell Birmingham Port-Herald Eric Land president and general manager of WIAT-42 has no sions iwiih his station tags in the local tdevUm news rat- tags expect to come on the flair with a brand new station and be Na 1 overnight'' be said hi a recent interview Thafa an unrealistic i But Land said he if pleased at how WIATi new fast-paced newt- cast fared in this February's rat-' Inge sweeps period The newscast didn't man to the tap of the charts but It did score significantly better numbers than the old WBMG-42 At 5 pm WIATs news remained in sixth place overaU with a 14 rating and a I share a gain of about SOOO more viewers But it was still an Improvement over the old newscast which routinely oared only a 1 share The numben were even better at 10 pm There WIATs newscast scored a 4 rating and an 8 dure or about 20000 new viewers That was enough to lilt the station into fourth place in the time slot In part the jump at "10 pm came because the newscast followed highly-rated Olympics coverage Land said he was 1 hoping the Olympic telecast would encourage people to check out the station's new look Apparently exactly what happened It gave a lot of awfience sampling and it waa designed that way' he said "We've made a start Now we have a dace to build from Please tun to RATINGS page A1 JournaL IPSCO also fa considering additional spending at the Iowa plant to tacreaae production capacity and Dalta-Vice-du told the Wall Street Journal there was good probability that the company would wild a second plant and increaie ita investment in Iowa at the same time IPSCO wants to increase ita Iowa production bom 125 million tana of steel plates a year to 2 million ton The new plant like the one ta Iowa would make Med plates and would be built to produce at least L25 million ton a year Phillips arid Alabama offidab meanwhile avoided talking about their efforts to win IPSCO Ira Silberman director of the Alabama Economic Development Office tid not return calb from the FoatHer-ald and offidab of the Metropolitan Development Board which recruits new industry for the Birmingham area said they knew nothing about the By Patrick RipiuU Birmingham Prat-Her aid Alabama appem to be among a handful of states being considered tor a Canadian company for a $500 million tod plant IPSCO Steel of Regina Saskatchewan believed to have narrowed its rite search to Alabama Mississippi InnMana and Texas according to a source who said the company puma to build a steel mill that could employ 300 to 400 people IPSCCi investment would exceed the $340 million spent by Mercedes-Bent for tts M-ctasa vehideplant in Vance and the $450 million spent by Trico for its steel mill in Decatur Those two plants are the two biggest new business investments in the state over the last live years Mario Dalte-Vicema IPSCCs senior vice president of corporate affairs did not return calls from the mingham Poet-Herald comment All calls to quarters requesting comment on ex-pmsion plans were referred to him CONGRESS However IPSCO Chief Executive Officer Roger Phillips told the Wall Street Journal near the beginning of the year that the company was to the advance Mages of feasibility studies for building a plant to make plate steel in the United States He laid then that the company was looking at the East and the South a likely sites The Journal quoted him as saying his company was to state governments power companies and equipment upptien Were going to put all that in a hopper and probably sometime around April look at how the numlMn come out A familiar with plans said it appears the company ta weighing economic incentives being offered iiy the states IPSCO recently opened a steel plant fa Montpelier Iowa a small Hito-sippi River town about 15 miles from Davenport ta eastern Iowa State incentives there played a migar role Iowa offerea about $73 million in incentives to win the plant which was valued at $375 million to $400 milUon acootdng to the Muscatine (Iowa) I USTI Staff graphic It's an expensive form of urement much more expensive than the diary In general only the larger television markets use meten Birmtag-cunenthr the nations SlstlarjHttdrolaon market but that wifi cbange if Nielsen decides to combine the Birmingham market with the Anniston and Tuscaloou markets If that happens Birmingham would became the Nth-largest mail ket putting it an the wne level as New Orleans Memphb and Buffalo NY Please tan to MEIER page ham include nuts booze lotion Ws very difficult to know how that money is being spent and if is being spent wisely without visiting these places from time to time1 -Jo Bonner chief of staff for US Rep Sonny Callahan Onto MU page A4 from tile which escorted the delegation A letter to Defense Secretary William Often from House Appropriation Committee Chairman Bob Uv-tapton further states that the trip was the purpose of reviewing foreign assistance and related issues in these The trip was termed del Shack purchases are listed on receipts filed with the Navy as expenses far Tbdd Next to the expenses a handwritten a for trip to the There no explanation next to the purchases of Fetaer Chardomay Dewars Whiskey or Dundee Lager hmm snorai on Miwonvo of the Navy Birmingham television rates newmeter system By Rachel SmoUtia Birmingham Prat-Herald For an August fact-finding the Balkan- a congressional gation led by UJL Rep Sonny Callahan purchased nearly $500 in alcohoL They bought $26 in Brian lotion Ana they A another macks iilsa tartilU chtoa and CbcahCda All paid for with taxpayers man An article in the Wednesday ed congresrional use of military transport planes for both overseas and domestic travel' The article Ad not mention the snack and drink receipts hut examined the delegation's activities during its three-dav stay to Athens Greece and concluded that much of the time was spent Mghtaedng Callahan Mobile whob chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on foreign operation took the trip from AniM997 to Aug II 1997 Hb delegate! stopped in Georgia Armenia Axerbafyan and Turkey before their trip to Greece They met with several brads of state during their travels Callahan's chief of staff Jo Bonner add Callahan had no comment on the MoryrHut he said taxpayer dollars used Jor the trip were well vent Bonner add auheommit-tee appropriates $13 billion to American foreign aid anmally very Af-ficult to know how that money fairing qpent'and if it being nent wisely without visiting these places from time fa He kaid the delegation stopped in Greece for political reason and to re-firi The purpose of the trip taken via military airplane was to human according to records By Daria Powell Birmingham Prat-Herald Birmingham'! television ratings are about to get wired For yean Nielsen Media Re-: search us tracked television ratings the old-fa way through handwritten diaries maintained by Nielsen families in the viewing area But awing in October 400 no-selected families hi the Bir-i will be equipped -with settop boxes that automat-ITkalfy record what the family meten will allow for ratings MILITARY Pi SeueKlViiumyiaBBNUmnmlngi In the Birmingham area to be measured the vearround rather than just Airing the November February An May and July aweepa period they will nuke it podble for local statkns to get rathgs tafarmition a daily bans rather than weeks after the bcL would love to hive all of our markets metered said Nielsen spokeswoman Karen Kratx a more accurate form of television measurement We have ways of seeing how television homes are viewing TV every tingle day of the jrear every stogie hour of the day But In some markets just not feasible on ator from Maine who argued against closing facilities in his state aees the Senate as sometimes markedly lea parochial than the House: And while every House member faces reflection to November only about one third of theaenatandoi If the Senate were to approve more dosings according to this lobbying strategy a deal could be worked out later a conference committee that would allow the Hone to give ita tacit approval but without requiring each member to vote on it Cohen and top military leaden say that two mare numb of base dosings far 2001 and 2009 are essential if America to have the money to buy critically needed new weapons and equipment for the troops REGION 2020 fohen aims at Senate for base-closing attack Public gets a chance to share Vision 1-! By Usa Hoffman ST Scripts WASHINGTON Pentagon chief William finhm has put the Senate in Us sights as the moat likely mute to victory in hb long-odds battle to get pehnUon for another two rounds of politically unpopular military base Defense Department and Capitol Rill offidab ay Cohen racognfaea that the' chance of convincing the House that the nation must shut down mare bases slim to none in Qua election year In many congressional districts military installations account for thousands of join and wnwmnittoa fear their loss will mean economic ruin 0 himself a fanner GOP sen By Bob Johisos Birmingham Frat-Hcrald Residents of the 124xxriy area surrounding Birmingham will have a chance to identify what atralegiea ihould be made priorttka for the area ai part of a kngrenge planning process known as Region 2828 Vision 2828 will play host to Vision Fair on Friday and Saturday at the Birmingham Museum of Art The fair ban outgrowth of the 217 strategies identified as ways to meet a list of 34 goals that Region 2828 residents identified as needed far the area Set up at the Museum of Art will be 34 dbplayi showing the goabfa areas red as the environment recreation edu- cation and downtown development Beside each goal will be a Ibt of strategies to meet that goaL Fleree tarn to VBUN page A4 a Is the lint four rounds which occurred between 1988 and 1995 about 100 of the mAtaryb 495 major facilities were targeted for extinction The end of the Cold War has led to a 36 percent drop in the number of troops America needs but only 23 percent of the supporting infrastructure has been reduced That mean taxpayers are penfing billions of dollars each year on excess buMngi and bases Cohen and the others say 1 One likely area far cutting the facilities that come under the umbrella of the Army Materiel Command Gea Johnnie Wilson head of that command gave the moat concrete indication of which installations might find themselves on the chopping block Fleam tare to BASEL page A4 4 William UtberFrat-Herald (III! 'V Judy Chesnut center of Leesburg watches as other cleanup volunteers removo a window from a destroyed home in the McDonald Chapel area of wee! Jefferson County Notes about the cleanup rery efforts i MaejJ aniu mmsu via raoovory i i appear on pags B1.