Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • Page 31

rogrampamt SECTION Diana Nelson Jones follows the birds' example. PAGE D2 THURSDAY, JULY 11, 2002 LIFE SUPP PAGE ANN LANDERS PAGED-2 I COMICS PAGES I TELEVISION PAGED-6 I CLASSIFIED PAGED-7 Questions about delivery or service? Call (800) 228-NEWS (6397). I lel (11 (440., LIFE SUPP PAGED 1 ANN LANDERS PAGED-2 I COMICS PAGES KDKA follows national trend with 4 p.m. news Regatta floating toward silver anniversary 1 't, 4,1" I 4, i'' 17 I. IIIIII! I mk 1' 4 I fA 101tf-'-' i 1 'It It 077.

1, 4it 4 4 Ille i A 4 1 l' A 4 0.ff and Matt Moreno team up for the "Fox 53 Ten Annie O'NeillPostGazette O'Clock News," the station's only newscast By Dave Cordon Post-Gazette Staff writer For a while, it looked as if the Three Rivers Regatta might sink, weighed down by financial woes. But, according to Jim Roddey, chief executive of Allegheny County, who alliteratively stated, "The Regatta is on firm financial footing, finally," the show will go on, celebrating its 25th anniversary Aug. 8- Ida D'Errico, executive vice president of U.S. Events and Marketing which manages the Regatta, says fund raising was a challenge this year: "Sept. 11 was devastating and difficult for the economy, and particularly for us it was a difficult challenge." The Regatta lined up 35 sponsors, who contributed about $1.4 million.

Despite the challenges, the Regatta will feature the return of its customary events and some new ones as well. The powerboats will be back, competing on the Allegheny River for a $35,000 purse. While the Anything That Floats Race on closing day will bestow the "Titanic" award to the first vessel to sink, there are prizes for the winners, too. But this isn't the only festival this summer for boat enthusiasts. When asked about the first Western Pennsylvania Boater's Regatta this weekend, D'Errico was unfazed and said it did not affect her efforts.

"This means more events for our beautiful North Shore and Riverfront Park," she said. "The Three Rivers Regatta is No. 1 for tourism attractions, and ours has a wide variety of events. The Boater's Regatta is ideal for boaters. It has not had an effect on us." New events at the Regatta include freestyle snow skiing, trampolining and extreme sports with professional skaters from the Games performing daily demonstrations with aggressive inline skating, skateboarding and free-style BMX.

All of this will happen at the Regatta Stunt Skatepark. Other events will include: Regatta Thunder, a huge fireworks display, will fill the skies Aug. 10. The Regatta Thunder prelude includes a military helicopter fly-by carrying a 200-foot American flag as the Pennsylvania Army National Guard fires howitzer rounds honoring those who have fought and continue to fight for freedom. The AAA Centennial Regatta Classic Car Cruise is scheduled for Aug.

11 in a parking lot adjacent to the new North Shore Riverfront Park. The Regatta concert series at Point State Park will feature performances by Richard Marx (7:30 p.m. Aug. 8) and Shawn Colvin (8 p.m. Aug.

10). Mad Science, a fast-paced, high-energy science demonstration geared toward children, will be open from noon to 6 p.m. daily at Point State Park. Alby Oxenreiter, left, Jay Harris, Sheila Hyland In a market well-suited to a By Rob Owen Post-Gazette TV Editor For viewers prone to falling asleep in front of the televisions or for those who have to be up early for work, the advent of the "early" late newscast in Pittsburgh should have been a boon. And while for some it clearly has, WPGH's single daily newscast appears to have reached a ratings plateau at the same time it has greater competition.

WPGH's 10 p.m. newscast marked its five-year anniversary in January and WNPA's ICDKA-produced 10 p.m. news turns 1 in August PCNC, cable sibling of WPXI, also has a 10 p.m. report, but it rates a distant third behind the competition on broadcast channels. Compared with similarly sized markets, Pittsburgh's 10 p.m.

newscasts get lowerthan-average ratings. On first glance, that seems odd. Pittsburgh is a good news town; most newscasts on the three standbys KDKA, WPXI, WTAE perform better here than newscasts in other markets. And in a market with one of the largest elderly populations, it would stand to reason that all newscasts would benefit because older people tend to watch more TV news. But it cuts both ways.

Older viewers watch more TV news, but they're less likely to watch news on a station and in a time slot that's perceived as new. "There's a tremendous habit for news at 6 and 11 p.m.," said WPGH news director John Poister. "One of the things we have to break through is to get people to remember us, to get us to be part of their habit of viewing. In a market where the next youngest newscast is Channel 4, which started in 1958, we're newborns." WNPA's newscast, produced by the staff of ICDKA, faces some of the same challenges. KDKA news director Al Blinke said that when the 10 p.m.

news concept first started on independent stations in the '70s and '805, it was easier to get noticed. "Years ago you didn't have the cable choices; you didn't have the local news choices," he said. "You could put it on and people would just find it. It's different today." Poister and Blinke cited other complicating factors, including lead-in, cable penetration and location on the cable lineup. Both Pittsburgh's Fox and UPN stations tend to underperform in prime time corn By Rob Owen Post-Gazette TV Editor Local news at 4 p.m.

is new for Pittsburgh, but it's not new to the TV industry. KDKA plans to add a 4 p.m. newscast beginning July 22 anchored by Patrice King Brown and Stacy Smith, but in other markets, an early early news has long been a staple. KCNC, the CBS-owned and -operated station in Denver, added a 4 p.m. "First News" broadcast in spring 1982 when it was still General Electric-owned NBC affiliate KOA-TV.

Since then, a rival station added a newscast in the same time slot. "The Oprah Winfrey Show" beat them both during May sweeps, but the 4 p.m. newscasts were competitive as KCNC eked out a win. Angie Kucharski, KCNC news director for the past three years, said a 4 p.m. newscast makes sense for a station with a strong news operation.

"It allows you to extend the news image and be available for viewers at a time when it's more convenient for them to get the news," she said. "Also, lead-ins to newscasts are so critical, and by creating your own broad- cast you are better positioned to control what sets up the rest of your news block." Kucharski said a 4 p.m. newscast must move viewers from afternoon programming to the evening news by blending hard news with lifestyle news, such as consumer and health reports. That's pretty much a model for what sister station KDKA has planned. "You gear it primarily toward women.

That's the bulk of your audience there. It's an older audience, over 35, that is available at that time," said KDKA news director Al Blinke. "We'll probably have a little more health news in there, but there is a significant male audience that we don't want to alienate or ignore." Blinke said Pittsburgh is ripe for a 4 p.m. newscast "This is a news-hungry town and it's sort of a shift town, not steel worker shift work but medical shifts, and you have a tremendous number of people home at that time." The amval of KD's 4 p.m. news comes in a year when the station has seen its on-air staff contract Meteorologist Bob Kudzma was approached about retiring and took the company's offer, sportscaster Paul Alexander has moved over to KDKA-AM and Washington County bureau reporter Andy Briggs will be let go when his contract expires next month.

Blinke said at least one position will be added a producer dedicated to the 4 p.m. newscast and there may be additional technicians hired to work behind the scenes, but there are no plans to add an on-air reporter. He downplayed concern that the 4 p.m. news might draw viewers away from the 5 or 6 p.m. broadcasts or that adding another hour of news without significant additional staffing would negatively affect the station's overall news product "I wouldn't say it's doing more with less, I'd say it's learning new ways to do things," Blinke said.

"We have a pretty large staff of people who work really hard, and I think we're going to put the show on the air and see how it goes and adjust as we need to." Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, oversees annual surveys on local TV news quality. He said 12IDKA's plans are similar to what other stations are doing. SEE 4 P.M., PAGE D-2 Salvation Army, and it sets a ballet in a sewer. Because you wait for the great moments Lament" and "Sit Down, You're Rockid the Boat," for two), but you keep meeting other great moments you forgot or never before noticed the greatness of such as Sky Masterson's "My Time of Day" a gorgeous fragment of an art song slipped in as a throwaway intro to a love duet. Because it contains a reference not only to Pittsburgh but also Rhode Island (my private pleasure).

Because it's a cartoon wrapped around real feelings. There's irony and wit, but the show also relieves SEE STAGE, PAGE D-6 Pmbllem here trail national averages "Early" late news in May '02 RATING MARKET RANK STATION SHARE Cleveland 17 WJW (Fox) 9.51 Akron WUAB (UPN) 3.15 Denver 18 KDVR (Fox) 4.27 KWGN (WB) 2.74 Sacramento 19 KOVR (CBS) 5.69 KOCA (WB) 4.06 KUL (Fox) 3.36 Orlando 20 WOFL (Fox) 3.86 WKCF (WB) 3.65 WRDO 1.12 Pittsburgh 21 WPGH (Fox) 3.55 WNPA (UPN) 1.32 PCNC (cable) ill St. Louis 22 KW! (Fox) 710 KPLR (WB) 45 Portland 23 KPIV (UPN) 4.69 KPDX (Fox) 2.75 9.515 3.15 4.27 2.74 In these markets the 'early late news airs at 9 p.m. (Prime time is 7 to 10 p.m.) Source: Nielsen Media Research "In a perfect world, if we were playing on equal ground, I think our numbers would be higher," Blinke said. "It would get a higher number if it had better cable positioning." In non-rebuilt sections of the city of Pittsburgh, WNPA is the only full-power local station relegated to only the side of cable lineup.

"If you're sitting at home flipping through channels, you have to physically get up, walk to the TV and switch from the A side to the side to put us on." The future of 10 p.m. newscasts is clouded by at least a few question marks. Last month, The WB affiliate in Portland, Maine, scuttled its decade-old 10 p.m. newscast, and Sinclair, corporate parent of WPGH, has shut down news operations in several markets. SEE NEWS, PAGE D-3 ffirmo 10 p.m.

newscast, the ratings John HellerPost-Gazette KDKA-TV anchors Jennifer Antkowiak and Ken Rice take a break during a broadcast of WNPA's 10 p.m. newscast. The earlier newscast, which turns a year old next month, is produced by KDKA. pared to the national averages, another symptom of an older market less likely to try new channels. "The biggest thing is just getting a prime-time lineup that brings people in," Poister said.

"We just have to get people used to tuning to Fox as they make their prime-time choice, just as they tune to ABC, CBS and NBC. It's a little tougher here." Blinke also cited lead-in as a challenge. "There are days the news performs 800 percent better than the lead-in," he said, acknowledging how low-rated some UPN prime-time programming is. "I think that's pretty good." Poister also points to the cable penetration rate in the Pittsburgh market about 80 percent of homes subscribe to cable or satellite service as a factor. "We faced an 80- to 100-channel universe for a little while longer than some other markets," he said.

"More choices thin the pie out a little bit." For WNPA, Blinke pointed to reception problems, a lack of widespread cable carriage and location on cable lineups for contributing to the newscast's slow ratings growth. OC 0., -7, 4 I P4'- CLO gives 'Guys and Dolls' classic treatment By Christopher Rawson Post-Gazette Drama Critic li I 4.144;,Nc 4 4 l' oiCr 40-141' zt 3' il k. A 4. oe 1 klk 1 7' 1 '16'ltii, 4 I I "Guys and Dolls" WHERE: Pittsburgh CID at Benedum Center, Downtown. WHEN: Through July 21; 8 p.m.

Tuesdays through Fridays; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; 2 and 7:30 p.m. this Sunday; 2 p.m. July 21. TICKETS: 412- 456-6666.

the chutzpah to start with a fugue! a fugue "for tinhorns," it says, and, no, a tinhorn isn't an instrument. It's a classic because it assumes you know things like that and Scarsdale Galahad, hollanderize and Barbasol (rhymes with doll). Because "Pimlico" gets a laugh, all by itself. Because "oldest established permanent floating crap game in New York" makes such a great song lyric. Hear the rhythm? Because when you call the Biltmore Garage you get Joey Biltmore, so it isn't that Biltmore after all.

Because it names the nightclub the Hot Box and stages a striptease, but nobody gets bent out of shape. Because it mixes gamblers with the Ijust didn't want it to end. Maybe it's because I'm getting older and softer that the great musicals seem to touch my heart more deeply each time. But you'd have to be a flint-souled cynic to hold out against the comic and romantic appeal of "Guys and Dolls." Frank Loesser's 1950 charmer is a classic. That's an overused word, but what else to call this melodic, funny, Runyonesque myth set in one of the treasured American times and places, the raffish Broadway underworld of yesteryear? "Wait a minute," my students would say.

"You always tell us labels Victoria Clark and Justin Deas star as Miss Adelaide and Nathan Detroit in the CLO's production of "Guys and Dolls." aren't enough. Why is it a classic?" OK, it's a classic because it has E-MAIL: MAGAZINEPOST-GAZETTELUM (4 1, PIJ 3 El PHONEWEBSITE: FOR FEATURES, 412-263-1635, WWW.POST-GAZETTECOMLIFESTYLE; FOR ARTS ENTERTAINMENT, 412-263-3859, WWW.POST-GCETTE.COMAE i- I 11 i 0.