The Press and Tower

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• WJET-TV in HDTV: On Wednesday WJET announced that they are now broadcasting High Definition over the air on their 24.1 subchannel. Although currently in low-power, the station says they’ll be full power upon the digital switchover. A quick check of the HDTV tier on Time Warner Cable shows no channel designation for WJET-HD yet.
• The hits just kept on coming: TechCrunch crunched the numbers from HitWise regarding news sites on Election Night. Yahoo News was the top aggregator, with web traffic up 55% and a market share of 0.72%. CNN had the top news producer site, increasing traffic 146% over the day before and a 0.61% market share. Rounding out the top five were MSNBC, Google News, and Fox News.
• Bayhawks get another FAN: The Erie Bayhawks broadcast package news is in. Radio play by play will be aired on WFNN-Fox Sportsradio 1330 AM, the Fan, while Image Sports Network will televise six home games on cable. Veteran sportscaster Chris “Red” Hughes will be joined in the booth by Brian Graves, who’s on staff with the team’s front office. Fan sister station WRKT-Rocket 101 will air the inaugural Bayhawks game at Fort Wayne.
• Erie corporate broadcasters face tough 3rd quarter: This is the mean season for public corporations as they announce their quarterly earnings. There are four corporations who own licenses in Erie; two public and two private. What we know so far is that radio operator Citadel Broadcasting (WXKC/WXTA/WQHZ/WRIE) reports net revenues down 10.9%, where their radio market revenues decreased $20.9 million. The other radio company, Connoisseur Communications (WRTS/WRKT/WXBB/WTWF/WJET/WFNN) is a private concern, but in last week’s Radio & Records, CEO Jeffrey Warshaw says that they are up 22% and “doing great in Bloomington and Erie.” On the TV front, we’ll look for numbers from Nexstar (WJET) on November 10th before the bell, and no telling what’s happening at SJL/Lilly Broadcasting (WICU/WSEE), another private company.
• The NFL on HDTV: We are now in the portion of the season that include Thursday night games on the NFL Network. Of course the channel is difficult to see in any resolution because it still doesn’t appear on TWC. Here’s the rest of the schedule with over the air and Time Warner Cable HD channels noted:
  • Sunday, 1 PM – Buffalo @ New England  – WSEE: DT 35.1/City 405/Suburbs 709
  • Sunday, 1 PM – Green Bay @ Minnesota - WFXP: DT 66.1/City 418/Suburbs 706
  • Sunday, 4 PM – Indianapolis @ Pittsburgh  – WSEE: DT 35.1/City 405/Suburbs 709
  • Sunday, 8:15 PM – NY Giants @ Philadelphia – WICU: City 412/Suburbs 712
  • Monday, 8:30 PM – San Francisco @ Arizona – ESPN: City 430/ Suburbs 772