October 4th, 2009 
joel The media continues to be infatuated with, you guessed it, the media. To the point, to use another media phrase, the coverage of nearly every daily event “jumps the shark” to the point of absurdity.
We invite all comments, absurd, lucid or in between on this open forum on the Erie and national media. Just click the title and leave your comment in the box, or e-mail me at joel@nataliemedia.com, or tweet @pressandtower.
Embrace the absurdity chaos!
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Philly radio icon “Diamond Jim” Nettleton has passed away at the age of 69. He was diagnosed with cancer just three weeks ago.
Jim Nettleton was one of the original “Boss Jocks” on the old WFIL. He worked at many stations across the country, with stops in Hartford, New York, and Tampa to name a few. He was at WOGL in Philly from 1993-2000.
The loss of another GIANT. I had the priviledge to meet Jim a number of years ago and he was one of the “Good Guys”.
and sadly….the Hits just keep on coming. He will be sadly missed.
The Captain
I didn’t know Diamond Jim but I did note the recent passing of Mr Movie, Steve Freidman, of WCAU-AM and its successor stations. He had an encyclopedic recall of film history.
I used to listen to Diamond Jim when at college. A great guy. He’ll be missed.
Stuff you do NOT read in the Erie Times-News thanks to their dedication to Erie’s Hometown Son, who lives in Erie negligibly, but is the sole source for this event occurring in Pennsylvania:
From Allentown PA Newspaper “Morning Call 10/9/2009:
“It’s official: PPL rates to go up 30 percent in 2010″.
I want you to begin now to witness the mass exodus of businesses currently in Pennsylvania, as energy goes up 30% in one year, and that is just the FIRST year of Tom’s deregulation….to take effect long after he was out of the governor’s Mansion.
As far as attracting new business to PA and creating jobs, the lights go out in this state January 1, 2010.
Happy New Year Pennsylvania and best wishes to all the new jobless, Ridge has managed to create….in the worst of times, no less.
DO NOT contact your legislator to put a “stay” action on this, or to recind rate increases, long ago scheduled for the year 2010. They can’t even pass a budget and all should be fired immediately, or impeached for dereliction of duty.
Do NOT contact the PUC. They work for the utilities, not the public.
But I urge you to begin seeking a third job, before they leave the state.
Business has held its own in the Eastern part of PA, but can NOT compete with this increase, and will soon say “Hola!” to Mexico.
Hershey’s already did, as they now make York Patties candy where???? Monterrey Mexico.
(They were historically made in York, PA but Hershey’s took over the defunct, Luden Cough Drop plant in Reading, PA and made York Patty in Reading.
Read one patty label at the store next time you go, and find your “York” patty is Made in Mexico. Try not to gag as you eat the thing.
Boycott all Hershey products for Halloween as a Thank You.
So will all other Pennsylvania products say Hola!, after the energy fiasco sets in next quarter, otherwise, quarterly profits plunge in Q1 2010.
The Morning Call carried the story here:
http://www.mcall.com/news/all-a1_5ppl.7047357oct09,0,4660891.story
Be sure to read the Side Bar story on “Consumers To Be In For A Double Shock” rightly pointing out that grocery stores to pizza places will pass on their extra electricity rate to their customers.
I wonder if we could make a color code chart for Business Exodus in PA. It would need only one color: RED.
Congratulations to WSEE on their new news set making its first appearance tonight at 6pm. I like the use of Red and Blue throughout the new set. In my opinion it would appear to be the best looking news set in the market, at least it is better looking than the set WICU uses.
I would like to know if the newscasts on WSEE have the ability to be “live” or are they still being pre recorded?
WSEE and Lilly Broadcasting definitely get an “A” for effort. That floor-to-ceiling wall that was installed (along with the accompanying HVAC systems) looked like it was a real bugger to install?
Anyways, I am always a fan of good looking news sets and I am giving credit where credit is due.
I think its a very nice news set. WSEE-TV and Lilly Broadcasting should be proud of their work. Can’t wait to see more on Monday. Hope they will be LIVE!
Not to worry…they won’t be. Though they have a new set the studios are not yet acoustically separate…the wall is not complete.
More to the point, though, there remains only one control room. Building another would be an expensive undertaking. As long as there’s only one control room, there will be pre-recorded news on WSEE.
The news on WSEE does not have to be pre-recorded. As I said 3 months ago WSEE should move the 6pm newscast to 7pm and VOILA! a LIVE newscast. Do a LIVE newscast at 10pm on The CW to attack FOX 66 10pm news. This is only TV, it doesn’t have to be so complicated. Dan Rather once said “This isn’t Rocket Science, this is Television.”
Lilly Broadcasting should blow up the traditional 6pm newscast and go with a bold plan: 7pm LIVE on 35 and 10pm LIVE on The CW – then merely replay the 10pm news on WSEE at 11. If there is a major breaking news story (plane crash, hostage situation, etc.) it can be simulcast on BOTH 12/35.
No dual control rooms? What a terrible waste! Why build a seperate studio with a lovely new news set only to keep airing pre-recorded newscasts?
One thing caught my attention: when Scott Bremner was crowing on WSEE Friday at 6pm about the new set he said “the new studio and set were designed by WSEE employees.” Huh? I didn’t think there were any WSEE off-air employees remaining? I thought they were all terminated when the merger happened? Did I miss something? Were some employees hired back? Why not simply say “The new set and studio were designed in house by Lilly Broadcasting employees.”??
Bold new set deserves bold thinking…don’t you think?
Tim,
7pm is a great idea and one Lilly has been kicking around for some time. The time isn’t filled on CBS or CW, and it seems to fit people’s schedules better as we work longer hours.
Dropping the 6, however, is pretty much a non-starter. Even though WSEE’s rating are in the basement, CBS net is very averse to affiliates dropping 6pm weekday news. It’s bad enough that they dropped all weekend news.
The solution would be to do a 6 (prerecorded as now) as well as a 7. This would make perfect business sense but perhaps cause a revolt from the newsroom. It would likely create major staffing issues and chip away at the quality of news in favor of quality.
With that said, everyone in the know is expecting this to happen. Look for Lilly to get a 7 rolling just as soon as issues of both infrastructure (eg construction) and staffing are solved (several staffers continue to work out of the WSEE building on Peach Street because of lack of space at WICU).
I was just kinda wondering when WSEE was going to get any billing on the building on State Street. Nice 12 logo and WICU letters, but where is there anything that shows the building houses WSEE?
Again just wondering.
Wouldn’t it make sense for Lilly Broadcasting to purchase a new graphics package to go along with the beautiful new set on WSEE??
The old graphics are very dated and in desperate need of refreshing/replacing.