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Indians add 7 players to 40-man roster
Man allegedly paid teens to spit in his face
Body with gunshot wounds found in Canton Township creek
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Sick Pets Get High-tech Health Care
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Friday Night Notebook
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The proposed new LeBron mural doesn't do it for me
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Two blowouts, one night
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Seven players added to Tribe’s 40-man roster
Cleveland Browns:
Hey, somebody's gotta stick up for the Browns
Kent State Sports:
Singletary update
Cleveland Cavaliers:
Gameblog: Cavs at Indiana Pacers – Here’s to LBJ and Free Throws
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OSU – Michigan college football rivals meet in Baghdad
Varsity Letters:
Bowling season starts today
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Attention Haters, Palin And Hannity Together
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Muslim McCarthyism & Death Prayers
Akron Law Café:
Federal Judge Declares DOMA Unconstitutional
See Jane Style:
Vintage Chic
Car Chase:
TIME TO GET YOUR COLLECTOR CARS WINTERIZED
Let's Talk Real Estate:
Silverdome Potentially SOLD!
Ohio Travels with Betty:
Norma asks if Barkitecture is still at Stan Hywet.
Sound Check:
Steely Dan Plays "The Royal Scam" at E.J. Thomas Hall
HRLite House:
Colloquium at University of Akron
Akron Gamer:
Nintendo's Mario endures even as games come and go
By Rich Heldenfels
POSTED: 03:44 p.m. EDT, Sep 08, 2009
Beacon Journal staff writer
Digits. The Nielsen Co. estimates that 99.4 percent of U.S. homes are now able to receive digital signals.
Which doesn't mean you can get all of your local TV stations' digital signals, as so many people have realized.
And where Nielsen's estimation that homes completely unready for DTV are a tiny-sounding six-tenths of a percent of all homes, that still adds up to 710,000 nationwide.
Cleveland-Akron-Canton is slightly above the national average, with 0.69 percent of homes unready. That's a little more than 10,500 homes in the region.
An Insider's View. With Diane Sawyer due to become Charles Gibson's replacement on ABC's World News telecasts around the end of 2009, two of the three major broadcast news programs will be anchored by women. (Katie Couric, of course, is at the helm on CBS.)
But Carole Simpson, the former ABC anchor, says in a commentary on CNN.com that she's not all that excited about the change because ''it took so darned long — and TV news is on life support.''
She notes that there were long gender gaps between Barbara Walters (at ABC) and Connie Chung (at CBS) and Couric's ascent. Now, Sawyer comes in at a bad time, Simpson thinks.
''Millions of Americans still watch network news programs, but they are only a semblance of what they were in terms of quality and content,'' Simpson said. ''With fewer resources and the death knell sounding, why not put women in charge of the network evening news programs? When things couldn't be worse, it's okay for women to be in charge. Sad to say, but I don't believe the evening network newscasts, nor Katie and Diane as the anchors, will be around for very long.''
Sign of Our Combative Times. Time magazine TV critic James Poniewozik watched President Obama's speech to students and joked: ''Who's going to deliver the 'Kids, don't stay in school' rebuttal?''
At least, I hope it was a joke.
We All Make Mistakes. On Regrettherror.com, this item from England's Mirror: ''Our picture accompanying the story 'Mum dies as paramedic refuses to go into pub' was of pub manager Michelle Doherty and not the victim, Melissa Proctor-Blain.''
Gable Stabbed. TMZ.com says Clark Gable III, the grandson of the screen legend, was stabbed in the rib cage at a house party near Los Angeles in August. ''We're told CG3 got into it with some guests after he allegedly called somebody a very bad name,'' says the site. ''A fight broke out and someone plunged a knife into Gable.''
Young Gable reportedly spent a week in the hospital but is recovering. Authorities arrested one person and are looking for another, says TMZ.
The original Clark Gable was born in Cadiz, Ohio. According to the Beacon Journal's archives, in his late teens Gable worked in Akron at a couple of rubber companies and in Akron's Music Hall. He died in 1960.
Rich Heldenfels writes about popular culture for the Beacon Journal, in the HeldenFiles Online blog at http://heldenfels.ohio.com, on Facebook and on Twitter. He can be reached at 330-996-3582 and rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com.
Beacon Journal staff writer
Digits. The Nielsen Co. estimates that 99.4 percent of U.S. homes are now able to receive digital signals.
Which doesn't mean you can get all of your local TV stations' digital signals, as so many people have realized.
And where Nielsen's estimation that homes completely unready for DTV are a tiny-sounding six-tenths of a percent of all homes, that still adds up to 710,000 nationwide.
Cleveland-Akron-Canton is slightly above the national average, with 0.69 percent of homes unready. That's a little more than 10,500 homes in the region.
An Insider's View. With Diane Sawyer due to become Charles Gibson's replacement on ABC's World News telecasts around the end of 2009, two of the three major broadcast news programs will be anchored by women. (Katie Couric, of course, is at the helm on CBS.)
But Carole Simpson, the former ABC anchor, says in a commentary on CNN.com that she's not all that excited about the change because ''it took so darned long — and TV news is on life support.''
She notes that there were long gender gaps between Barbara Walters (at ABC) and Connie Chung (at CBS) and Couric's ascent. Now, Sawyer comes in at a bad time, Simpson thinks.
''Millions of Americans still watch network news programs, but they are only a semblance of what they were in terms of quality and content,'' Simpson said. ''With fewer resources and the death knell sounding, why not put women in charge of the network evening news programs? When things couldn't be worse, it's okay for women to be in charge. Sad to say, but I don't believe the evening network newscasts, nor Katie and Diane as the anchors, will be around for very long.''
Sign of Our Combative Times. Time magazine TV critic James Poniewozik watched President Obama's speech to students and joked: ''Who's going to deliver the 'Kids, don't stay in school' rebuttal?''
At least, I hope it was a joke.
We All Make Mistakes. On Regrettherror.com, this item from England's Mirror: ''Our picture accompanying the story 'Mum dies as paramedic refuses to go into pub' was of pub manager Michelle Doherty and not the victim, Melissa Proctor-Blain.''
Gable Stabbed. TMZ.com says Clark Gable III, the grandson of the screen legend, was stabbed in the rib cage at a house party near Los Angeles in August. ''We're told CG3 got into it with some guests after he allegedly called somebody a very bad name,'' says the site. ''A fight broke out and someone plunged a knife into Gable.''
Young Gable reportedly spent a week in the hospital but is recovering. Authorities arrested one person and are looking for another, says TMZ.
The original Clark Gable was born in Cadiz, Ohio. According to the Beacon Journal's archives, in his late teens Gable worked in Akron at a couple of rubber companies and in Akron's Music Hall. He died in 1960.
Rich Heldenfels writes about popular culture for the Beacon Journal, in the HeldenFiles Online blog at http://heldenfels.ohio.com, on Facebook and on Twitter. He can be reached at 330-996-3582 and rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com.
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