Merger will affect local affiliates

The merger of the WB and UPN into the new CW has a major effect on local stations.

"I'd love it if we got to be the new joint network," said WDRB/WFTE general manager Bill Lamb, acknowledging that he didn't know which Louisville station would be the eventual CW network affiliate.

"It's a new game, and I always relish the challenge and think we have a lot to bring to the table," said Carol LaFever, CEO of Cascade Broadcasting, which owns WBKI. She thinks the eventual CW affiliate in Louisville will emerge with a much greater value than either of the current affiliates.[...]

"WHAS11 News @ 10 p.m. on the WB" will remain on WBKI regardless of the merger, since the newscast contract is between the two local stations and not the national network. WFTE's Lamb said he wouldn't broadcast the WHAS news in any case, because it would compete with sister station WDRB's "News @ 10."

Both WB and UPN executives and local station owners were stunned by yesterday's surprise announcement.

Lamb said he talked with a UPN executive who told him he first saw it on CNN. LaFever said she was awakened at 6 a.m. by someone who'd just heard. In an industry that leaks everything, the months of top-level negotiations never seeped out.

The 16 stations operated by the Tribune Company and the 12 UPN outlets owned by CBS would form the core CW affiliate group. Warner Bros. and CBS will each own 50 percent of the new network. The rest of the CW network stations will be chosen in negotiations conducted in the cities, like Louisville, where both UPN and WB stations operate.

Both the President and Vice President have pledged to protect Israel in the event that Iran attacks the Promised Land.

"I’m concerned" when the president of Iran "announces his desire to see that Israel gets destroyed," Bush said Monday in a speech on terrorism at Kansas State University. "Israel’s our ally. We’re committed to the safety of Israel, and it’s a commitment we will keep." It was just the latest reassurance from U.S. officials in the wake of a recent war of words between Israel and Iran over the prospects of an Iranian nuclear bomb.

Earlier, Cheney said on CNBC: "Obviously, we would support our friends in Israel under those circumstances were they attacked."

Guri Weinberg feels some closure as he played his late father, Moshe Weinberg in the movie, Munich, about the 1972 terrorist attack.

"All my life I heard stories about Dad, but it was just words. In acting it out, everything suddenly became real," Guri Weinberg told the Israeli Ynet Web site Tuesday in an interview from Los Angeles.

In Munich, Weinberg depicts his father, Moshe, a weightlifter who was the first of 11 athletes killed as he tried to fend off Palestinian hostage-takers at the Olympic Village. "For many years I was angry with him, thinking to myself that had he not put up a struggle, maybe I would still have a dad," Weinberg said. "When we made the film, I understood for the first time that he had to do what he did, and that he didn’t have any chance of getting out of there alive." According to Weinberg, Arab actors who played the terrorists voiced outrage at the Munich attack.

The Jewish community is saddened at the loss of philantropist Andrea Bronfman. May she rest in peace.

Both Eric Fingerhut and Ted Strickland are running even in the latest Zogby poll against potential Republican opponents. When I say Finger, you say Hut! Yes, I do support former Congressman and current State Senator Eric Fingerhut for Governor of Ohio.

New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has asked State Senator David Paterson to be his running mate as Spitzer runs for Governor. Spitzer has my support as well.

Not that I'll be watching but FOX now has a new show on Saturday nights after MAD TV: Talk Show with Spike Feresten. No air date has been announced at this point.

I commend Senator Bayh on the latest legislation that he will introduce. I'm a cell phone user. I don't want someone accessing my records without my permission. It's a violation of privacy.

.S. Senator Evan Bayh today co-sponsored a bipartisan bill, introduced by Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), which will help protect private cell phone records by making it a crime to purchase cell phone records without the owner's consent. Currently, anyone with a cell phone number and approximately $100 can easily obtain private cell phone records from the Internet.

"Right now, all you need to get someone's personal call log is their cell phone number and about $100," Senator Bayh said. "This legislation will help stop the illegal buying and selling of private cell phone records."

The legislation that Bayh co-sponsored would upgrade the stealing and selling of telephone records to a criminal offense, clearing the way for criminal action against online companies who sell such information. Recent news reports have revealed that numerous online companies are fraudulently acquiring cell phone records and selling them at affordable prices to anyone willing to pay for them.

"Hoosiers have demonstrated their overwhelming support for telephone privacy with the state's Do-Not-Call Law, and they deserve protections on their personal cell phone logs as well," Senator Bayh said.

Paul McCartney has 6 months to appeal a decision by the Rother District Council to tear down a log cabin on his estate.