Meteorologist musical chairs

Unless your name is Dick Goddard, being a TV station chief meteorogist isn’t a lifetime career at the same station.

The latest:

Weekday noon and weekend evening newscasts WEWS meteorologist Jason Nicholas, at Channel 5 since 2006, will switch to WOIO-Channel 19. But not till his 6-month no-compete clause expires in December.

Mark Johnson has been the chief meteorologist at Channel 5 since 2003.

Nicholas also is host of Channel 5's "Academic Challenge."

It might get crowded at Channel 19, where Jeff Tanchak is chief meteorologist and apparently will remain at the station.

Hinckley native Nicholas got his schooling at Medina High, Ohio University and Mississippi State. He worked at TV stations in Albuquerque, New Mexico and Charleston and Huntington in West Virginia.

Buffalo native Tanchak previously worked in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Rochester, New York, and Wausau, Wisconsin.

These guys change more often than Northeast Ohio weather.

19/43 gets new GM from Nashville

Dominic Mancuso

Dominic Mancuso, general manager of THREE TV stations in Nashville, will replace the retiring Bill Applegate as vice president and general manager at Raycom Media's two Cleveland stations, WOIO Channel 19 and WUAB Channel 43. He will start Tuesday, May 20.

Joliet, Illinois native Mancuso is general manager of Fox’s WZTV, MyNet’s WUXP and CW’s WNAB. He came to Nashville from Chicago.

Fox’s WJW Channel 8 is looking for a new president and general manager because Greg Easterly, who had that position since 2007, left for the same titles with Chicago's WGN Channel 9.

To read the article by Mark Dawidziak, who came to the Beacon Journal in 1983 from the Kingsport, Tennesee paper and left in 1999 for the PD, click on http://www.cleveland.com/tv-blog/index.ssf/2014/05/dominic_mancuso_named_new_general_manager_at_channel_19_and_channel_43.html#incart_river

Cleveland GM Bill Applegate retiring

Channels 19/43 General Manager Bill Applegate

General manager Bill Applegate, who put the “action” in Action News at WOIO-Channel 19 and WUAB-Channel 43, will retire Friday, April 25.

Applegate took over the Raycom Media-owned Cleveland stations in January 2001. Happy talk was replaced by in-your-face news presentations.

Applegate cut his teeth in newsrooms, both on newspapers and in TV stations. He wasn’t the usual general manager promoted from the sales department.

His career took him from Eugene, Ore., Buffalo, N.Y.; Boston; San Francisco; Chicago; and New York City.

Applegate joined Raycom in 1996, eventually winding up in  Cleveland. He and his wife, Katherine, have four children and live in Lakewood.

To read PD TV critic and former BJ TV critic Mark Dawidziak’s article on Applegate’s retirement, click on http://www.cleveland.com/tv-blog/index.ssf/2014/04/bill_applegate_retiring_as_general_manager_of_two_cleveland_stations.html#incart_river