Wjz

WJZ-TV has tapped Baltimore-based W. B. Doner & Co. to plan placement and timing of print and broadcast ads promoting the station's newscasts and other programming, the agency said yesterday.Planning and buying -- for TV, radio and newspaper ads -- had been handled in-house at the station before it turned to Doner, which begins work Sept. 1.The ads themselves will continue to be created by WJZ.Phil Arrington, WJZ's creative services director, said planning and buying had been handled by Andre DeVerneil, the former research director who left the station in June.

Wait just a little bit longer.That's the word from WJZ for those viewers who have been waiting almost a year for the arrival of Sally Thorner and WJZ's new 5 o'clock weeknight newscast.The date, Dec. 1, has been circled on calendars all over town since last October when Thorner announced she was jumping WMAR's ship and signing on with WJZ to anchor a new newscast. A no-compete clause in her contract with WMAR keeps her off the air at WJZ until Dec. 1 even though her new employers are reportedly paying her $250,000.

ODDS'N' ENDS OFF THE BROADCAST BEAMS:* The importance of familiar, likable faces as a direct function of local TV ratings was illustrated pretty clearly recently by radio station WCBM-AM 680's mock election promotion at the Maryland State Fair.In addition to casting mock votes in political races, visitors to the WCBM booth were asked to choose their top five TV personalities from among a list of more than two dozen on-air people, from newscasters to weathermen.It's no surprise that WJZ-Channel 13, top-rated news station here for years, captured six of the top 10 spots.

Baltimore's two strongest television stations, WBAL and WJZ, continued their neck-and-neck race for ratings dominance in the sweeps period that ended this week, and neither could claim a towering victory. WBAL, the NBC affiliate on Channel 11, could boast of the largest share of the audience for its 5 p.m., 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. news slots - which it has led for 10 consecutive ratings periods - as well as for both its morning and 6 p.m. newscasts on weekends, according to figures provided by the station and compiled by ACNielsen, a national market research firm.

A headline on the front page of yesterday's newspaper incorrectly said that three television stations, including Baltimore's WJZ, were involved in the strategic alliance between Westinghouse Broadcasting and CBS Inc. Five stations are involved.The Sun regrets the errors.The shake-up in Baltimore's TV market continued yesterday as the owners of WJZ announced a deal that will make the city's top-rated station a CBS affiliate for the next 10 years.The move left WBAL -- the current home of CBS in Baltimore -- without a network and likely to align itself with either NBC or Fox.The Westinghouse Broadcasting Co., or Group W, announced an agreement yesterday in which its stations in Baltimore, Boston and Philadelphia will switch over to CBS, joining the group's CBS-affiliated stations in San Francisco and Pittsburgh.

WJZ (Channel 13) made a flurry of 11th-hour deals last night to guarantee that it would stay on all Baltimore-area cable systems for at least 60 days.But subscribers in Cambridge will find that Maryland's most popular TV station and all its ABC programs are missing in action today when they turn on their cable TV.And there's more bad news for cable subscribers in Cambridge: WMAR (Channel 2) and all its NBC programs are going to be missing as well. Marcus Cable in Cambridge said it would pull the plug on WJZ and WMAR as of 12:01 this morning, immediately after the midnight deadline mandated by the Cable TV Act of 1992.

More changes were announced on the local television scene yesterday, as WBFF-TV named a new general manager and WJZ-TV said it was adding a half hour of news weekday at 5:30 a.m.Steve Marks, 34, is the new general manager at Channel 45, replacing Bruce Lumpkin who was fired last month shortly after the launch of the station's 10 p.m. news show."

An article yesterday in The Sun on layoffs at WJZ-TV said Steve Aveson of "Evening Magazine" was included in layoffs that took effect last week. In fact, Mr. Aveson was not included in the first round of layoffs and will remain with the station at least until Dec. 28.Also, the article should have said that Mr. Aveson worked as co-host on "Evening Magazine" for the first 3 1/2 years at Channel 13.At the time the article was written, a spokeswoman for WJZ...

A local news collaboration between WJZ-Channel 13 and the cable systems serving Baltimore and Baltimore County could be the first step toward additional cable/broadcast joint ventures, according to officials involved.The top-rated local news operation next week will begin producing "Eyewitness News Cable Capsules," five-minute spots of local news scheduled to be seen nine times daily on the CNN Headline News channel of United Artists Cable in the city (Channel 15) and Comcast Cablevision in the county (Channel 10)

The changes sweeping network television came to Baltimore yesterday with the announcement that all ABC shows -- including its highly regarded news and prime-time programs -- will switch from WJZ to WMAR. The move disrupts four decades of viewing habits and could change the balance of power among local stations.ABC-TV and E. W. Scripps Co. announced a 10-year deal that will make WMAR (Channel 2) and four other Scripps-owned stations ABC affiliates by the end of this year. WMAR has been an NBC affiliate since 1981, when the last big shake-up occurred here.