The general manager of television station NBC-17 since 2005 is stepping down to run 1360-WCHL, the community radio station in Chapel Hill.

Barry Leffler, left, will buy a minority stake in the radio station for now. Eventually, owner Jim Heavner plans to sell the whole thing to him.

Leffler will become WCHL's CEO and managing partner, with Heavner continuing as chairman.

"It is impossible for me to imagine a more capable successor than Barry Leffler, who brings a lifetime of broadcast experience, personal leadership, creativity and commitment to WCHL and this community," Heavner said, in a prepared statement.

Leffler, who lives in Chapel Hill, has worked for NBC for 14 years, with stints in Miami, London and New York.

"This presents us with enormous opportunities to develop integrated local media to create a new 'medium of record' for Chapel Hill-Carrboro and the growing surrounding areas," Leffler said.

My colleague Mark Schultz has been methodically pecking away at the maneuvering involving UNC Chapel Hill, Carolina North, local business interests and the Horace Williams Airport, which the university has for years said it wants to close in order to develop that land.

Mark's latest installment arrived today in the Chapel Hill News. It reveals that last year, then-Chancellor James Moeser asked two local businessmen to help fund a study of the economic impact of a new airport in Orange County.

The two businessmen, Jim Heavner of VilCom and J. Adam Abram of the James River Group, each pitched in $15,000 towards an eventual $100,000 that the UNC Chapel Hill Foundation paid a consultant.

The resulting report, which Mark wrote about last month, suggests a windfall for Orange County in the neighborhood of $53 million a year. And one local legislator, State Rep. Bill Faison of Cedar Grove, likes that idea very much.

The prospect of a new airport in Orange County has some folks on edge, even though there has not been any sort of indication that a site has been selected.

Mark has also put some questions on the issue directly to new Chancellor Holden Thorp. Read that interview here.