How To Take Three Stations Off The Air In One Easy Step

OMW hasn't had a lot of fun in the World of Glunt recently, so let's go back there, shall we?

For new readers, that means we'll be talking about that Youngstown/Warren market cluster known as Beacon Broadcasting, owned by Warren steel supply magnate Harold Glunt. Among the operations in Glunt Land: WANR/1570 Warren, WRTK/1540 Niles, WLOA/1470 Farrell PA, WGRP/940 Greenville PA, and WEXC/107.1 Greenville PA - the latter targetting Youngstown as Christian rocker "Freq 107".

We hear that Beacon sales manager Michael "Angel" Arch - former majority owner of the company until this year, selling his interest to Glunt - just can't resist "playing radio". OMW hears that WANR/1570's "family friendly" oldies programming suddenly left the air one recent Sunday afternoon, on a shift manned by Mr. Arch. In its place on AM 1570? An unidentified webcast from "Live365.com", apparently pulled up on the WANR automation computer because Arch wanted to listen to it in the studio.

But that's not all! (As the late night TV pitchman would say...)

The act of switching the main WANR automation computer around to hear a webcast for personal, off-air reasons also ended up taking simulcast station WLOA/1470 *completely* off the air. The WANR automation computer directly feeds the WLOA transmitter via an Internet feed, as OMW suspected some time back. From our best guess, the move would have also taken WGRP/940 - the third station in the "family friendly oldies" simulcast - off the air, as it seems to feed directly off of WLOA.

This means when Mr. Arch decided he needed to hear some tunes which were not airing on the station which actually EMPLOYS him...he changed programming on one station, and took two other stations completely dark, for the better part of a Sunday afternoon. Given that we've heard "Michael Angel" strain to attach religious meanings to secular oldies tunes on Sunday afternoons in the past, he may well have done a public service.

Some advice to Mr. Arch from OMW - next time you feel the need to listen to something else, bring along an MP3 player or a CD. Or, we're guessing that you'll likely have PLENTY of time to listen to other audio, at home...

Oh, OMW also hears that Mr. Glunt may indeed be considering "kicking the tires" at troubled stations WGFT/1330 Campbell and WRBP/101.9 Hubbard, both in the Youngstown market. The stations are owned by Stop 26 Riverbend Productions, which was recently told by a bankruptcy court to get in shape financially or sell those stations, as well as WASN/1500 Youngstown and two stations in the Columbus market.

If Beacon bought 1330, it could easily sell off recent acquisition WRTK/1540 in that market, which as far as we know has yet to change formats from urban contemporary. 1330 is a far better signal, and is not a daytimer like Niles-based WRTK. And 101.9 would make a nice full-market replacement for Greenville PA rimshot WEXC/107.1, as a new home for "Freq". We'll be watching...