Here A Game, There A Game...Everywhere But...

It was an interesting afternoon looking for talk radio on the Northeast Ohio radio scene this Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. Almost everyone was out of their regular schedule, carrying a football or basketball game.

* WTAM/1100 afternoon motormouth Mike Trivisonno was not heard on The Big One...instead, the Cleveland Clear Channel talker carried a college football game of some sort. (We can't remember who was playing, but we THINK it was Nebraska vs. Colorado.)

* On Akron market talker WNIR/100.1, the voice of play-by-play man Bill Needle was heard, via telephone, from South Padre Island TX, as the Kent State Golden Flashes men's basketball team took on Rutgers.

* On Clear Channel talker WHLO/640 in Akron, we believe it was the Kent State women's basketball team in action. (All of this is starting to run together.)

* On CC sister liberal talker WARF/1350 "Radio Free Ohio" in Akron, your Akron University women's basketball Zips took on Cleveland State.

Would you believe who was NOT carrying any sports play-by-play on Friday?

Hang on, we'll wait.

You guessed it, the Cleveland market's only sports format radio station, Salem's WKNR/850. Instead of sports action of any sort, the mighty 'KNR featured...its regular afternoon sports talk show, with station staffer Neil Bender filling in for afternoon drive host Kenny Roda.

And oddly enough, the only OTHER sports format radio station in the region, MediaCom east suburban rimshot Fox Sports Radio affiliate WJMP/1520 Kent, was also running sports talk instead of play-by-play, with FSR's Scott Ferrall filling in for afternoon driver Chris Myers. (We don't expect much out of WJMP, and we don't believe it even gets sports play-by-play overflow from sister station WNIR.)

Believe it or not, as a listener, we'll give this nod to WKNR. Here at OMW Central, we didn't really have a lot of interest in an out-of-market college football game, or any of the local college basketball offerings...so we ended up with Mr. Bender on our radio on Friday afternoon. We just thought it was odd that sports play-by-play was all over the dial on talk radio stations, while sports-formatted stations were doing regular sports talk...