A Few Brief Items (And One Out of Area)

As we launch into 2006's first full radio business day:

* Former Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth debuted in Howard Stern's rather large shoes, on a number of large market east coast former Stern affiliates...including CBS classic rocker WNCX/98.5 in Cleveland. We haven't heard his first show yet, but we set up our equipment to record roughly his first hour. We hear from the good folks at AllAccess that among Roth's first guests this morning was his uncle Manny, talking about the "old days of showbiz and tales of New York City". Uh, OK. We're sure audiences in Cleveland, Boston and Philadelphia were just thrilled about that.

* As first tipped right here on OMW - with thanks to long-time OMW tipster Nathan Obral in Lorain County - Elyria-Lorain Broadcasting talk WEOL/930 Elyria is indeed adding ABC Radio and FOX News Channel host Sean Hannity to the lineup. Hannity will indeed air live 3 hours a day from 3-6 PM, bumping WEOL's local "5 O'Clock World" newsmagazine off the schedule. There's no word right now on what that means for station staffer Larry Wright, who hosted the show back when it was "The Other Side of Morning Drive" at 9 AM...when it was first bumped by Premiere's Glenn Beck.

* With the station now officially sporting the WXRK(FM) calls, we haven't yet figured out what CBS Radio is doing with its alt-rock station. We're briefly out of the area again, and a check of our usual monitoring system shows unlistenable static on 92.3 FM from our northwest Akron World Headquarters, so we'll check on this later today. Today, by the way, was 92.3 morning star "Rover"'s first day originating out of WCKG/Chicago. We're hoping that Rover - aka Shane French - did not open his show with a lengthy discussion about the old days in Chicago (see above with David Lee Roth).

* And a small note that has nothing to do with Northeast Ohio media, but we always like to take care of Friends of OMW. AllAccess reports that former KSRO/Santa Rosa CA, KFBK and KTKZ/Sacramento and KSFO/San Francisco host Spencer Hughes is joining the weekday lineup at XM Radio's new "FOX News Talk" talk radio channel. He'll host the 2-5 PM slot after the Westwood One show from FNC's Bill O'Reilly airs on the satellite provider. Spencer will also hang onto his Sunday afternoon slot on heritage Boston talker WRKO/680.

Now, while we don't always agree with Spencer (and he knows it), off-air, he's one of our best friends...and is a great guy who deserves all the success he gets. Congratulations!