Plain Dealer Folo

A couple of items to post out of recent columns in the Plain Dealer:

* PD sports media columnist Roger Brown notes the departure of WKYC/3 weekend sports anchor Mike Cairns, who exits the Gannett Cleveland NBC affiliate on March 5 in what's called a "mutual decision". It doesn't sound like Cairns has another out-of-town job in mind, as he tells Brown he's staying in town looking for "another TV job". In today's column, Brown suggests that Cairns "may be a candidate" for a job with the Cleveland Indians' new TV operation...which is supposedly closing in on naming its announcing team. But the folks at "Fastball Sports" are apparently not yet close to announcing deals with other cable/satellite providers besides Time Warner Cable. (OMW would like to take the opportunity to repeat...Adelphia...Adelphia...Adelphia...and to remind the Indians' media staff that it's likely Adelphia and Comcast won't yet be absorbed into TWC locally by the time the first pitch hits TV...)

* PD non-sports TV radio columnist Julie Washington notes the impending departure of WOIO/19's 5 and 10 PM weekday anchor, Ryan Andrews. Andrews was about to be moved to the weekend casts - paired with regular Tiffany Burns. But he'd apparently already been considering a move, according to new news director Dan Salamone. Andrews' destination is not yet known, but it's out of Cleveland. Washington also notes that Salamone is looking to beef up the 10 PM edition of "19 Action News" on WUAB/43, and some other changes in the "19 Action News" newsroom. Andrews' place, at least for now on the 5 and 10 PM shows, has been taken by newcomer Jeff Eliasoph.

Washington's other brief item confirms what we speculated here a while back...the urban talk format on Radio One's WERE/1300 Cleveland will NOT start as soon as today. It's been pushed back a couple of weeks, to January 30th. That's also the start date of another new Radio One talker, WVCG/1080 in Miami.

The chain-wide effort to target African-American talk listeners reportedly includes a new midday show from the Rev. Al Sharpton, and an afternoon drive sports talk show from a popular Atlanta team of two brothers. Locally, there'll be a local morning drive show on AM 1300...which has seen any number of Cleveland media names auditioning for the opening. Among them: long-time local sports voice Ronnie Duncan, and WOIO/19 reporter Harry Boomer.