Two Items From Roger Brown's Monday Sports Media Column

Just a couple of items we're picking out of the usual Monday sports media column by the Plain Dealer's Roger Brown:

* Cleveland ABC affiliate WEWS/5 is putting its "Sports Saturday" late night show on hiatus until the fall. Brown reports that the last airing will be January 21st. He says that among other reasons, "NewsChannel 5" sports staffers will apparently be concentrating on local programming around the Cleveland Cavaliers' 5 national TV appearances on ABC.

OMW's response: Channel 5 had a Saturday night sports show? Umm, we forgot, and apparently, viewers did, too. We did notice that CBS affiliate WOIO/19 dumped its Sunday night extended sports slot entirely with the end of "(Insert Name of Fast Food Restaurant Here) Browns Tonight"...which isn't terribly surprising, since the show concentrated mainly on the team and its game earlier in the day. But we were wondering if they'd convert it to a more general sports show, like competing programs on WEWS and WKYC/3.

* Brown confirms earlier rumblings we've reported here - that Metro Networks afternoon sports update anchor Ryan McNaughton has left the position for a TV job in Syracuse. The job is apparently an off-air producer's gig, we'd presume in the sports department of that unnamed station.

Brown did NOT correctly note that McNaughton is not an employee of Salem sports WKNR/850 Cleveland, which was the primary outlet for his afternoon updates during talker Kenny Roda's show. McNaughton's Metro duties also put his voice far from Cleveland... doing updates on Radio One sports WING/1410 "ESPN 1410" way down in Dayton. OMW feels it's once again important to note the difference, and wonders if the Cleveland market's only "full-time" sports station may actually hire an in-house body to cover, well, a pretty important function for a sports station...