Wednesday, March 01, 2006

EXCLUSIVE: Cumulus/Youngstown Programmer Heading for Roanoke

OMW hears it's official: Matt Spatz, program director/morning driver at Cumulus Youngstown market rocker "Rock 104" (WWIZ/103.9 Mercer PA), is headed south for a new PD gig in Roanoke VA.

Matt is taking over the programming reins of Clear Channel rock WROV/96.3, the Roanoke/Lynchburg market's dominant rock station ("The Rock of Virginia"). He takes the opening left by Aaron Roberts, who transferred to program Clear Channel Toledo rocker WIOT/104.7. We guess the Ohio/Virginia Radio Trade is now complete, no? There must be something about I-77 and U.S. 460...

Mr. Spatz comes into the CC Roanoke/Lynchburg cluster at a good time. WROV recently topped that market's 12-plus ratings, in a heated battle with Wheeler Broadcasting's three big FM sticks. WROV is the next most powerful signal in the market after those three signals, country WSLC/94.9 ("94.9 Star Country"), AC WSLQ/99.1 ("Q99") and CHR WXLK/92.3 ("K92"). Just about every other commercial signal in the dual-city market needs two signals to simulcast with, one in Roanoke and one in Lynchburg, with the exception of local talk stations that each serve only one of those two cities...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

So... let's look at this in perspective. Matt Spatz... eight months as a PD from butthole Ohio gets the job over WROV's FEMALE APD of six years who has been at ROV a decade, has INCREDIBLE ratings and is one of the valley's top voices. I see the days of discrimination in the radio world are still upon us....

Anonymous said...

Heidi got passed over again? I wonder if she will stay. Then again... the way rock radio is set up, she'll never be a PD. Women are almost always midday... and the only way to get a PD job is to replace the lone female. Automatically knock good females out of any chance to be a PD. There are RARE exceptions.