Monday, July 03, 2006

Pre-Fourth Firecrackers

It's mostly very quiet due to the July 4th holiday, but here are some random things we're hearing or reading...

NEW 5 ND: Cleveland ABC affiliate WEWS/5 has finally named a new news director.

He's Steve Hyvonen, who comes from heading up the newsroom at WVTM/13, the NBC affiliate in Birmingham AL. In addition to other stations on his resume, Hyvonen also counts the cable TV news network MSNBC as a former employer. We've seen him listed as a former executive producer and senior producer for the Secaucus NJ-based cable network.

The Plain Dealer's Julie Washington reports that Hyvonen is a Michigan native, who's also lived in Indiana. He'll take over the WEWS news director position on July 17th.

The opening dates back to September of last year, when news director John Butte succeeded Ric Harris as WEWS' general manager. Butte has hung onto the news director title as well, while waiting to hire his replacement in the newsroom...

FOUR LETTER FUN: OMW hears that a guest on Air America Radio's Al Franken Show (weekdays 1-3 PM, WARF/1350 "Radio Free Ohio") let forth with an unexpurgated four letter obscenity recently, a word that apparently made it out to the entire network.

And that guest isn't the only one who's cursed recently on national radio.

FOX News Radio affiliates unwittingly aired the "F-bomb" late one night not too long ago. The network's overnight news anchor accidentally aired a piece of pre-recorded audio (link to "Inside Cable" blog story, beware strong language!) that did not contain the voice of President Bush, but the voice of an unidentified FOX News Radio staffer using that expletive in frustration in front of a microphone he apparently did not realize was open.

Franken is among the hosts with subs this extended July 4th weekend - "Majority Report" co-host Sam Seder is not only being heard in his place, but is also being heard locally in the noon-1 PM hour as fill for WARF midday host Joe Finan.

We'd assume that Jones Radio's Stephanie Miller Show is airing in the 11 AM-noon hour on 1350 during Finan's vacation absence - this week, with comedienne Elayne Boosler doing fill-in for Steph. Over on Finan's former home base - talk WNIR/100.1 - regulars Howie Chizek and Bob Golic are on the air today...

NEXTMEDIA'S NEXT: We're hearing rumblings out of the Canton market that NextMedia is itching to make some moves there. Could they be eyeing adding a second FM to WHBC-FM/94.1? Could a possible eventual sale of 94.1's sister station, WHBC/1480, also be in the offing? We'll keep an eye on this for you, but this may not come down for a while...

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's about time that Channel 5 hires someone to replace John Butte as news director. Maybe now Channel 5 can do more original stories for its newscasts instead of ripping off Channel 19.

Anonymous said...

WARF is indeed airing the full Stephanie Miller Show this week. Of course, the one week we get the full shows of her and Al Franken would have to be when they're both on vacation (not really a knock on Joe Finan--I just wish we got Steph and Al in their entirety somehow).

I happened to be listening last week (I believe it was Tuesday) when James Hoffa Jr. referred to someone last week as being "full of s***" during Al's show. Al managed to do a good job of laughing it off and making an FCC joke, but I'm still wondering if something might come of it (now if this were Limbaugh or O'Reilly's show, I could just hear the FCC making a joke about it).

Anonymous said...

The speculation on WHBC getting an FM sister might not be too far off the mark. During its pre-NextMedia days, WHBC's owners made a serious bid to buy WNPQ. Methinks the only thing that kept it from happening was Mr. Natoli getting cold feet at the last minute...

Anonymous said...

Old age and poor circulation has something else to to with WNPQ and Mr. Natoli's cold feet

Anonymous said...

Looks like Afternoons are open at 103.5 KISS FM in Chicago. Kasper has been in All Access Action for a few days, could he be heading there?>>>>

Anonymous said...

FCC..FCC...blah, blah, blah. People, figure it out: the FCC owns the keys to the radio kingdom. You wanna TP the castle? Fine. If no one tells the King, you got away with it; if someone rats you out, and the one who wears the crown figures you meant to do harm to his home because he found matches and gasoline by the toilet paper, then you pay the price.

If you're in the business of radio or television in this country of ours and you can't figure this out, then you need to go back and get you some schoolin'.

Oh...I forgot..it's a lib complaining and/or being "witty". My bad: the left should be able to do or say what they want without repercussion and the right should just be muzzled because they're ALL stupid and stuff and junk.

Anonymous said...

My understanding is that NextMedia wants to sell the Canton combo ASAP..while it is entirely possible the combo could be split up, who would take on their dying A-M? And how would you fix their trainwreck of an F-M?

Ben said...

must have been a slipup on Air America, too bad no one listens.

Anonymous said...

I recall WHBC was attempting to purchase WNPQ. If memory serves they even built a studio or at least started to next to the current Mix 94.1 Studio.