DUNCAN GONE: We start off in the sports media world again, with news that the Cleveland Cavaliers have - as expected - fired public address announcer Ronnie Duncan.Duncan tells Cleveland Plain Dealer sports/media columnist Roger Brown that "I didn't fire myself - they fired me".
“I feel I made a very positive contribution to the Cavs organization and the game atmosphere last season. And I honestly don’t feel my contribution was truly appreciated by the team. But I wish the Cavs well and have no ill feelings."
Duncan's dismissal comes after the controversial firing of Cavs TV voice Michael Reghi. Though arena public address announcing isn't usually in our sights, Duncan continues as morning host at Radio One urban talk WERE/1300 Cleveland, and as far as we know, his work with the Village Television cable channel.
Though while we're at it - OMW has no idea if Time Warner Cable plans to continue running Village Television after taking over the former Adelphia systems in Cleveland.
Brown's regular Monday Sports Media Column has a potpourri of items, including reports from Detroit, where "word is" that new Cavs TV announcer Fred McLeod's offical introduction will be put off until the furor over Reghi's firing dies down.
A Detroit source reportedly close to McLeod tells Brown that McLeod - finishing out his time at local NBC affiliate WDIV/4 - is "aware of the firestorm" regarding Reghi's dismissal.
Brown also says that Scripps-Howard's WEWS/5 apparently couldn't get its parent company to pay "big money" for the Cleveland Browns' local TV rights. WKYC/3 ended up winning that battle, and airs its first pre-season Browns game on Thursday from Philadelphia...
PAUL HARVEY - GOODBYE?: We haven't yet heard it in listening to Clear Channel talk WTAM/1100 today, but an OMW reader tells us the station's announcing the end of its carriage of ABC Radio news commentator Paul Harvey.The announcement reportedly says that Saturday's "Paul Harvey News" will be the last on the powerhouse Cleveland talk station.
We're told it ran after Paul Harvey's morning newscasts, so we expect to hear it after "The Rest of the Story" this afternoon.
Assuming our reader heard it correctly, it wouldn't really be a surprise. Though WTAM hung onto Harvey despite dumping ABC for FOX News Radio, we expect many stations to start reconsidering his broadcasts as he nears the end of his current contract in 2010.
If Harvey retires then, or earlier, and ABC slides in former Senator Fred Thompson, the "Law and Order" star may find a much smaller affiliate list when he takes over...
NEW NFL NOTICE: Reader Phil in Bainbridge tips us again to a new location for the FCC required notice that Time Warner Cable may dump the NFL Network in early September on the former Adelphia systems: it's a part of the rotation on local programming channel 15.The notice also airs on cable channel 17, which is where we got this screen shot. But the placement on 15 may be significant - it's the channel the former Adelphia system's cable boxes tune in when they are reset.
We still believe folks in the former Comcast service areas are getting only the notice, and not the NFL Network at all. How do you put up a notice that you're dumping a channel, when you've already dumped it?
CLARIFICATION: While we're on the topic of WTAM...it's a small point, but we did want to correct it. OMW reported earlier that the station's newsroom is now being sponsored by FirstEnergy's Illuminating Company and Ohio Edison.
Technically, it's the WTAM studio complex bearing that sponsor designation. We first heard it in a newscast, which is being promoted as "from the studios of News Radio WTAM 1100, powered by The Illuminating Company and Ohio Edison".
Again, small stuff, but we want to be accurate, here...
7 comments:
I caught TAM's Prize show Saturday and Bob Franz was a guest call-in and mentioned his show was expanding to noon, so I guess the whole 'mid-day report' is history. Also heard on that same show that TAM's Levon Putney was headed to WCBS in NYC.
Yep, still no NFL Network on Comcast, they have to be violating FCC guidelines I would assume.
Now if only WTAM would dump Trivisonno and Kevin Keane then the station could be back on the fast track to respectability
There won't be any tears shed for Duncan's exit; it was a doomed experiment from the start. Everything he did was so forced, over-the-top awful, intrusively-loud...almost like a bad parody voice of Dick Vitale on acid...(think about it, actually a good comparison).
Please bring back Howie Chizak--at whatever price he wants--to restore some respectability to the game atmosphere. He was natural, beloved, and so great...nothing had to be distorted or forced to make it sound like something big or exciting--he just made it that way.
If they bring in that knucklehead announcer from Detroit, so help me, the ticket-holders may trash the place. He is pathetic, possibly even worse than Duncan...and that's saying something.
Amen to Duncan's exit. The previous comment was exactly right. I don't understand how this guy can still get jobs in this market - he has been in and out of so many - and made a fool of himself in each one. WOIO (actually a good match), WKNR. If it weren't for his biggest cheerleader (Mr. "word is"), this guy would have been out of town a long time ago.
Paul Harvey may be gone in Pittsburgh, too. WPGB has pulled him off its Web site.
Great blog! Regarding the NFL network, TWC, & the FCC, I do believe the NFL network should be present upon the basic channel lineups. Putting it in a sports package shows the greed and money TWC wants and has. Instead of NFLGetReal.com, it should be TWCGetReal.com.
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