Wrapping Up the Week

Just a warning ahead...as soon as we figure out how to word it, we feel another policy change note happening sometime this weekend. Consider it another bout of conscience by your ever vigilant Primary Editorial Voice(tm)...

In other stuff:

1590 WAKR-LOCAL: We've noticed that Rubber City Radio's newly-localized standards/news WAKR/1590 Akron has apparently completely severed itself from the Dial-Global (ex-Westwood One) Adult Standards bird.

At this early morning hour Friday night into Saturday, we're hearing what we presume to be locally-delivered music from a hard drive somewhere on West Market Street, with nary a sign of the usual satellite air personalities.

To that end, we've been pointed at the WAKR web page by regular OMW reader/tipster Nathan Obral, where the station has posted its new local air personality schedule.

In addition to new mid-morning voice Chuck Collins, station vet Bob Allen and WONE morning driver Tim Daugherty, WAKR's schedule lists local voice Debbie Golden in the 7 PM-midnight slot - which, of course, is give or take various sports events.

Like at very least Daugherty's clock-burning hours, we assume Ms. Golden is voicetracked. And just now, well after 1 AM, we heard what we believe is her voice, recorded, walking into a song after a Weather Channel forecast.

We've also noticed (as has Nathan) that the station has officially moved its local newscasts to top of the hour, displacing ABC News Radio, during weekday daytime hours...and added a bottom of the hour local newscast as well during those hours.

And WAKR appears to have beefed up its news staff. On the station's page listing that staff, we spot at least five people we've never seen there before, or heard on the air.

It's a bold move for 1590.

We've said many times before that your Primary Editorial Voice(tm) is a regular news/talk/sports listener. While we're still kind of young for the standards format, we typically forget about WAKR when it comes to local news...because the station's programming outside of local news and sports was not at all appealing to us.

We hope this is just the first step in an effort to "localize" WAKR. We know some have grumbled about the fact that at least part of the WAKR air personality lineup is not "live".

But it allows the station to have local people talking on the air, and it gives them control over the music mix. We've commented before here about how schizophrenic the satellite-delivered "standards" formats are...these days, they're "AOR". Not "Album Oriented Rock", but "All Over the Road"...often sounding like a mix of big band and soft AC.

We're sure Mr. Collins and company at WAKR will have a handle on that...along with occasional automation glitches leading to dead air in the late night hours...

WRQK-LP: OK, so there's no call sign change for Cumulus rock WRQK/106.9 "Rock 107" in Canton, as the low power the station is putting out is still temporary.

OMW hasn't heard much about this, but we're working under the assumption that major transmitter problems have made "Rock 107" a difficult catch outside of the immediate Canton area. We can't believe this will continue for much longer, but in our experience, sometimes such repairs do take time - mostly in waiting for parts.

And though we're not really in a mood to talk about it right now, just a note - at least as of this writing, WRQK is still being operated by Cumulus...more in our later note this weekend...