Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Activity in Canton

It has been nearly two entire months since OMW broke the story of the sale of Cumulus rock WRQK/106.9 "Rock 107" Canton to Clear Channel.

In that entire time, the news has appeared hardly anywhere else.

The Main St. Tattler (Conclave) folks picked up on it, and FMQB.com even ran a small item on it. Both brought the newer details - a swap between the companies' stations in Ohio and Michigan.

But the deal has yet to be announced in a press release by either Cumulus or Clear Channel, and the assignment application has yet to show up on the FCC's website. And the news, to our knowledge, has yet to appear in other trade publications or websites.

That might change fairly soon.

How does Your Mighty Blog of Fun(tm) convince you that we're not hallucinating?

Here... see for yourself.

This "in waiting" Clear Channel site for "Rock 107" has apparently become all the rage in the Canton radio market, including at the station itself...and among staffers at other local stations.

It's not all that difficult to discover. Clear Channel has a habit of putting those "backstage" sites in the URL form "stationcall-fm(or am).clearchannel.com", and this is certainly not the first one they've put up in advance.

A quick look at the site would indicate that the company isn't planning major (or any?) changes, as all of the current station staffers appear to be listed in their usual slots, and it basically seems like a Clear Channel conversion of the existing Cumulus site.

Now, of course, changes can be made relatively quickly...but with a takeover pending (even if delayed by some weeks), why go through the trouble of putting up what was supposed to be a non-public site with such detail about the current operation?

While we're in Canton, a birdie not far away from 22nd St. off Whipple Avenue tells us that a drive by the WRQK tower site could end up giving you a nice view of some construction equipment that wasn't there before.

We helpfully remind our readers that A) the WRQK tower itself needs to be replaced, and soon...and B) that tower will also become the home of the 101.7 outlet that's still in Dover/New Philadelphia as WJER-FM.

We've talked to experts in towers and such things - such as a certain long-time Friend of OMW - and are told that B) won't happen until A) does...and literally can't, due to the condition we saw the WRQK tower in last time we were at the site...

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

No you are not hallucinating. Is this the offical site or a waiting until offical anouncement then launch kind of thing?

Anonymous said...

looks like it's not done yet; usually when CC has a site SOLELY up on a wxxx-ip.clearchannel.com address (and not on the actual wxxx.com/main.html site) it's because they're working on it

Anonymous said...

Kinda funny...if you notice under the Contact Us and click on Garrett Hart's email addy, it still points to a Cumulus.com domain.

Hmmm.

Anonymous said...

How about a site like this for WJER-FM? Maybe this would give a clue to the upcoming format.Although my guess is CC has no clue. Which is normal operating procedure for them.

Anonymous said...

Clear Channel probably enjoys the speculation to some degree--and also wants to let Terry Simmons and Mix 94.1s ''GM of the Day'' lose a little more sleep before the guns are turned on them..

Anonymous said...

Write it in stone...CHR on 101.7. It will happen.

CC will use KDD to take on HBC on the middle/upper end, WRQK on the young males (yep, HBC has young male numbers) and 101.7 to remove Q92 out of the picture.

Lets face it, CC can and WILL put on a better CHR product.

Anonymous said...

Canton is interesting in how stations react to each other. For example Q92. They react to everything other stations do.
They have a long history of it.

They've hired a ton of jocks who have been let go from other stations for various reasons. Kathy and Jim from WONE, Mike Benson from WHBC. Igor Etc.

They have an old WKDD Jingle package and hired WKDDs old Voice Guy Pat Garrett. They started doing concerts right around the time WKDD stopped.

Deluca would comment on former WRQK nite guy Nick Sommers all the time.

During their old school lunch, they run sweepers "we play music, not some old guy talking" as if the WHBC audience flips to Q92 at Noon.

They are playing Buckcherry as a power and bringing them in for a concert. I will bet the house and my car it's because Clear Channel is buying Rock 107. I'm sure DP3 is "We can outdo kdd and rqk at the same time"!

Anonymous said...

Nick Andrews is the former WRQK night jock.
Carry on.

Anonymous said...

While WKDD has made some noise in Canton, Mix 94.1 gets impacted more by the two country stations in the market..and its weak morning show, which management has never addressed, gets clobbered by its AM, book..after book..after book..

WKDD already has the suburban markets it really cares about...and the demo it wants..go into any bank or business in North Canton and Jackson Township, and you're more likely to hear WKDD..in Canton..Mix still has something of a foothold, since Clear Channel is not going to waste its time going after an urban audience.

Since Mix can't figure out what its fomrat actually should be, they are in to some degree, almost, the market's ''Jack'' station..if they could ever find a way to shut their jocks up, it would help..

Why would Canton support a second CHR, when it barely notices the one it has? After all the headaches Clear Channel has had to endure to actually get 101.7, you attack WHBC-FM with either some sort of Soft Rock..or 'Movin'' or Adult Hits...think K-Hits in St. Louis, for example..and get South Market into a panic stricken state..and since their GM spends most of his time cleaing up his mess in MI, better still to attack them now..the people running it now have no idea how to respond once it starts..

Anonymous said...

The previous post is right on target. Take it from someone who knows.