Monday, November 06, 2006

No, We Haven't Moved to Cincinnati

No, we never left Northeast Ohio, but we're getting a lot of ribbing about the Cincinnati and Southwest Ohio focus of our items in the past few days. Patience, please.

As noted by us and by others, the Queen City has been a very, very active market. It's not often that four major radio stations in a large market completely change from top to bottom inside of two weeks. We've been following it from our local perch, with help from OMW readers and listeners in the market.

We suspect that if we were based down there back in 2001, we'd have had similar items about the Great Frequency Swap up here...from the same bemused, detached perspective. The fact that at least one of the stations involved runs one of our "home" formats (talk) has also played a part.

But no matter, the upshot is that basically nothing of significant (or even insignificant) note has happened in Northeast Ohio radio/TV the past few days.

Though, we are reminded by an OMW reader that the Cincinnati changes do have one Northeast Ohio effect: the previously announced format change of alt-rock WAQZ/97.3 to country "97.3 The Wolf" means the end of Cleveland-based host Shane "Rover" French's show on the station.

Short of camping out near a radio to hear the latest puzzler out of the mouth of a certain eat-on-the-air afternoon talk show host, there's really been nothing we could write about...aside from the doings down south, that is.

But...it looks like that's changing...and fast.

We're working on fresh items with lots of Northeast Ohio content...stay tuned!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why is this blog called Ohio Media Watch if you have to explain to people WHY you are writing about a part of Ohio?

Someone needs to learn how to read and quit complaining!!

Ohio Media Watch said...

Well, let's go "inside" here.

When we first started OMW, we were presented with the naming choice. We actually wanted to put "Northeast Ohio" in there somewhere, but I guess "NOMW" doesn't have much of a ring to it.

So, it was Ohio Media Watch, with the notation at the top that we touch on items from Northeast Ohio "and beyond".

As a general rule, we don't pay attention to the minute day-to-day moves of the industry outside of Northeast Ohio.

For one, there's a Cincinnati PD change we may not even get around to posting for a while. (Check AllAccess, it involves a new PD at Clear Channel's "Kiss" and "MIX".) And stuff like minor lineup changes may never make it into this report.

But it is what it is. This blog exists as an extension of what Your Primary Editorial Voice(tm) is following. If you don't like it, go start your own blog. :)

We felt the need to post this because we've gotten complaints both privately and on the blog, and we just wanted to let folks know that we *are* still basically Northeast Ohio based.

-The Management

Anonymous said...

Well I do like OMW, but still started my own blog, with readership well into double digits ;)

Anonymous said...

"Ohio Media Watch" says it all. No apology needed. We in Columbus send our best.

Yours in semi-regular readership,
JbC

Anonymous said...

As a SW Ohioan who checks your blog every day, I just wanted to say THANKS for mentioning the goings-on in the Cincinnati radio market. The Enquirer doesn't have a regular radio-TV critic anymore and the Post will be folding at the end of next year. I rely on your blog for news from the media biz in this area. Thanks!