Random Stuff Floating Around

An announcement, which we'll make in more detail later, and have hinted about: OMW is indeed going on hiatus sometime this week.

During our hiatus, we'll continue to pass along major local media news, like station sales, format changes and major changes involving on-air personalities (firings, departures, moves, etc.). But we won't publish daily until our return. We'll explain it all in the "Hiatus" message about to be posted, but until then...

WSPD GETS T-R-O: A Lucas County judge has granted a temporary restraining order against the office of Toledo mayor Carty Finkbeiner - requiring the mayor's office to keep Clear Channel talk WSPD/1370 in the information loop.

The station sought the order after a long public battle with Finkbeiner's office, which has prompted city officials to shut out WSPD from press conferences and other media information avenues.

The battle came to a head last week, in an item we reported below...where a door nearly broke at City Hall when a mayoral aide tried to hold back all but one WSPD staff member trying to get into a press conference.

WSPD officials say they hope the temporary order becomes permanent. We're predicting that detente will finally come to the relationship, as both sides have "made their points", as it were...

WHK AND RAMSEY?: A regular OMW reader reports hearing self-syndicated advice guru Dave Ramsey on Salem talk WHK/1420 Cleveland on Saturday evening.

We're particularly interested, as OMW was the very first source nationwide to report a split between Ramsey and Salem. The Nashville-based talker ended his relationship with the company over Salem's request for him to pay for his airtime on the company's talk and Christian talk/teaching outlets.

Ramsey's people told an OMW reader that they do not pay for airtime, so the program was allowed to be taken off WHK sister station WHKW/1220 and other Salem stations, including WHKW simulcaster WHKZ/1440 Warren-Youngstown, and WRFD/880 in the Columbus market.

At this point, the Saturday evening Ramsey airing is not on the WHK website schedule, and we don't know if it's unpaid filler or paid programming. But unlike in other markets, Ramsey has yet to find a new Cleveland market outlet to take his program...

WHIO ADDS NEWS STAFF: Incoming at Cox news/talk WHIO/1290-WHIO-FM/95.7 Dayton is Rachel Murray...who we just heard yesterday doing midday news at Clear Channel talk WLW/700 Cincinnati (via the station's feed on XM Satellite Radio, of course). She'll take the open afternoon drive news anchor slot posted in a job listing here a while back.

It's a return to the building for Murray. WHIO operations manager Nick Roberts tells OMW that she was a co-anchor on the station's "Miami Valley Morning News" in the late 1990's.

WHIO also adds news anchor fill-in Jason Michaels as permanent midday anchor. Michaels continues as APD for sister station "95.3 The Eagle", and as evening personality on sister country "K99.1"...

MAXWELL'S SIGHTS ON O&A: Every once in a while, talk radio personalities deal in "inside baseball"...talk about radio, their competition and the like that we here at OMW call "Manna From Heaven".

We didn't hear it ourselves, but an OMW reader tips us off to some of this "inside" talk from Clear Channel rock WMMS/100.7 afternoon host Maxwell.

Though Maxwell does play music, he's really more of a talk personality...and apparently sees talk radio hosts as his direct competitors.

Our reader tells us Maxwell crowed about good ratings in the last ratings period, though he noted that he couldn't go into much more detail due to the various rules regarding Arbitron's surveying.

But he did say, according to our reader, that he beat both sister talk WTAM/1100 afternoon eating machine Mike Trivisonno and CBS Radio alt-rock/talk syndicated afternoon team "Opie and Anthony". (UPDATE 7:25 PM 1/17/07: We'd like to clarify this...upon reading our reader's E-Mail, we were told it "appeared" Maxwell said he beat both Triv and O&A - from the conversation on the air. Our apologies for the misread.)

Ratings being what they are, and details being scarce, we don't know what demographic Maxwell was talking about.

But when a caller prompted Maxwell to talk about Triv, the WMMS PM driver reportedly responded:

That's not even what we were worried about. To be honest, it was Opie and Anthony. They come back in here after ruling the airwaves with an iron fist.

He's talking, of course, about O&A's initial stint in Cleveland, via once and current affiliate "92-3 K-Rock". We haven't heard if they're tearing up the ratings again, after doing well enough before to put a scare into Triv.

If any of our assembled readers can give us private information about this, we'd appreciate it. Posting it in a comment is one thing, but we really need to know WHO is telling us this, and if they have any credibility.

As always, OMW respects the privacy of our sources - we could tell you who, but it'd break that chain, after all...and we'll probably still be around here and updating through the end of the week at any rate...