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We weren't even planning on being here today, but...here we are, with a mid-week installment...
BLACKSBURG NORTH: Two days after the largest shooting massacre in American history, local TV stations in Cleveland continue to camp out in Blacksburg, Virginia.
The Virginia Tech incident has brought local reporters to the small Southwest Virginia city from near and far.
WKYC/3 senior director Frank Macek, whose "Director's Cut" blog is linked to the left here, gives the lowdown on how the local NBC affiliate's evening co-anchor Tim White was able to be on the air so quickly from Blacksburg:He was actually in Washington D.C. at the time the shootings occurred getting ready to fly back to Cleveland to anchor the news Monday Night. Tim was able to be in the right place at the right time - and drove to Blacksburg to begin our on-site coverage of a story that has become a national and a local story...since it was just a few years ago that Case Western experienced a similar attack.
Timing, and location, is everything.
ABC affiliate WEWS/5 has decided to go with numbers.
Newly-minted Akron Bureau chief Pete Kenworthy, who basically just unpacked his belongings from his previous home market of Buffalo, was joined at Virginia Tech by evening co-anchor Lee Jordan - the pair is still scheduled to air reports from Blacksburg this evening.And many of the local reporters left back in Cleveland have been pressed into service covering local angles related to the Virginia Tech shooting...
SPORTS INSTABILITY: Something just dawned on us.
Only one Cleveland market TV station has seen no changes in its sports anchor/reporter lineup over the past few months.
That station, of course, would be FOX O&O WJW/8, which has the solid trio of Tony Rizzo, John Telich and Dan Coughlin aboard.
We're reminded of this due to a note from an OMW reader, who tells us WKYC/3 has put up an official job advertisement to fill the vacancy left by the departure of sports anchor Andy Baskin.
Baskin ended up starting his own production company - "Over the Falls Productions" - and has landed on shows he produces for SportsTime Ohio as a result.
WEWS/5 is still looking for Chris Miller's replacement, after the long-time sports director headed for a gig with Washington DC's Comcast SportsNet. And Cleveland CBS affiliate WOIO/19 is now tasked with replacing weekend sports anchor David Pingalore, who's heading for WKMG/6 in Orlando.
And OMW hears that yet another local sports TV type could be bolting town soon. And we hope he likes covering the Red Sox, Patriots and Celtics...
NEW HD RADIO: OK, maybe only a dozen people in Northeast Ohio have HD Radio units. As posted earlier here, there is one in the OMW World Headquarters.
So, this word of a format change on a local "HD2" radio channel may not affect many.
But, we dutifully pass along word of the new "HD2" feed on Clear Channel otherwise-hot-AC WMVX/106.5's digital side: "Totally Kidz".
It's described to us as a youth-oriented format aimed at 6 to 10 year old listeners, to sister WAKS/96.5's recently introduced "KIWI Radio" HD2 format - aimed at kids a little older.
Both are programmed locally by WAKS/WMMS program director Bo Matthews.
The HD2 format on 106.5 replaces "The Lake", an adult album alternative format...
BOOM MEMORIAL: And long-time WMMS/100.7 iconic voice Len "Boom Boom" Goldberg is being honored in a new memorial.
Cleveland's "Hessler Neighborhood Assocation", which normally holds a street fair on Hessler Street in the University Circle area every year, is holding a reunion for many people who have helped put together the fair over the years.
And they're using the reunion - to be held on May 19th - to memorialize "Boom", who lived on Hessler Street from the 1960's into the 1980's.
The "Voice of the Buzzard" was silenced late last year with his death at the age of 74, though his voice still lives on for many who grew up listening to WMMS...
8 comments:
Lower the price of HD radios so more of us common folk can afford them. Then utilize the extra channels maybe to give us more of what we want, live and local and maybe some specialty formats- "narrowcasting". Or make it accesable to the public, ala public access channels on cable.
HD is never going to be about ''live and local''..that form of radio died a long time ago..its going to be about, ''let's experiment with formats sales has told us can't sell..we'll show them''!
Live and local? Doesn't that cost money? Doesn't that require real, human-type people? Today's broadcast companies would never go for that.
You know, when HD radio actually came down to an affordable price, I was going to pick one up, just so I could turn off the satellite long enough to enjoy "The Lake" in my car.
Sure, it's a cookie cutter programming model used as the HD2 channel on a lot of crappy stations nationwide like Mix 106.5 by CC, but it was damn good and, before Sirius Spectrum brought in a new PD, it was better than either of the satellite AAA offerings.
Fortunately, I'm now spared from making the effort, and Cleveland commercial FM, and AM can now return to the wasteland it's been for quite a few years.
Viva Satellite Radio
One thing, I haven't heard.....is it all music on the HD channels or is there adverts also? If adverts are there, I'll stick with my XM and regular AM/FM radio.
TV was also supposed to be "narrowcasting" with a different channel for everyone's interests but now all the channels have changed to the same old thing. There is no real variety. Why should radio be any different?
Did you ever notice that "Chuck Booms" stole Len "Boom Boom" Goldberg's good name?
No commercials on the HD band, for now.
Then again, with a second set of crappy formats plaguing an already crappy market, why listen?
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