Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Tuesday's Here

And a note from your Mighty Blog of Fun(tm): Real life intrudes again, and our updates may not be as regular this week as we'd like. But we'll try to check in...

MAD DASH TO BLACKSBURG: As America got really familiar with a college campus in Southwest Virginia really quick, coverage of the largest shooting massacre in American history overtook local airwaves as well.

All local TV stations, that we saw, dipped in and out of coverage of the mass murder at Virginia Tech on Monday afternoon, provided by their various networks.

On the radio side, we didn't have much chance to check, but did hear WTAM/1100 "Sportsline" host Kevin Keane on his program later in the day - putting aside the balls, bats and nets for one night on the Clear Channel talker.

But then, we noted that at least two local TV news types were dispatched to Blacksburg, Virginia - presumably at the point where someone in their newsroom looked at a map and said, "hey, there's only one state between Ohio and that part of Virginia!"

Making the trip for NBC affiliate WKYC/3 was evening co-anchor Tim White, and heard by phone from the area on ABC affiliate WEWS/5 Monday night was new Akron Bureau chief Pete Kenworthy. (No, we don't know if Pete was sent because Akron is closer to Virginia than Cleveland.)

If FOX O&O WJW/8 and CBS affiliate WOIO/19 sent anyone, we missed it...

EXTRA CHANNELS: OMW commenters and E-Mailers provide the "rest of the story" to our note that Universal HD has now shown up in the HDTV lineup of Time Warner Cable's Cleveland-based systems - formerly owned by Adelphia and Comcast.

There's now a reverse HD migration - of a network that's been available in the former Adelphia TWC territory since before the sale being offered to "original" TWC systems.

We're told that ESPN2HD has now made it to the "legacy" Akron/Canton TWC lineup on channel 560.

TWC just announced a company-wide deal with Disney involving the ESPN networks, and the folks formerly in Adelphia land already had it in a grandfathered deal with that company.

We still haven't seen ESPNU return to the TWC Cleveland digital lineup as of yet. The network did, for whatever reason, NOT have that grandfathered agreement in the old Adelphia deal.

And we're told Universal HD is now also on the TWC Akron/Canton system at channel 556, though we don't know if that's new or not. We recall TWC has added the network for special events (like the Masters, which completed recently), but maybe it's there to stay now...

PUSHING OUT THE FRINGES: OMW hears from Bill Weisinger, otherwise known as "Uncle Bill" from WSTB/88.9's "Sunday Oldies Jukebox", on some technical fixes to the Akron market station broadcasting from a tower formerly used by Kent State University's WKSU/89.7 on the Kent State campus.

Bill tells us that some "long overdue improvements" have been made to the transmitting facility, which he says should improve fringe reception for WSTB. The changes are even more important since the Streetsboro City Schools-owned station had to drop online broadcasts recently, due to changes in music royalties and reporting for online outlets.

Of course, this will also expand listenership for WSTB's primary alternative rock "AlterNation" format, which is operated by Streetsboro High School students Monday through Saturday...

AND ONE EDITORIAL NOTE: Folks, please note - we are not connected with any TV or radio stations or other media organizations in Ohio (or anywhere else).

For whatever reason, many people seem to think we're somehow involved with "Ken and Kitty", the now-former country radio morning show recently dumped from WYGY/97.3 "The Wolf" in Cincinnati, which may or may not be owned by: Bonneville, Cumulus, Susquehanna, Entercom, John Doe Broadcasting or the Cincinnati Reds.

(Well, we've lost track, haven't you? It's owned by one of those companies, but if we put it here, it'll probably get sold again tomorrow.)

Just this week, a reader E-Mailed us asking us if we could improve our signal. OMW Radio, anyone? We have a lot of radios here in the OMW World Headquarters, but we're pretty sure there's no transmitter in the building.

We asked what frequency the reader thought we were on, and our reader apparently was looking for Kenston High School-owned adult standards outlet WKHR/91.5 Bainbridge. And yes, it's a tough catch from our reader's location on the far west side of Cuyahoga County.

We're thinking of putting up a page with local broadcast information, including contact numbers, websites and E-Mails. If this doesn't take over our lives, we'll think about doing it.

But please, readers...use Google first, or some other source. We have no transmitter and can't bring back your favorite morning duo...

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do you have Johnny Mann Jingles on your radio station there, OA?

I bet I know why I can't get it--you use 9kHz separation, and all my radios are 10kHz.

Anonymous said...

Hey OMW,

I heard you were looking for a PM Driver?
My package is on the way! LOL

Anonymous said...

I'm not 100%, but I swore I heard a NewsChannel 5 type say something about Lee Jordan heading to Blacksburg today. My guess is if that's true, Mr. Kenworthy will return to his bureau.

Anonymous said...

re: WYGY and Bonneville/Cinci

Word is...thru my grapevine..is that Bonneville is being courted by Cumulus to purchase the newly acquired Bonneville stations.

Stay tuned to this blog for more.

Anonymous said...

Nice little article on WSTB in BE's Radio mag. this month.

And yes, Lee Jordan is in Blacksburg as well for 3001 Euclid.

Ohio Media Watch said...

Yes, we hear that Lee Jordan will be on the 6 PM "NewsChannel 5" with Mr. Kenworthy.

And is it Bonneville which owns 97.3 in Cincinnati now? We have shut that out of our heads for fear of burning brain cells...

-The Management

Anonymous said...

anyone remember when WKHR in Bainbridge had 3 formats? Big Band Alternative and Blues. Wow was that a train wreck radio station. Glad to see that the station is all one format now.

Anonymous said...

Dang, I was hoping for a return by the old CKLW.

Cliff said...

I can't get anything in Rittman, at least according to Mrs74WIXYgrad who tells me quite often that I don't get it. But I will be checking to see if I can get SOJ in my home this Sunday. Maybe I'll get up early enough for that Morgan dude.

Johnny Morgan said...

WIXY,

That Morgan dude, though I think he should have been fired years ago, is on from 3am to 7am, so you don't have to get up TOO TOO early.

When are they gonna take Morgan's Boss Jock ass off the air?

Ohio Media Watch said...

A comment has been removed, and this item will be closed for comments re: our now standard policy, where we keep items open for comments for roughly a day or so regardless of content.

A word of advice to our questioner, who asked about previous comments being deleted - "don't make it personal".

e.g. "This person is (personal attack phrase)"

How about "we think staffers are leaving because of difficulties with (this person)/the atmosphere/management style/color of the paint on the wall"?

Anyway, the topic is not "on topic" in this particular item as well.

As we've said roughly 300 times since we started having to deal with the comments here, the OMW comments are NOT A MESSAGE BOARD.

They also are not a "bastion of free speech". Your management here reserves the right to delete comments even just because we're not thrilled with having to worry about them. We can delete stuff if we don't like someone's typing style, or because the sky isn't blue.

And if we have to keep dealing with this, we reserve the right to finally go through with our long-term threats to close the comments entirely.

-The Management