BREAKING NEWS: Ashtabula CHR "102ZOO" Flips To Oldies

UPDATE 10/6/07 10:55 AM: OMW hears from a listener in the Ashtabula area...who tells us 102.5 there is already playing oldies, but promoting the official launch of "Magic Oldies 102.5" on Monday.

The station is running a promo promising "the best music of the 60's and 70's" with current WFUN/WREO news voice Kathy Davis promoting her own new show on 102.5. We don't know when Ms. Davis' show will be heard on the new "Magic Oldies", aside from sometime in the morning.

We're pretty sure of the spelling of "Magic" by the way, as that's how it was presented to us in the trade database change - and after all, with Clear Channel no longer owning any of the Ashtabula stations, the new owners probably wouldn't use the CC-trademarked "Majic" with a J...

Stay tuned over the weekend into Monday. We'll have any more updates, and we'll have a brand new item with other news that'll probably go up on Monday morning...

Our original item is below:

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OMW hears that if it hasn't already happened this evening, Media One Group CHR WZOO/102.5 "102ZOO" in the Ashtabula market will change between now and Monday to oldies.

We hear that a report of a new format and moniker for the station are listed as of tonight in an industry database. "102ZOO" will become "Magic Oldies 102.5".

We also hear that newswoman Kathy Davis has already announced, on the air, her new role in the Media One cluster - as midday personality in the new 102.5 oldies format.

"102ZOO" was a Hot AC station, under that name and calls, until a recent format change to CHR.

And the OMW Mobile could well point into the far northeast corner of Ohio over the weekend, to provide some first-hand reporting on this story.

This was the change we hinted about in our last item about the takeover of the former Clear Channel Ashtabula cluster by Sweet Home Ashtabula (aka Media One Group), the group headed up by Cleveland's own Tom Embrescia and his brother, James, with Tom Embrescia's son Matt involved as well.

Well, at least we think so.

Someone associated with the Media One operations contacted us recently, wondering where we got our information, and telling us that our "sources are incorrect in much of what you had printed regarding the Jamestown, NY and Ashtabula, Ohio radio clusters", and that they'd like to set us straight.

We're not sure what was inaccurate in the previous post(s), but we suspect it had to do with our on-the-fly reconstruction of the Media One family/corporate umbrella - which was based primarily on our examination of the public records attached to FCC filings, and previous media reports.

We also realize that there are at least two, if not three, "Media One" groups under the Embrescia umbrella. We spotted two of 'em - Media One Group, LLC and Media One Group, Inc. Effectively, for this report, we've shortened all of the sub-groups into "Media One".

We've made an offer, to get "set straight" on whatever we had wrong, and the offer still stands. Not only for Media One/Sweet Home Ashtabula/Mr. Embrescia (any of them), but for anyone.

We are as accurate as we can possibly be here, given the limitations of what this report is.

We mainly make our offers for clarification here on the blog, as many who aren't aware of OMW are taken aback by us, if we approach them first. Some of 'em are even downright hostile, though our contact with the Embrescia operations would not at all fall into that category. They've actually been very polite and understanding.

In the immediate Cleveland/Akron/Canton area, we have direct, daily contact with dozens of staffers at all levels of local clusters, and what we'd consider a very good relationship with nearly all of them.

We'd like to extend our offer of friendship and accuracy to other groups or staffers outside our immediate coverage area. We're not here to tear down. We'll make well-deserved criticism, if we feel it's needed, but we try to base it in accuracy.

Soapbox mode...off.