And Even More Silent

There's still no confirmation of what we reported here earlier - the move of now-former WKRK/92.3 "K-Rock" morning host Shane "Rover" French to Clear Channel rock WMMS/100.7, scheduled to start on April 1st.

We haven't heard much in the past day or so, aside from rumblings from within Clear Channel's Oak Tree World Domination HQ that engineers are busy - reconfiguring the WMMS studio to Rover's specifications.

But there is one more small thing.

The note put up by Rover the other day on RoverRadio.com - "Uncharacteristically Quiet" - has now been cleared of its original message.

The blog post still exists, but no longer appears on the front of the website. And Rover's explanation on why he couldn't say anything has been replaced with this:

POST REMOVED BY REQUEST OF XXX XXXXX

"CBS Radio", anyone? We didn't even have to ask Pat Sajak if we could buy a vowel...

The natives, aka fans of "Rover's Morning Glory", are restless. Instead of turning on the radio to 92.3 to listen to their hero, who is no longer there, they're clogging his website.

At this writing, which would be in the middle of his show if it was still airing, there are over 400 unique users on RoverRadio.com.

And we have our own evidence of the apparent popularity of Mr. French. Since this story broke, we've noticed that our own daily hit count has soared to a new record...with hundreds of more visitors per day than we've ever had. (Since OMW doesn't sell advertising, that number doesn't really mean anything to us, but we thought we'd mention it.)

We're sure much of the hit traffic comes from the Rover fanbase via the comments section of the blog post we posted earlier. So, in response to one of those posters, we have one clarificatiom to someone posting about the story aired on "19 Action News" recently:

I think its funny that 19 is a CBS affiliate yet they air something about their main show going to a rival.

WOIO/19 is indeed the CBS affiliate in the Cleveland TV market.

But they're not owned by the CBS network, and have no direct connection with CBS Radio's WKRK/92.3. They merely have signed up to carry CBS's TV programming, and Rover is not "theirs".

So, so far, still status quo...as Clear Channel prepares a "doghouse" for its incoming canine...