Friday Quick Follow

It's Friday, follow quick!

WE'LL MISS IT, BUT...: We may well miss all the activity, but OMW hears that if you're interested in watching activity involving a new digital TV antenna...Broadview Road in Parma is the place to be this Friday afternoon. (Any regular OMW/ODTV reader needs no help finding the location.)

It is, of course, one week out from the official end of full-power analog TV, and both stations camped out on that new tower hope to start up brand new full-power digital facilities...soon.

To that end, we're hearing rumblings that you might try to scan for a more powerful PBS signal "as soon as tomorrow", if all the activity goes as planned...

THEY MAY NOT MISS: OMW is still hearing that the third weather forecaster handling Scripps Cleveland ABC affiliate WEWS/5 "NewsChannel 5"'s "Power of Five" radar, Jeff Mackel, will be leaving the station due to the non-renewal of his contract.

We're now hearing that means Mackel will exit 3001 Euclid by the end of June.

But...could he actually be replaced?

An eagle-eyed reader spotted this brand-spanking-new "help wanted" advertisement for a new WEWS full-time meteorologist, found on a Scripps job site...which may well mean that the "NC5" folks won't pare down to a weathercaster "Power of Two" this summer.

It's an open question who WEWS might hire after Mackel's departure. The new weather forecaster may well be offered less, money-wise, than whatever the station is paying Mackel.

But overall, for a station which makes such a big deal about weather, it didn't make sense that they'd keep on only two meteorologists during a season known for potential severe weather...

THIS IS NO LONGER ESPN RADIO: A Northwest Ohio station has parted with the Worldwide Leader In Sports, Radio Division...but it apparently wasn't their call.

It hasn't been that long since WFOB/1430 Fostoria became an ESPN Radio affiliate. We reported the change from the locally-owned station's previous format, Citadel's 24/7 soft AC/standards "Timeless" format, in September of last year.

The change made about a week ago was in sports networks, not to a new format. WFOB is now known as "Sporting News 1430"...because it was apparently nudged off the ESPN Radio network by another station...according to an article in The Fostoria Focus newspaper on May 31st:

Starting Monday, ESPN Radio 1430 will become Sporting News 1430 WFOB.

WFOB had to make the move from ESPN in part because the station was broadcasting too close to another ESPN station, WLQR in Toledo.

Station manager Brian Cooper said WFOB was able to switch to another sports network before the ESPN contract expired in August — a move the station was happy to make.

“I think this provided us an opportunity to do what we’re really good at and mesh the old WFOB with the new WFOB,” Cooper said.

The "old" part of that "mesh" is the return of a local morning drive show to the Fostoria station:

The station will also add a local morning talk program that will air weekdays, 6-9 a.m., hosted by station engineer Burley Stapley and news director Vic Travagliante.

“It’s really taking what we used to do and freshening it up,” Stapley said.

The morning show will include local news, talk, and guests, along with national and world news updates from ABC.

There's some overlap between WFOB's signal and that of WLQR, the Cumulus Toledo outlet known as "1470 The Ticket"...particularly in the Bowling Green area, which both stations try to serve to some extent...

LOOKING FOR JANET: And we're trying to help out one of our Central Ohio readers...video editor/producer Dave Stanton is looking for an old friend from the Mahoning Valley:

We went to school together at the University of Detroit in the early 1970's. Youngstown viewers knew her as Janet Nolan when she worked on WKBN-TV. I believe she left the station to do PR for the hospital but I lost track of her after that.

If anyone knows where she is, I'd like to know at: stantod (at) nationwide.com

Good luck, Dave!

And have you tried Facebook? A lot of radio/TV/media types have landed there...