Tom Kent Lands In Home Market

It was one of the nagging questions among local music radio types. What took them so long?

Brecksville's Tom Kent has been building a syndication empire, most recently with the help of Citadel Media (the former ABC Radio Networks). He's landed on big market stations with his weeknight classic hits show, and has established a solid brand in the evening time slot.

But Kent wasn't able to land on his hometown oldies, er, classic hits station - Clear Channel Cleveland's WMJI/105.7 "Majic 105.7".

He's making that landing now.

AllAccess reports that The Tom Kent Radio Network will officially place Kent's 7-midnight national show on the classic hits station he can pick up in his kitchen, WMJI. (Or, in his basement, where he reportedly does the show.) WMJI will air the local syndicated star Monday through Friday from 7 PM to midnight starting July 8th.

Quoting a release that made its way to the national trade website, but not to us from either source:

TOM KENT quipped, "MAJIC 105.7 FM is truly one of the great radio stations in AMERICA -- and to have the opportunity to be on everyday is a blessing. All I had to do was agree to come there and wash the station van on the weekends during the summer. CLEVELAND is spectacular in the summer, so the pleasure is all mine!"

WMJI OM KEITH ABRAMS added, "Simply put, TOM is one of the best talents in the format. The fact that he is a 'Clevelander' with great market equity doesn't hurt either! We are excited to have him join the amazing team of talent on MAJIC!"

One of the better parts of the move is that Mr. Kent doesn't displace anyone by being added to the "Majic" schedule.

The station has been running segments voiced by afternoon drive host Don "Action" Jackson from 2 PM-midnight, presumably through the magic (majic?) of voicetracking after afternoon drive comes to a close.

"Action" already has a lot on his VT plate. A reader checked in from the Pittsburgh area, noting that he heard Jackson overnights on WMJI sister classic hits outlet WWSW/94.5 "3WS".

We haven't confirmed it, but we believe the WMJI PM driver is participating in Clear Channel's "Premium Choice" voicetracking effort...in addition to tracking Youngstown market classic hits outlet WBBG/106.1 "Big 106.1" in the same afternoon drive slot he occupies at his home radio base.

Anyway, adding Tom Kent will truncate "Action" Jackson's WMJI mega-shift at 7 PM, presumably allowing him to either rest more, or do more VTing, or leave the couch at Oak Tree where he catches a break between VT sessions.

Thus, it would seem to have been a no brainer to add Mr. Kent's show - being done live from his Northeast Ohio home just a short drive down I-77 from WMJI's studios at Oak Tree.

But...we don't know how these things work, sometimes....or why we had to get this item from a national trade website. We don't know if we rubbed Mr. Kent the wrong way somewhere in the past four years, and we didn't get the usual word of this out of Oak Tree...