Monday Followup, Mid-July Edition

For whatever reason, everything at the top of our pile this Monday morning is a followup to earlier items...except our first, and even that's the "next step" of an earlier report...

THIS JUST IN: An OMW reader passes word via Trip Ericson's RabbitEars.info - TBN O&O WDLI/17-1-2-3-4-5 will get their RF channel change.

This FCC decision (PDF file) means that the Canton-licensed station can move from RF channel 39 to RF channel 49.

We just noticed that the decision's release date was late this past May, so we're not sure why it took so long for anyone (including us) to uncover it. A quick check at WDLI's pending FCC applications doesn't show one accepted for filing for the 49 move, but the decision says it'll allow WDLI's digital signal to go all the way up to 900 kW...from the 200 kW it's now using on RF channel 39.

The move will spread the TBN TV Gospel much farther and much wider than the current WDLI facility, and if we're reading this decision right, TBN has already obtained Canadian coordination to do so.

(If we remember right from our own reporting, the Santa Ana CA-based religious broadcasting giant also has an interference deal with WTAP/15-and-then-some Parkersburg WV, which also camps out on underlying RF channel 49. TBN engineering sure works fast, doesn't it?)

Of course, RF channel 49 opened up for WDLI's future use late on the night of June 12, as Western Reserve PBS' WEAO/49 Akron vacated its original analog home of 49 at the transition.

This is, by the way, getting rather confusing...we're still not sure if we should continue to refer to channels by their old analog-new PSIP fed digital channel, especially when we're talking about the underlying channels they hold.

And that's not even counting WRLM/47, which was WOAC/67 until the Tri-State Christian Television folks changed the PSIP information when they took over that other Canton-licensed facility.

Whew!

One very notable Northeast Ohio radio broadcaster has been asking us to clear up some of this confusion, so we'll try our best in a later item...

SORT OF A CORRECTION: Paging Gregg Allen! A Mr. Gregg Allen, please pick up the white courtesy phone! (pause) No, the WHITE one.

(Yes, that's a joke from the movie "Airplane!".)

Of course, we're talking about Beacon Media Group's Gregg Allen, who apparently has a little time to read your Mighty Blog of Fun(tm), at least when we're talking about his employer...the Warren-based chain of five radio stations owned by former steel supply magnate Harold Glunt.

We have not brought out the spreadsheet to see where Gregg actually does on-air work in the Beacon chain, and at what times, and on which stations, but we know he's no longer hosting "classic hits" on Beacon flagship WANR/1570 - with its flip a week ago to Fox Sports Radio.

But through some online detective/Google work, we have found out what is actually airing (presumably) on the new "Fox Sports Radio 1570" from 9 AM to noon.

WANR can't run FSR's offering in that time slot, a simulcast of The Content Factory's Dan Patrick Show, since it is already cleared in Youngstown - via its separate syndication - on Cumulus sports WBBW/1240.

And our earlier item noted a local show called "Cappy and Christian" in the 9-noon slot - information on the schedule provided to us by FSR syndicator Premiere and OMW reader Kurt Kretszchmar.

It took us a while to get there...over the river, through the woods, to the now-inaccurate WANR "Classic Hits 1570" website, and over the dales to WANR's changed MySpace page ("Holy colliding logos, Batman!") to find the schedule for "Fox Sports Radio 1570", which lists:

9 AM-10:30 AM: "Talkin' Boxing" - The Undisputed Heavyweight Champion Of Boxing Talk Radio. Tune in LIVE every weekday morning.
10:30 AM-Noon: "The First Church of Sports" - Local call in show, spotlighting local high school and national sports. Call Bob live at 330-394-1570, With Bob's passion for local and high school sports, Bob will certainly take you to Church!

(Let's guess here...the local host is named Bob Church! Cute pun...especially considering the "faith based" management/ownership at Beacon and WANR.)

As far as the 9 AM show goes, "Talkin' Boxing" is not local at all. It is syndicated out of upstate New York (somewhere near Albany, we believe) by "Billy C" (Bill Calogero), who apparently is something of a boxing expert at least in some boxing circles.

We didn't know there WAS a live, daily nationally syndicated talk show on the sport of boxing... but you live and learn, eh?

We're not really fans of the sport, so we're having trouble wrapping our head(s) around a boxing talk show hosted by a guy with a very thick New Jersey accent airing before lunch.

The "Talkin' Boxing" site proudly proclaims that the show is fed live 6-9 AM, and Billy and company welcomed WANR to their affiliate list last Monday.

A live, daily talk show about boxing seems a bit out of it for us, though we do note that if it'd work anywhere, it'd work in the boxing-mad Mahoning Valley...home of current champ Kelly Pavlik and birthplace of former champ Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini.

As for the following time slot, we have no idea who "Cappy and Christian" are, or if they are hosting a show anywhere on the WANR lineup...

HELLO, DINO: We noted that former Small Northeast Ohio Rimshot Station Sports Talk Host For A Month Dino Costa is apparently no longer doing sports talk on his recently launched Denver sports web streaming outlet DenverSportsRadio.com.

There's that Bat Signal again...and Dino saw it:

The skinny short and sweet: The founder and creator of DSR (Dino Costa) sold his interests in the project to the investment firm that underwrote the project from the git go.

However, you may word it any which way you wish.

We'll take your wording, Dino.

OK, so there's only the most tenuous connection here.

Dino's stint at former sports talk outlet WATJ/1560 "SportsRadio 1560" Chardon, a marginal far-rimshot daytimer trying to serve the Cleveland market from Nowhere Near Cleveland, lasted a short time...not due to anything the sports talker said, but due to the fact that it was perhaps the worst attempt to rimshot a large radio market that has ever been attempted.

WATJ owner Music Express quickly regrouped, changed AM 1560 to the Sounds of Silence, and wisely concentrated on WATJ's successful and still-on-air sister station, country WKKY/104.7 Geneva.

But we've always been fascinated with Dino's, well, high-flying self-promotional style. And he tells us his wife is from Ohio, and likes our blog...even if we do poke a little good-natured fun at Mr. Costa's activities from time to time...