Thursday's Oddities

Aside from our breaking news a little earlier (see item below), Thursday's list is just as mixed up as our last entry on Wednesday...

ARE YOU READY FOR SOME HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL?: As we've noted, Northeast Ohio's high school football season kicks off this week...and in fact, tonight.

(Back in the Dark Ages, when your Primary Editorial Voice[tm] was in high school, teams didn't play on Thursday nights...but now, they do.)

We've kept track of the TV side of high school football coverage, but haven't mentioned radio...where the "usual suspects" will be there with bells on. Or is that "with cowbells on"?

Rubber City Radio oldies/news WAKR/1590 Akron starts things up early this evening, with a two-hour high school preview show at 5 PM. It'll air live from the site of the station's first 2009 football contest, Archbishop Hoban High's Dowd Field, where Hoban will tangle with Akron Garfield at 7 PM.

WAKR morning drive host and high school football play-by-play voice Ray Horner will lead the charge. The station's complete high school football schedule is here.

Over at Clear Channel Akron/Canton, talk WHLO/640 will carry its usual schedule of high school games with veteran play-by-play voice Don Ursetti.

WHLO will air games each week on Thursday and Friday, with sister sports WARF/1350 joining in after the Eastern League's Akron Aeros wrap up their season. With the Aeros having another playoff - and potentially, championship - year, that might take a while.

WHLO will carry a high school football scoreboard show after games on Friday night, with Ken Carmen and Brian Maytze doing the honors. The pair hosted a Sunday morning sports show on the University of Akron's WZIP/88.1, and Carmen will be heard on another Clear Channel station this fall...as the new play-by-play voice for Ashland University football on the company's talk WNCO/1340.

Good Karma sports WKNR/850 Cleveland's "High School Hysteria" show is back on the station's schedule from 6:45 to 10 PM Friday night, and "High School Hysteria Rewind" is scheduled Saturday morning 8-9 AM.

The station's "High School Hysteria" game of the week Friday is Mayfield vs. Bedford, with Bob Karlovec and Chris Fedor on the call.

WKNR assistant program director/mid-morning sidekick Aaron Goldhammer is again the ringmaster at the controls for "Hysteria", and the station's Jason Gibbs is listed for "Rewind" on Saturday morning.

Not to be outdone in Canton, NextMedia talk WHBC/1480 is going full-tilt, with a lengthy schedule of both radio and TV contests.

The TV games, of course, will air on Image Video RTV affiliate WIVM-LP/52 and its simulcasters, and presumbably will also show up as the Canton games on Time Warner Cable's "NEON" (Northeast Ohio Network) local programming channel.

(Oh, and we're still waiting for TWC to give us a list of Akron area games they plan to add to "NEON's" schedule.)

The schedule shows very little overlap between the WIVM/TV games and the radio contests on WHBC itself, except for one game that's a must simulcast - Massillon vs. McKinley, the Stark County high school game that stops everyone in their tracks, scheduled for October 31st.

A brief visit to our coverage of TV games not hooked up to radio stations, as Fox Sports Ohio opens up its schedule tonight. From a network release:

The action starts on this Thursday, August 27 at 7pm when the West Geauga Wolverines host the Chardon Hilltoppers. Following a history of match-ups yielding 19-19-0, this is the first time in 12 years Chardon and West Geauga are battling.

ARE YOU READY FOR SOME ROMEY?: Premiere Radio syndicated sports talk giant Jim Rome is in town today.

"The Jungle" is in Cleveland for the day, and Rome will broadcast his 12 noon-3 PM national show from the Galleria studios of his Cleveland affiliate, Good Karma sports WKNR/850 "ESPN 850".

We're not huge "clones", as Rome calls his listeners, so we don't know what happened to the host's famed "tour stop" events...where he presents a live show at a local venue to thousands of listeners.

Rome's listener appearance in Cleveland tonight is more upscale and a lot smaller - a dinner event at pricey steakhouse Morton's...

LISTENER IMPRESSIONS: Christian Voice of Central Ohio Columbus market CCM outlet WCVO/104.9 "The River" passes along word of its latest hire:

WCVO, 104.9 the River has hired Olivia Lomeli as Listener Impressions Agent. Her primary duties will include assisting in organizing and implementing station appearances and events while keeping the station’s image as the highest priority and to super-serve the listener with the highest standards with only about 30% of the job being spent in the office. She will also be communicating with listeners via Facebook and Twitter all day and every day.

Head of Listener Impressions, Lori Midkiff says, “It’s so amazing to be a part of shaping this new type of department and I’m thrilled to have Olivia on board as we venture together in ‘WOW-ing’ our listeners.”

We're not 100% sure, but we think that job title translates into "promotions assistant" in the real world...with Ms. Midkiff being "promotions director"...

AND ONE ODDITY: AllAccess reports a local non-commercial radio station sale in Northern Ohio:

PORT CLINTON KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS HOME ASSOCIATION is selling the construction permit for noncommercial WHRQ/SANDUSKY, OH to OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE RADIO, INC., DBA ANNUNCIATION RADIO for $25,000.

As it turns out, Annunciation Radio is the Catholic broadcasting group run by Toledo's Deacon Michael Learned, which has been brokering time on Cumulus talk WTOD/1560 in that market.

This Toledo Blade article from May says Annunciation Radio is also involved in another Northwest Ohio non-commercial construction permit - WNOC/89.7 Bowling Green.

Annunciation Radio's website proudly lists the upcoming station up front, and the Blade article says Annunciation expects WNOC to hit the air this fall.

We were not familiar with the presence of the WHRQ construction permit in Sandusky, so a quick trip to the FCC database told us that the new station is set for 88.1 FM...a 14.5 kW class B1 outlet with an antenna just 78 meters above average terrain.

That's likely to get them coverage basically of the immediate Sandusky/Huron/Erie County region, with the Bellevue and Norwalk areas thrown in.

As far as we know, the station hasn't yet hit the airwaves, though we admit we haven't exactly gone looking for it while in the so-called "Vacationland" region...