Quick Midweek Notes

Just a couple of things...

SDV/HD?: One of our regular readers brings word that Time Warner Cable subscribers in the Mentor area could be getting some of the company's newer HD offerings that have been missing in the former Comcast areas.

We're told that at least one subscriber in the Mentor area reports getting the channels that would require TWC's Switched Digital Video (SDV) technology, which has enabled a broader HD channel expansion in both the "legacy" TWC areas (Akron/Canton/Youngstown/etc.), and in the former Adelphia area in Greater Cleveland.

But there's been more of a technical roadblock in the former Comcast areas, and one big hurdle has been the Motorola boxes used by Comcast before TWC took over the systems in the Mentor and Elyria areas.

The box situation was so important, Time Warner went into motion recently to get Elyria-area subscribers to swap out the Motorola boxes for Scientific Atlanta equipment, which is used in the rest of the TWC Northeast Ohio empire.

The box exchange program is running out of Elyria through November, but hadn't been announced for ex-Comcasters in Mentor. Our reader tells us that the Mentor-area customer, posting to a popular Internet forum on home theatre, has a Scientific Atlanta box.

We'll try to fill in the story with our sources at TWC, and update accordingly when we have more details...

IN AND OUT: And two items from our friends at Rubber City Radio's Akron Radio Center on West Market Street.

Congratulations to veteran WAKR/1590 news anchor Larry States for earning yet another award. The Ohio chapters of the Society for Professional Journalists have named States "Best Anchor" for 2009.

Larry can put that award up with the dozens of honors he's received over his long career, including another "Best Anchor" award recently by the Ohio Associated Press Broadcasters.

It's fitting for a man long recognized as Akron's leading radio news anchor, who many also remember from his television work on the old WAKC-TV/23.

As Rubber City has been doing online video news for some time now via its AkronNewsNow.com, it's been a kick to see Larry occasionally "back in front of the camera" again, albeit on the Internet vs. a full-power local TV station. (Considering that Channel 23 is now ION Network O&O WVPX/23, there may be more viewers online these days, anyway.)

In an unrelated item from West Market Street, OMW hears that WAKR will NOT air the local football/sports talk program "Three and Out with Frank Stams" this year, after all. We hear it had been planned for 2009, which we reported earlier, but is now no longer on the station's schedule.

The ex-Cleveland Browns player continues in his role elsewhere on local radio - as color commentator on radio coverage of University of Akron Zips football.

Stams teams up with Akron Radio Icon/Superstar play-by-play voice Steve French on the Zips ISP Sports Network broadcasts on Clear Channel sports WARF/1350 Akron "SportsRadio 1350" and Clear Channel rock WRQK/106.9 Canton "Rock 106.9"...