Monday Morning...And Then? Who Knows

This is our "one shot" update promised earlier.

We aren't ready to announce an official "hiatus" yet, but we could be away from the Mighty Blog of Fun(tm) the next week or so due to very pressing, vital issues. We could also be here, and updating, which is why we're not invoking the "H" word. It depends on how those issues go, frankly.

But...if you don't hear from us here by next weekend, please visit our good friend and colleague Scott Fybush's NorthEast Radio Watch. He's tasked with notification should...well, we don't want to talk about it.

Anyway, if all goes well, we won't be away for long...and if it does, we may have more time on our hands as usual this coming week...

FORGY OUT: This is an item that passed under our virtual door last week, but we're bringing to life as we start this week.

OMW has confirmed that Radio One Cleveland VP/GM Chris Forgy is out. We're told he exited his post at the local radio cluster at the close of business last Tuesday.

There are a lot of rumors about what happened - none of which we have confirmed or will pass along. Since we're not really a sales-oriented blog, it mostly doesn't concern us anyway.

It does appear that the departure was not of Mr. Forgy's choice...

MELISSA IN: Local TV Fox affiliate WJW/8 "Fox 8 News" weather anchor Melissa Mack is, as far as we know, out of the building at South Marginal...her last day having been scheduled for last Thursday.

We still don't know what station will be her new home, or what job she'll take, but numerous OMW readers tell us she pegged her new market on the air last week as Boston.

We've been scratching around, trying to find out which Boston station will become Melissa's new employer - say, for folks back in Northeast Ohio who might wish to catch her in online video - but we have no word of her new destination.

Even TV news gossip supersite NewsBlues, helmed by former Cleveland TV newsies Mike James and his wife, former local TV legend/ex-WKYC/3 anchor Mona Scott, has not had any word about Melissa's new destination...or for that matter, anything on her departure from Cleveland.

Unless we're getting stymied by the search engine at Cleveland.com again, as far as we know, Plain Dealer TV/media columnist Julie Washington has had nothing on Ms. Mack...which makes this an exclusive as far as we know...

AND OLDIES: And an update on our earlier item re: the "Sunday Oldies Jukebox"'s 12th anniversary on Akron market school-owned station WSTB/88.9 Streetsboro.

OMW hears that the station may be on financial fumes, as it were, and it may be an indirect result of the controversy which shut down WSTB for a month one year ago.

The situation was apparently covered by an article in the Streetsboro High School student newspaper earlier this month.

Though the Streetsboro City School District is the owner and licensee of WSTB, the district, like many others in the current economy, is suffering financially. It appears outside funding sources used in the past to help pay for WSTB's operation aren't what they used to be.

The student newspaper article is not online, and we don't have a copy, but we may be able to share this with you down the road. We'll share when we can.

Anyway, after our article on the "SOJ", oldies fans and OMW readers are weighing in.

One local radio type reminds us that the oldies continue to flow on the AM radio dial in Lorain County, where Doug and Lorie Wilber's locally-owned WDLW/1380 Lorain continues its "Kool Kat Oldies" format.

And we've heard from fans of Rubber City's oldies/news WAKR/1590 in Akron, though we did mention WAKR in the previous item. We'll have to do some study of station playlists to see where WAKR overlaps with the oldies on "Sunday Oldies Jukebox", which apparently reach - years-wise - from approximately 1958 to 1971.

Commercial AM radio stations playing oldies seem quite the holdovers in 2009, where even younger-skewing music formats have no home on over-air commercial radio.

Potentionally commercially-popular formats like AAA (Adult Album Alternative) have to make their home in Northeast Ohio on outlets like Akron Public Schools-non-comm WAPS/91.3 "The Summit" in Akron, or on HD2 streams in Cleveland (WNWV/107.3-HD2's eclectic adult-rock-based format, and we hear WMMS/100.7 may be doing AAA on its HD2 stream now).

Standards and big band formats are long gone from the commercial radio dial, with just the lone holdout of Kenston High School-owned non-comm WKHR/91.5 Bainbridge in the format these days. Like "SOJ", it, too, is mainly run by adult volunteers...

OFF THE AIR: We normally flip Dayton up in the virtual air to see where it lands, in regard to coverage by OMW vs. coverage from our sister blog in Southwest Ohio, Cincinnati-area based Tri-State Media Watch.

Since we're here, we'll take this one.

Cox CBS affiliate WHIO-TV/7 reports that it's been off the air since early Sunday afternoon, and having problems since late Sunday morning:

WHIO-TV began experiencing intermittent problems around 10:30 a.m. Sunday and and went completely off the air around 1:30 p.m.

The outage affects over-air viewers of WHIO-TV's digital signal, along with satellite TV customers (DirecTV and Dish Network).

The station's announcement says viewers with Time Warner Cable and AT&T's video service (U-verse, we assume, like it is in Northeast Ohio) are still able to watch WHIO-TV programming. Generally speaking, major stations feed large cable systems via a direct fiber connection, if possible...so recalcitrant transmitters do not affect those systems.

As far as we know, as of this early Monday writing, WHIO-TV's over-air signal is still out.

Quoting an article by Tim Tresslar in the Dayton Daily News:

The staff has not yet nailed down a cause for the transmission problems, (WHIO-TV VP/GM Harry Delaney) said.

“Engineers are working on it and we hope to restore full service as soon as possible and apologize for the inconvenience and disruption to their viewing,” Delaney said.