Talking Mostly About The Valley

More random, unconnected (mostly), but important items...mostly concerning the Mahoning Valley this time around...

WKBN OPENING: Clear Channel talk WKBN/570 Youngstown is officially advertising its morning drive opening.

The time slot became open when long-time morning drive host Robert Mangino accepted the evening host job at CBS Radio news/talk KDKA/1020 Pittsburgh.

As a public service to our readers, we're reprinting the ad here:

A rare opportunity now exists and brings with it a chance to join Clear Channel's NEWSRADIO 570 WKBN in Youngstown Ohio.

We are looking for an experienced Talk Show host who is listener, as well as advertiser friendly.

Ideally, our candidate will have knowledge, not only of current events, but the special things that make up the landscape of Northeastern Ohio and Western Pa.

Ytown is a great place to live, work, and a great place to raise a family.

Resumes and work samples ( please no gigantic files) should be sent to;

youngstownjobs (at) clearchannel (dot) com

or

HR Director
Clear Channel Radio and Digital
7461 South Avenue
Youngstown , Ohio 44512

Clear Channel is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All who feel they are qualified are encouraged to apply.

Deadline for application is close of business February 15th, 2010.

The Mahoning Valley is indeed unique, and your Primary Editorial Voice(tm) has had some time in the market, so we know it pretty well. It ought to be interesting what kind of replacement WKBN finds for Mr. Mangino...

JIMBO: While we're talking about the Valley, former congressman-turned-now-ex-con Jim Traficant continues to make noises about running for Congress again.

As we noted earlier, Traficant, who now hosts the early Saturday afternoon shift on Clear Channel talk WTAM/1100 Cleveland, has an "early out" clause in his WTAM deal in case he does attempt a return to Washington.

Jimbo's most recent noise came in his first post-prison appearance in Akron. The Akron area is (partly) in the restructured version of the old 17th Congressional District Traficant served for so long.

The Akron Beacon Journal's Stephanie Warsmith reports that Traficant told the crowd at a Libertarian Party candidate's fundraiser at Akron's Tangier restaurant that he "will run" for Congress:

Traficant is focusing on the 6th and the 17th districts and must chose one by the Feb. 18 filing deadline for the May primary, unless he chooses to run as an independent. Charlie Wilson represents the 6th District, while Tim Ryan has the 17th, Traficant's former district, which has been reconfigured and includes parts of Summit and Portage counties. Wilson and Ryan both are Democrats.

Enjoy Traficant as a talk radio host (assuming you do enjoy him) while you can. This man sounds like he's headed for a Congressional race, one way or the other, and he'll have to exit WTAM as soon as he officially announces his candidacy.

If he isn't running, well, his home market Clear Channel talk station has an opening we posted above...

SPEAKING OF WKBN: A listener notes that Talk Radio Network's Phil Hendrie is out at the Youngstown talker, replaced by the syndicated John Batchelor program.

(We don't know who syndicates Batchelor these days...at one point, he was an ABC Radio/Citadel offering, but we believe flagship Citadel talk WABC/770 New York City is handling things directly now. The show's site contains no clue as to its syndicator.)

Our reader wants to know why...and speculated that either Hendrie cost too much, or said something he shouldn't have.

We don't have any answers from South Avenue on this.

But we told our reader that syndicated program changes on local radio stations are usually more mundane than intriguing, and usually don't involve money issues - most syndicated talk radio programs are free, offered on a "barter" basis (i.e. the station gets the show in exchange for airing the show's national commercials). There are exceptions: for example, Premiere midday talk titan Rush Limbaugh.

We don't know the status of either Mr. Hendrie or Mr. Batchelor's programs, but we suspect they are both typical "barter" shows...and we are pretty sure nothing Hendrie said got him bounced off WKBN...

ONE NON-VALLEY ITEM: A couple of OMW readers noticed that the full-time "Worship Channel" feed has disappeared off of Cleveland market ION Network O&O WVPX/23 Akron's over-air feed, where it aired on subchannel 23.4.

The story behind the exit is told by the Worship Network folks themselves, on their website, in the January 2010 newsletter section:

Due to changes in our contractual relationship with ION, The Worship Network will no longer be available on the ION digital multi-cast platform effective midnight January 31, 2010. In the short-term, this will also affect our channel on Verizon FiOS.

The network is supposedly seen at least part-time in parts of the Cleveland market on low-power WCDN/53, which is now putting out a digital signal on RF channel 7...