Random Items For A Monday

Just some stuff both old and new:

* In our recent interview with SportsTime Ohio president Jim Liberatore, we asked him about the prospect of HDTV games being made available to satellite subscribers. The HD Tribe games - all of the 63 home games carried by STO - are only available on cable for now. Liberatore tells us that the HD games are indeed available to the satellite folks, and a game or two could show up at some point on DirecTV or Dish Network. DirecTV, in particular, carries HD MLB games on an occasional channel for most of the RSNs. It didn't sound like they could/would carry the entire HDTV schedule from STO (or any RSN save for the ones in New York or Boston).

* Did anyone else notice this full-page ad the other day in the Akron Beacon Journal, and presumably in the Cleveland Plain Dealer and other papers?


The ad asking people how much they "tip" their cable company - presumably because there is no competition. It touts a toll-free number and a website. Since full-page newspaper ads are expensive, we did some checking...and sure enough, on the "about us" page, among such noted organizations in the "coalition" like Asian Women in Business, the Center for International Freedom, and the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council, there's one listing that explains it all. Look, it's AT&T! How'd THEY get there?

AT&T, the telephone company formerly known as SBC, is starting to launch Project Lightspeed, an IP-based television competitor to cable. It wants state governments to overhaul the cable franchising process, and allow companies to apply for franchises for an entire state. And now, as Paul Harvey might say, you know the REST of the story!

* It was a small item on RadioDailyNews.com, and we can't yet find it anywhere else. Cleveland's own Tom Kent expands his basement-based radio syndication empire, as TKO Radio Networks announces a 24/7 format channel called "Classic Top 40". It's described as "Top 40 hit music of the 60s, 70s and 80s"...and joins TK's nightly "Hall of Fame Coast to Coast" and Sunday night "Into the Seventies" show...

* And between Roger Brown and Julie Washington, we've seen "team coverage" of WERE/1300 morning host Ronnie Duncan's career in the Plain Dealer, but it's hard to top last week's feature on him by Washington. "The mouth that ROARS - Busy life of Ronnie Duncan permits little time for sleep" provides an hour-by-hour look at Duncan's roles as WERE host, TV producer at Village Television and Cleveland Cavaliers PA announcer. Julie's slipping, though...she didn't tell us what time he walks his dog, or scratches his nose...or maybe she's waiting for the PD's sports media columnist to include that with the price of Duncan's suburban house...

Some WJER-FM Follow Up Speculation

Since announcing to the world - and probably to newspaper reporters in New Philadelphia - that the FCC approved Clear Channel's request to move WJER-FM/101.7 from Dover to North Canton, we've done a lot of thinking.

We've also gone diving back into our very own archives, in specific this item from September 2005. (Scroll to the bottom of the long "Trip Through Southeast Ohio" item for the WJER stuff.)

We haven't changed our collective editorial mind on any of this in the nearly seven months since the item first appeared in OMW...now that Clear Channel has the official go-ahead to move WJER-FM up north.

We once again can't see Clear Channel having any appetite to run co-owned WJER(AM)/1450. The station would have to be operated by remote from the CC World Domination Headquarters (Southern Command/Freedom Avenue).

Though we would not bet the (say it with us) soon-to-be-for-sale OMW World HQ on it, we'd be shocked if 1450 didn't end up in the hands of former owner/current operator Gary Petricola, or if he doesn't take it, in the hands of the folks at WTUZ/99.9 Uhrichsville ("Z Country"). The hefty local sports appetite in the Tuscarawas Valley would almost demand it, and the income from such broadcasts may almost cover whatever Clear Channel would ask for 1450 as a solo station.

And here's a thought.

The other FM station licensed to the Dover/New Philadelphia "twin cities" is CCM formatted WNPQ/95.9 New Philadelphia. The station has long been operated by one Mr. James Natoli as a Canton market rimshot, with studios on Convenience Circle a stone's throw from Belden Village Mall.

Mr. Natoli nudged WNPQ's tower a little north to Strasburg, just below the Stark/Tuscarawas County line between Dover/New Philly and Canton. That's it. With that nudge, he gets rimshot coverage to just north of his Belden Village area studio location, in theory encompassing nearly all of the Canton radio market.

You do the math. While WJER is a class A station, much like WNPQ, that much-farther-north tower location and the North Canton COL will get the new 101.7 - you guessed it - a large chunk of the Akron area as well. We remind the reader that one of our boomboxes here in northwest Akron gets WJER-FM *NOW*, at its current tower location...with the help of some height and a long-wire FM antenna out the deck. It is by far not a local signal up here, but on the above setup, is as clear as a local to our ears.

The folks at Clear Channel's Akron/Canton outpost have mined a lot of success selling their stations to a basic "combined market" of Akron and Canton. It was borne almost of necessity for WKDD when the long-time occupant of 96.5 Akron got pushed to 98.1 Canton by "KISS FM"'s move. And it is made all the easier by the hyper growth in the area between Akron and Canton. That's a lot of territory for a new 101.7 to cover, and promote itself as an "Akron/Canton" station.

Clear Channel could have engendered a lot less controversy by moving 101.7's tower location not as far north...say, close enough to Canton to serve it, but south of Canton. It could have simply shortcircuited "outrage" by pointing out that the new location was still close to Dover/New Philadelphia. But a COL move to North Canton moves the station's signal nearly entirely out of Dover/New Philly...which is exactly what needed to be done to create a new "Akron/Canton" station.

Then again, the use of the word "controversy" seems a bit silly at this stage in the game. Despite an occasional town council resolution urging the station to stay in Dover, the WJER-FM move apparently got about a dozen people to write to the FCC. That's hardly a groundswell of support for keeping the station there.

As we've noted before, the area is also served by a now-more-popular FM station with an extensive local news and sports presence - the aforementioned WTUZ. And it appears likely to us that WJER's AM side will stay down there, and probably with somewhat near its present state of local programming. That's hardly radio abandonment, especially when the FCC would consider even WJER(AM)'s presence alone as enough to allow the FM side to move.

Again, we repeat - this move is not happening tomorrow. Or three months from now. Still more needs to be done. But...just a thought...

BREAKING NEWS: WJER-FM Move To North Canton Approved

Oddly enough, we were just talking about this in the Mighty Blog of Fun(tm) this week.

The FCC has approved the requested move of WJER-FM/101.7 Dover's community of license to North Canton, step one of a process that will eventually bring it into Clear Channel's Akron/Canton cluster.

In agreeing to move the 101.7 allotment from Dover to North Canton, the FCC did note some opposition, from local resident Edward Cox and in a petition from 12 Dover residents. It notes that it didn't directly consider these petitions because they didn't follow filing time deadlines and other FCC guidelines for filing opposition, but the order also says that the commission would have ruled in favor of the move anyway due to other factors.

Those include something called "Tuck factors". (It's a reference to an old case which provides the FCC precedent for such moves.) The FCC ruled that Clear Channel showed North Canton's independence from Canton in a few ways, including the presence of a monthly newspaper, a municipal government, numerous businesses and significant in-city employment. (Clear Channel can thank whatever's left of Hoover's operations for much of that.)

Even if it took Cox's petition into consideration without the technicalities that stopped it from doing so, the commission says the move represents "a preferential arrangement of allotments", giving North Canton its first local service (yeah, we know), and keeping WJER(AM) Dover-New Philadelphia as a local service in Dover.

How long will it take - from now - for 101.7 to become a Canton market station?

The order notes that Clear Channel has to file for a new construction permit within 90 days specifying the new facilities. Clear Channel will then have up to three years after that CP is approved to build it out...so today's approval doesn't mean that a new 101.7 facility will pop up within three months.

What it does mean is that CC is now within its own timetable to get the station going, now that it has the federal green light.

We've heard out of Dover that CC's reverse LMA with former WJER owner Gary Petricola to run both the AM and FM stations may actually be renewed for a period of time while CC makes those preparations. Now, the decision will be steered by such things as building the station's new format and place in the CC cluster...oh, yeah, and building a new tower site...

The Most Powerful Name in Local News?

OMW has occasionally passed along word that FOX's local stations division, now under the management of FOX News Channel chief Roger Ailes, would mold the O&O's local newscasts in the style of FNC. It looks like it's starting to happen.

The TVNewser blog reports on a major rebranding at FOX's O&O flagship station, WNYW/5 in New York City. Along with a new searchlight-laden logo that apes the style of FNC, the station is using FNC-style graphics for its news shows, and is even using the slogan: "The Most Powerful Name in Local News", a copy of the cable network's long-time slogan.

TVNewser says it's getting word that the new look and branding has spread to FOX O&O's in Tampa, St. Louis and Memphis, among other markets, and could be headed for Boston next, at O&O WFXT/25.

We bring all this up, of course, because the network owns WJW FOX 8 here in the Cleveland market. It appears at some point, FOX 8 will proclaim itself "The Most Powerful Name in Local News" and take on some of the cosmetic changes outlined above. We don't know if the FOX O&Os will go as far as Sinclair did, adding canned conservative commentary to its local newscasts, but...changes are definitely in the cards for the local FOX O&O's...

Another Talker On FM - Not Here, Yet

The latest FM station to convert to a news/talk format really isn't a new "conversion", but a return for them.

Radio & Records Online reports that Entercom talk WWL/870 New Orleans has returned to having an FM simulcast. It's now promoting "WWL on FM" on former oldies outlet WTKL/105.3 Kenner LA.

We call it a return, because the station was a vital link for news and information in the period immediately after Hurricane Katrina...when WWL's programming, coming out of a Clear Channel studio in Baton Rouge, was heard on a large number of both Entercom and Clear Channel FMs in New Orleans and beyond...including FM 105.3. The station returned to the "Kool" oldies format, until being brought back into a permanent WWL simulcast this week.

Why do we bring this up? We'll continue to bring you word of conversion of poor performing FM stations to talk and news/talk formats across the country, as we believe it's the very early phase of what will become a very big trend.

And companies like Entercom and Bonneville are doing quite well with the idea. Bonneville moved its top-rated all-news WTOP in Washington DC to a primary FM signal recently, and is simulcasting flagship talker KSL/1160 Salt Lake City on an FM signal. Entercom has an FM simulcast of popular Boston sports talker WEEI on the air in Providence, and will put another FM WEEI simulcast up in western Massachusetts soon.

And we've already talked about not only CBS Radio's attempts (heh) to mount "Free FM" talkers in major markets nationwide, but Clear Channel's FM talk success in nearby Pittsburgh (WPGB/104.7), as well as a new Clear Channel FM talker in Minneapolis.

There's another reason even existing powerful AM news/talk stations are moving to add FM signals. WWL's evening talk team - on the air right now - says the reason the station added the FM simulcast was due to building penetration in downtown offices...a problem even for a 50,000 watt flamethrower like WWL.

Back in Northeast Ohio, we've detailed rumors - without much fact supporting them - that either Clear Channel or CBS Radio will mount a talk FM station at some point in the Cleveland market. Perhaps the biggest obstacle stopping that is simple - neither company really has an FM station currently in trouble in Cleveland.

You can make your arguments for flipping, say, WMVX/106.5 to talk, but there's no evidence that it's in big trouble. You could talk about CBS Radio fulfilling the rumors of a "Free FM" talker in the market, but their all-talk morning replacement for Howard Stern is not exactly burning up the dial on classic rock WNCX/98.5.

The typical FM station that gets changed to a talk format is a station that's been through a number of format changes...from urban AC to smooth jazz to other formats that aren't "front of mind". None of the local Clear Channel or CBS stations fit that profile. Every single one of 'em has been in or near their current format for years. (We say "near", because of WXRK/92.3's recent format adjustment within the alt-rock realm.)

But...it will happen. Someday. Talk will continue to move to FM, and it will end up on FM in Cleveland somewhere. To prove the success of talk radio on FM, all Cleveland's radio suits have to do is look down I-77, and check out the long ratings success record of WNIR/100.1 in the Akron market...

Random Notes of a Sports Variety

Some more sports media related stuff today...

* This time, it wasn't just DirecTV everyone sharing the televised pain with SportsTime Ohio, as the network went dark as a whole last night for about a half-hour of the Indians' 11-9 loss to the Seattle Mariners. (A running joke we heard with the unscheduled TV blackout - "maybe the Indians won't show TV games when they're losing!")

OMW hears (unofficially) that the feed to STO's satellite uplink went on the fritz. We haven't bothered STO's Jim Liberatore for details, as it didn't appear to be a permanent situation.

The problem even affected the Terrace Club at Jacobs Field, which shows the STO games in HDTV on fancy screens. We heard WTAM's Andre Knott talk about the outage in a sports segment on afternoon motormouth Mike Trivisonno's show this afternoon...which we'd presume means that they're getting the HD feed via Adelphia 798, and not directly from the WKYC control room.

The game eventually came back on, first with silent audio and then in full, and there are no problems so far with tonight's contest with the Mariners.

A side note after listening to Triv a bit today - he compared "our night guy" (Kevin Keane) with former WTAM mid-morning host Jerry Springer, in that "I can't listen to the guy for more than 8 minutes without turning the station". Ouch.

* While we're in STO-land, a frustrated listener outside the "inner" Cleveland Indians TV footprint area has started up an online petition to push DirecTV to add the Indians' TV network to areas outside greater Cleveland/Akron/Canton and Columbus areas.

* It's baseball on FM in Cleveland tonight, as the NBA Cavaliers take over the WTAM/1100 airwaves for a meaningless contest with the New York Knicks. (It might be an NBA by-law to use that phrase in any game where the Cavs have already locked up their playoff position, and LeBron James is sitting due to an ankle sprain...)

The Cavs game pushes the Tribe over to WTAM's overflow station, sister CC rocker WMMS/100.7. But hearing the team on FM isn't new for many in the region...as the Indians have been on 50,000 watt WQKT/104.5 Wooster for ages. 'QKT also carries the Cavs, but they're doing baseball tonight...so we assume the basketball ends up there on sister WKVX/960.

UPDATE: Well, we would assume, anyway...as you can see in the comments on this item, it appears WKVX is spinning the satellite oldies tonight and not the Cavaliers...

WLW's Mike McConnell Gets Syndicated - Again

This time, it's Clear Channel talk WLW/700 Cincinnati mid-morning host Mike McConnell's signature weekday program which goes national.

McConnell already hosts "The Weekend" for Premiere on Saturdays, but Radio & Records Online reports it'll be in-house Clear Channel Programming handling distribution for the syndication of his existing WLW Monday-Friday 9 AM-noon show starting July 31st.

"The Weekend With Mike McConnell" airs on a reported 120 stations across the country, and even on WLW from time to time...mostly when the sports schedule allows it to air. Though it is indeed available to all stations, we'll guess that 90% of that lineup consists of Clear Channel's own talk stations. "Weekend" airs here in Northeast Ohio on WTAM/1100 Cleveland, WHLO/640 Akron and WKBN/570 Youngstown, in varying time slots. WTAM hasn't been airing the show much lately, due to a newly minted local program hosted by rock WMMS/100.7 afternoon driver Maxwell.

If it's indeed Clear Channel Programming fronting the Monday-Friday syndication for McConnell, the show may well be solely intended for the company's own stations. But we doubt they'd turn away others if there was interest.

Of course, McConnell is already heard well outside Cincinnati via WLW's channel on XM Satellite Radio (173) and via the station's Internet stream at 700WLW.com...

It's Adelphia...Still

There were at least some people who thought, back when bankrupt Adelphia announced it would agree to be split up and acquired by Time Warner Cable and Comcast in a $17-billion dollar deal, that the deal would be done by now. Well, not so fast.

An apparent dispute with creditors has bogged down the effort to jettison Adelphia's assets. The Plain Dealer's Henry Gomez reports that Adelphia has revised its reorganization plan in an effort to end the dispute.

What does it all mean? July 31st, that's what it means. It's a date we've heard from sources recently, and it's now directly out of the mouth of Adelphia chairman and CEO William Schleyer in a statement out today. He says that it is "essential" for the Adelphia asset sale to be completed by the end of July.

Gomez reports that some 465,000 local cable customers are affected...as Time Warner Cable drives the Adelphia shutdown bus locally, taking in Adelphia's customers as well as Cleveland-area Comcast subscribers in the merger. In some other parts of the country, Comcast will take over some Time Warner systems in the deal to create their own larger clusters in other markets...

Other Stuff Buried In The Opening Day Avalanche

OK, so the whole Indians opening day thing was a bit overwhelming the past week or two...and we missed Julie Washington's radio column in the Plain Dealer over the weekend.

Highlights:

* They may as well start running a regular shuttle between the WCPN/ideastream headquarters on Playhouse Square and the WKSU/89.7 building near the Kent State University campus. This time, it's a move from Kent to Cleveland, as veteran WKSU reporter Mark Urycki joins the Cleveland pubradio outlet on Monday after over 20 years in Kent.

Urycki tells Washington he couldn't resist the lure of working for NPR veteran David Molpus, who joined the station as executive editor after a stint at Virginia pubradio outlet WMRA (Harrisonburg). Molpus is a familiar name and voice to NPR listeners via years of various reporting and hosting roles at the national level. Urycki basically replaces reporter Renita Jablonski, who ended up at...stop us if you've heard this before...WKSU.

* Standards music returns to Salem talk WHK/1420...for an hour each Sunday, at least. Mike Young's buying time for a "Great American Songbook" show on Sundays from noon to 1 PM. He was most recently heard on Kenston High's non-comm standards outlet, WKHR/91.5 Bainbridge. Of course, 1420 was running standards as WCLV-owned WRMR until Salem bought it...

* Congrats to WAKR/1590 Akron's Larry States and WJW/8 Cleveland's Tom Merriman for winning regional Murrow Awards from the Radio-Television News Directors Association. States and Merriman bested other entrants from Ohio, Michigan, Illinois and Indiana and go on to national competition.

* And Washington picks up on the move of WEWS/5 meterologist Mike Stone to WTOL/Toledo last month. His WTOL bio says he's doing the station's morning and noon weathercasts. And he's now working at a sister station to WEWS competitor WOIO/19-WUAB/43, as "19 Action News" owner Raycom Media acquired WTOL in the Liberty acquisition a while back...selling WNWO/24 to Barrington...

Oh, and a follow up to all the STO/DirecTV stuff below - it appears the gremlins are pretty much gone, and DirecTV viewers in the Cleveland/etc. area got to see the Indians beat the Mariners last night. We got one report of someone having problems, but it appears to be specific to their setup.

Those in the outer reaches of the Tribe TV empire with DirecTV will still have to bug them, though...or switch to Dish Network or cable to catch games in places like Toledo, Lima and Erie...

Our Chat With STO's Jim Liberatore

We got the call from SportsTime Ohio head Jim Liberatore this afternoon...unfortunately, on the road while nowhere near a notepad or keyboard, so much of this is out of our recollection of the conversation about five hours ago.

The biggest item - Liberatore tells OMW that the activation mess yesterday with DirecTV and STO "should be fixed" by tomorrow night's Indians-Mariners game. At least, that's what the DirecTV folks are telling him. Apparently, the need to activate the channel in the first place needed a couple of electronic "nudges" (our term) with DirecTV boxes. Liberatore says DirecTV feels confident that they've sent down the electronic "hits" needed to clear STO on boxes in the primary Cleveland market.

Liberatore tells us that despite the DirecTV problems (and despite information in Roger Brown's sports media column in this morning's PD), the red-hot Tribe still got good ratings over the weekend. After a 12.7 share for Friday's WKYC/3 opener, the STO cable/satellite only games on Saturday and Sunday were scoring in the 8 share range, which was actually around - if not a little more than - the season average for FSN Ohio's Indians games in 2005. But clearly, with the DirecTV homes which were missing for Saturday and Sunday, that number could have been bumped a bit higher.

The STO head took at least partial blame for the whole mess regarding DirecTV and the regions outside metro Cleveland/Akron/Canton/Columbus, areas that will still not receive the STO Indians games on DirecTV even after the satellite service fixes the problems that plagued local subscribers this weekend.

Liberatore said he "didn't expect" the move by DirecTV to regionalize the coverage, and the veteran cable channel executive said he'd never heard of such a deal before. He told us the term sheet between SportsTime Ohio and DirecTV did not include the regional zone breakdown.

Could DirecTV subscribers outside the core Indians market nudge the service into carrying games they saw on FSN Ohio last year? Liberatore would only say that such a decision was something that was in DirecTV's ability to make.

We get the idea that such a move would put DirecTV on the financial hook for the extra out-of-core-market viewers, but the numbers would probably be somewhat less significant than what they're paying STO for the Cleveland/Akron/Canton and Columbus metro market eyeballs.

We wonder with some 2,000 local Tribe fans calling DirecTV both Saturday and Sunday, how many of them were not going to get the game anyway due to their location in Toledo, Lima, Erie PA or other locations not in the "zone 1/2" footprint? And we wonder if those statistics will eventually make its way to those making such decisions at the satellite service, and if they'll some day tell STO "sign us up for them, too".

Liberatore did confirm for us that those folks in the DirecTV zones who are NOT getting the STO package right now are basically out of luck with the service if they want to see Indians games, even if they're willing to pay for the extra cost "Extra Innings" package. "Extra Innings" will not give them the STO Indians games either.

So, if you're a Tribe fan in Toledo, Erie, Steubenville or Mansfield, you'd only see the games aired by national providers ESPN and FOX (over-air) on DirecTV. Paying for the "EI" package won't bring you the Indians games you aren't seeing on channel 657.

Oh, Liberatore also tells us they are aware of the occasional audio problems we've talked about here, including the infamous one-second dropout every minute or two on the HD coverage, and some lipsyncing problems...and he believes those have been fixed for Tuesday night's game.

Anyway, it was nice talking to Mr. Liberatore, who's clearly pro-active with getting in touch with the media, and even the new media like OMW.

OK, so we didn't think at first that he would bother with Internet media outposts, even your very own Mighty Blog of Fun(tm). But after hearing him stay in contact with an Internet cow...er...Marc Steenbarger's Moohead Radio, we figured we're at least that high up on the media food chain, and that's what prompted us to contact the STO president directly...

A Couple of Bruce Drennan Clarifications

OMW dutifully passed along an early Plain Dealer report on the Cleveland.com website... that former WKNR/850 host Bruce Drennan was now facing federal charges of cheating on his taxes. We later noticed the story that actually ran in the newspaper the next morning, and figured we'd better clear up a couple of points in Drennan's case that were not covered in the initial Internet report.

In specific, it appears the feds will NOT charge Drennan in the gambling probe itself, which saw two other men - David Hammon Sr., and David Hammon Jr. - see prison time. An assistant U.S. attorney tells the Plain Dealer's Mike Tobin that the investigation into Drennan's alleged involvement in the gambling ring is "finished" and that gambling charges won't be filed against him.

But as others will tell you, the federal tax charges are more than enough trouble for the popular local sportscaster. He could get three years in prison and a $250,000 fine, though the PD notes that many get more lenient sentences. We were told long ago by a wise person that "you don't mess with two organizations - the IRS and the phone company"...just ask WKRP in Cincinnati's Dr. Johnny Fever about that last one.

And about Drennan's gig as program director and midday host at SportsTalkNetwork.com... STN's Paul Belfi says the news "does not change" his status at the Internet webcaster, and says he has "nothing but high regard" for Drennan. When we tried to tune in Friday, we didn't know that Drennan apparently doesn't do a Friday show regularly...

Unraveling the DirecTV Mess

For once, it's a timely Roger Brown sports media column in today's Plain Dealer, with what looks to be a pretty accurate representation of the mess Indians fans with DirecTV encountered over the weekend...well, at least from the STO side of things, anyway.

STO boss Jim Liberatore confirms what we'd been told yesterday by a team ticket sales rep... that the team has gotten "hundreds" of calls from irate DirecTV subscribers blacked out of one or both contests with the Minnesota Twins. DirecTV has also gotten "over 2,000 calls", only about a quarter of them by our Indians-fan relative. (Heh.)

Liberatore tells Brown that DirecTV is apparently having "significant activation issues" in adding STO to the accounts of everyone which should receive it. We surmise, beyond this, that it's due to the unique method of only allowing certain ZIP codes in the Cleveland Indians' TV footprint that is causing the technical snafus. From what we understand, this "zone" thing within a full team footprint is a new thing at DirecTV, starting with the SportsTime Ohio addition. (Don't you just love being a guinea pig?)

But...Brown wasn't able to get a Sunday comment from DirecTV itself. We'd love to have heard how they explain the mess which happened over the weekend, and some of the other issues that both DirecTV and STO have been gently stepping around, like why the Indians "TV footprint" has shrunken to greater Cleveland, Akron, Canton and Columbus on the satellite service.

As someone else put it, if they'd just have turned on STO for everyone who already has FSN Ohio, the problem likely would not have happened. And frankly, in our opinion, they should do that TODAY, and sort out the "who should/who shouldn't" problem later - only when they're confident they can do it without shutting off thousands of Indians fans within 40 miles of Jacobs Field. But doing so, of course, could upset those who are outside the "primary" Cleveland market who would be getting games shut off at some point.

For his part, Liberatore says it's "DirecTV's problem, but that makes it our problem, too", and says STO is doing its "best" to straighten things out. We hope so...as we're getting tired of playing troubleshooter for a certain relative's DirecTV installation.

The good news? OMW is setting up direct contact with STO and Mr. Liberatore, and hopefully soon, we'll not have to rely upon Roger Brown's leftovers. We're also attempting to get answers from DirecTV. You know, REAL answers...

Brown also points out early low ratings for the Tribe on STO - pointing out the team's daytime games and the teething pains of the new Indians network. (UPDATE: After a conversation with STO's Jim Liberatore later in the afternoon, it appears a technical problem with ratings measurement may have been responsible for what appeared to be low numbers early on.)

He also repeats something we heard on FSN Ohio/WKNR's "Cleveland Rants" show...that not only did Les Levine and Neil Bender actually DEBUT the show a week ago Sunday night at 2 AM despite the late hour...but that they also had full phone lines at that hour...

Greetings to St. Louis

So, it's nearly 2 AM and we're making the rounds of the sites put up by our colleagues in the radio/TV-online world. Our first late Sunday night stop is always NorthEast Radio Watch, crafted at around this time with care by our long-time friend Scott Fybush.

A less regular stop is Mike Anderson's excellent STLMedia.net, produced by a former radio veteran in the St. Louis market. But we've been reading regularly since KTRS/550's mid-morning host got himself into hot water and got fired for a verbal slip regarding Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice.

Anderson was once associated with that talk radio station. As we remember, he designed their initial web presence, and also may have appeared occasionally on KTRS' afternoon drive talk show... which is about the only show that survived a massive staff purge after former WSPD/Toledo program director Al Brady Law took over. The station is now half-owned by the St. Louis Cardinals.

We read with interest Anderson's characterization of the station a St. Louis newspaper writer calls "KTR-MesS", and his description of roughly a 10 year history of what he considers to be mismanagement by the station.

So, we were surprised when someone tipped Anderson off to OMW, and he mentioned it in a recent entry.

"If you think it gets rough here ... on media performers, check out OhioMediaWatch. It's a bit more TV and sports-centric, but no less critical. This guy REALLY holds their feet to the fire. Thanks to JJ for the link."

Wow.

Are we rough here? Do we hold local media types' "feet to the fire"? We thought we were actually a bit mild. Sure, we poke occasional fun at WTAM afternoon motormouth Mike Trivisonno. We've also had some words about WOIO/WUAB's "19 Action News" - hey, we can't help it if your anchors go naked - and maybe even a comment or two about sports talk WKNR/850.

But we try not to be mean-spirited here. Honest, we don't. Despite some occasionally pointed criticisms, we actually listen to and watch all of the above. We've even said good things about them from time to time. And while we believe some stations may not be, well, run as well as they could be (no names, here)...we've long since abandoned regular pot-shots at said stations, as much as some of their actions frustrate us as a listener, and as someone with a broadcasting background.

As we said before, it is what it is. Ranting about stuff here, and about what we believe to be, umm, not very smart decisions by TV/radio management in some cases, gains us nothing. Wondering why things are done, when ratings show that people listen or watch in numbers, gains us nothing. We're not referring to any specific station with that last line, for various reasons. It's just a general thought.

Our style these days is more along the lines of a slight ongoing joke...see the "afternoon motormouth" line above. It's mostly tongue in cheek, but considering that Mr. Anderson has pretty much been on the rampage with the new St. Louis Cardinals' radio flagship and in particular, has been locked in a battle with its early afternoon host (to the point where that host has threatened to remove Mr. Anderson's web presence)...well, we're not battling here as far as we know.

Oh, as far as the "TV/sports" lean...it's been that way the past couple of weeks since those subjects have pretty much dominated local media news. Just wait till someone flips a music format or two...

But...thanks for the link, Mike Anderson, and we heartily encourage anyone with even the slightest interest in the St. Louis media scene to check out STLMedia.net.

Next News In HDTV - WKYC?

We stumbled onto this one in a search for news about SportsTime Ohio.

A Broadcasting & Cable Magazine article on local TV stations doing HD sports broadcasts delves further into the relationship between Cleveland NBC affiliate WKYC/3 and STO. WKYC produces not only its own schedule of 20 Indians games, but also the entire Indians schedule for SportsTime Ohio as a part of the 10 year pact with the team.

But although there are more details about that relationship in the article by Ken Kerschbaumer, including details of WKYC renting a remote HD production truck out of Columbus for its away games, we note this piece of news at the end of the article:

"On April 7, the station is scheduled to flip the switch on a full HD conversion. All local news and talk-show content will be shot, produced and delivered in high-definition."


We don't believe that actually happened on Friday, as WKYC's 90 minute "Cleveland Celebrates" pre-pre-game show was not aired in HDTV...though the 30 minute "Indians On-Deck" pre-game show and the game itself were in HD on WKYC. And the Sunday night 6 PM edition of "Channel 3 News" is not in HDTV tonight.

But...we predicted this one before. WKYC owner Gannett has been at the forefront of conversion to HDTV in its local newscasts. It's already added or announced HD newscasts in at least three other markets - Washington DC, Atlanta and Minneapolis, in addition to an existing HD news operation in Denver. WKYC's broadcast facility (the "Digital Broadcast Center") is relatively new, and the conversion to HD for local news probably isn't as big a deal as it would be for, oh, we don't know, maybe WOIO/19? They barely have an "Analog Broadcast Center" in the basement of the Reserve Square office/apartment complex in downtown Cleveland.

WJW "FOX 8" blazed the HD news trail here, of course, and has reportedly been looking at upgrading equipment to provide remote HDTV feeds for news live shots, the "SkyFOX" helicopter and the like, not to mention local commercial production.

The sentence above has us wondering if WKYC will also shoot recorded news video in HD - which WJW does not right now - and if it means HD for the station's "Good Company" mid-morning talk show.

Whenever WKYC goes HD in local news, that'll leave WOIO and WEWS/5 as the odd stations out in the HD game...and make Cleveland one of the few TV markets in the country with competing HDTV local newscasts...

Weekend Update (Part 2)

Ongoing with some of the stuff we've been dealing with over the past couple of days:

STO BLACKOUT DAY 2: Our current theory is that DirecTV is run by trained monkeys banging away at keyboards at random. No, we're sorry, we didn't mean to insult chimps.

For the second straight day, DirecTV customers in the Cleveland market are having trouble getting SportsTime Ohio. This time, the trouble hits home for us...as our voracious Indians-fan relative here in suburban Akron was getting a blank screen with an authorization message on DirecTV channel 657 this afternoon.

After being told by a DirecTV CSR that "the list of ZIP codes that was published to get the games is wrong, and those are the ZIP codes that would NOT get the Indians games" (!!!!), our relative called us in search of help. We advised to keep calling DirecTV until he found a CSR with a clue. It took a couple of calls, but it was authorized, finally.

A quick call to the Indians' game day ticket phone bank (216-420-HITS) elicited tales of hundreds of calls from people well within the Cleveland/Akron/Canton market who were also shut out, including calls from as close as "5 minutes away from Jacobs Field".

We were also told that STO boss Jim Liberatore was witnessing these calls coming in, so he's certainly aware of the problem. Whether he's able to actually DO anything about the problem...well, we're not holding our breath.

There appears to be no rhyme or reason to the blackout problem. Some viewers in 442xx ZIP codes reported getting the game, some had to call. Some 441xx viewers also had to call, and that's the very same ZIP code range as Jacobs Field!

One other problem - it appears they're having difficulty with sound on the HD telecasts. Here in the Land of the Lost, er, Adelphia's territory, the sound on the HD feed (channel 798) drops out for a second about once every two to three minutes. We are also hearing that some folks in Canton may not be getting ANY sound on Time Warner's channel 523 (HD feed).

Oh, and Rumorama Department - we're hearing that DirecTV CSRs claim that HD games from SportsTime Ohio will start showing up in May...take that for what it's worth. We'll believe that when they start delivering NON-HD games reliably and on a regular basis...

NEW PHILLY-ING IT: We've done some more thinking on our item below about an apparent reference to "a sabbatical" and "contract talks" that a Dover/New Philadelphia listener heard out of WJER-FM's Bill Morgan one morning last week.

While it's impossible to predict how long the FCC will take on a particular item - just ask WBNX/55 about their digital TV application! - we don't believe there's any indication that the disposition of WJER-FM will be decided any time this year.

As noted, the "NPRM" (Notice of Proposed Rulemaking) requesting a move of WJER-FM's city of license from Dover to North Canton has yet not been approved by the FCC. Even if that approval came tomorrow, Clear Channel would have to then file for a construction permit at the new tower location, and construct the facility and get the CP approved. All of this takes some time. And the NPRM has been in the files for only about a year and a half - it was filed in November 2004.

In the meantime, former WJER owner Gary Petricola continues to operate both 101.7 FM and 1450 AM in a reverse LMA with Clear Channel, and based on the above, we wouldn't be surprised to see that reverse LMA renewed for some time...perhaps with a mutually agreed upon "out" in case the above process takes place quicker than expected. But again...the FCC sometimes moves at a glacial pace...

STO and DirecTV - A Bumpy Ride

We're hearing numerous reports from DirecTV subscribers within the immediate Cleveland/Akron/Canton area that this afternoon's Cleveland Indians game wasn't available to them on the team's SportsTime Ohio channel (DirecTV channel 657). The folks we're hearing from are well within the "zone 1/2" local footprint for STO.

As far as we know, there should be no reason other than a technical/operations problem with DirecTV that the game wasn't available. We'd strongly advise folks to call or E-Mail both DirecTV and STO to get the scoop, if at all possible...and we'll ask around as well. If we hear anything, we'll let you know...

UPDATE: 4/9/06 12:15 AM - Marc over at Moohead Radio says he's heard from STO that "it appears DirecTV blacked out the entire (Cleveland) region (for STO) by accident". Yipes! Well, it's not the ENTIRE region, as you can see in the comments below...at least some folks are telling us that they did get the Indians game on STO via DirecTV channel 657. But it seems from the reports we've received here that most folks did not.

Our advice? Hang in there. This whole thing is new for everyone, from STO to DirecTV to the cable companies. If it lasts more than a week or so, we'll be surprised. (But do call 'em and tell 'em you're not happy, even if this only lasts a while longer.)

We've had no problem with Adelphia's carriage of STO, even though their program guide doesn't show the STO HD games on "HD Bonus" 798, the games are run. Imagine, saying something nice about Adelphia! Porcine creatures must be airborne somewhere...

Weekend Update Without Chevy Chase OR Tina Fey

As usually happens after a busy week here on the Mighty Blog of Fun(tm), we get updates on previous items...or find out more about what's been heard on the air during the week.

Here we go again...

NUMBER 1: As it turns out, the TV side of FSN Ohio/WKNR's "Cleveland Rants" isn't yet being done at the network's headquarters in Independence - on Rockside Road across I-77 from the Clear Channel World Domination Headquarters on Oak Tree. (If we've mapped the location right, it's right behind the Bob Evans.) And when we get something wrong, we hear about it...a number of folks corrected us, telling us that for now, FSN's part of "Rants" is actually being done from a TV production studio much closer to WKNR's Broadview Road studio complex.

However, a permanent set for the show with Les Levine and Neil Bender IS being built - as Levine mentioned on a recent appearance on WKNR's Kenny Roda show. And as we thought, a mole somewhere in the world of "Rants" tells us that Bender is indeed making the drive between TV and radio studios, though we hear that they're ready in case he gets stuck in traffic...something that'll be more likely when the TV side of the show moves back up to Independence.

Unless they, umm, well, put in something like an ISDN line allowing Bender to do the radio show from the TV studio. You know, at the rate gas prices are going up, that might be the more economical option at some point...

NUMBER 2: Denise Grollmus is back! Eeek. We don't read the "Scene" weekly newspaper on a regular basis, so we missed the former Beacon Journal writer's recent article on the shutdown of Written Communication Radio Service, the radio reading service for the blind otherwise known by the radio-style call letters WCRS.

For an article about radio, it's actually pretty accurate by Grollmus' standards. And she reminds us something we forgot - reports of $12,000-plus worth of gifts to "sports organizations" actually mostly helped fund "Beep Baseball", a program that helps blind folks play baseball by putting a "beep" in the ball. We haven't tracked the money issues or whatever caused state attorney general Jim Petro to start tracking the WCRS folks, but we were aware that "Beep Baseball" was one of their programs.

Grollmus gives the impression that the radio reading service was crushed in part due to its bingo competition with Ohio's state-sanctioned gambling operations. We don't know, ourselves, but we still think it looks bad to shut down a reading service for the blind when you're running for governor...and we suspect Republican primary opponent Ken Blackwell could make at least a little hay out of this...

For those who don't know, we have a history with Grollmus. After providing a long list of corrections to one of her Beacon Journal articles on local radio, we had to clean up after the youthful then-radio beat writer after she sent the mayor of Stow looking into zoning changes... for a radio station that would have had towers in Lorain County and studios in Independence...

NUMBER 3: Call to folks in the Dover/New Philadelphia area! We hear that the morning host at WJER-FM/101.7 there, which is owned by Clear Channel but being operated by the former local owner, mentioned a "sabbatical", meaning he'd be off the air a week (until April 17th). Our listener down there thought they heard him talk about contract negotiations on the air.

We've done some double checking, and we haven't been able to find any FCC approval to move WJER-FM's city of license to North Canton...let alone any applications by Clear Channel to build those new facilities.

It's widely assumed that when the process is approved, WJER-FM will disband its operations in Dover/New Philadelphia, and be moved up to the Clear Channel World Domination Headquarters (Southern Command) on Freedom Avenue in Stark County's Jackson Township...and will be operated as a Canton market FM station.

We're still not clear if WJER's AM side at 1450 will make the move as well, at least physically, though Clear Channel does indeed own that station as well. WJER(AM) can't target Canton, because its signal is not even heard clearly there, but it could well be run automated out of Freedom Avenue.

As we pointed out to our listener down there, if WJER-FM's morning host is doing contract renegotiations, the length of said contract is obviously up in the air due to the events outlined above...

Opening Day Wrapup In 4 Parts

Now that the Cleveland Indians have officially put their home opener in the books - a 11-6 win over the Minnesota Twins at foggy Jacobs Field - we'll put the bulk of our coverage in the books as well. We're already working on a couple of non-sports items, anyway, but until then...

PART 1: WKYC/3 and SportsTime Ohio debuted the first high-definition sports telecast in Cleveland TV history, and it looked good to us. We've provided some in-game screen shots... one at field level, and an example of what it looks like when Casey Blake hits a grand slam home run...



(As usual, click on a picture to enlarge it.)

The day did not go without glitches, though. WKYC was experiencing some technical difficulty in running commercial breaks for part of the game, and was forced to go to a logo screen and back to the game early at least twice. We saw it on both the WKYC-DT HDTV broadcast and the analog broadcast on good old Channel 3 itself. As far as we know, no game action was missed.

Later in the evening, the game was replayed...on Adelphia on STO's digital channels 179 (SD) and 798 (HD), the latter suffering from a slight sound misalignment...you heard something a half-second before you saw it.

PART 2: While we're talking about WKYC, the station pulled out all the stops and perhaps even made some new ones to pull out again with a 90 minute pre-pre-game show called "Cleveland Celebrates". The show - hosted by the station's main anchor team of Tim White and Romona Robinson - covered everything but the number of athletic protectors the team needs per year. (Or maybe we missed that part.)

It also pushed Tribe mascot "Slider" to the limit, with an "investigative report" on him by WKYC's Carl Monday...who has surely done more challenging work. And they even looked into him medically. OK, that was a bit over the top...a medical report on what could injure a costumed mascot. The saving grace here - it was Opening Day, and WKYC isn't going to do an hour and a half of pre-game fluff before its other 19 games...

This kind of "give the team a bear hug and a wet kiss" treatment of a sports team by a TV news department is new here for the Indians, who haven't been on an over-air station with a full-time news operation for ages. (Their last over-air home was WUAB/43, which we believe was paired up with WOIO/19 even then, but the station's changed a lot in four years.) This is the kind of routine Washington DC viewers went through last year, when the market gained a new baseball team in the Nationals.

If this continues with WKYC/3, the relationship between WOIO/19 and the Cleveland Browns may look positively chilly by comparison. But we don't expect WKYC staffers to swipe bottled water out of the Tribe's refrigerators in the summer...

PART 3: We've checked out FSN Ohio and WKNR/850's "Cleveland Rants" simulcast a couple or three times in the past week. An overall first impression? Still a bit uneven at times, but Les Levine's regular presence on something that doesn't resemble a cable access station is welcome.

We're not a huge, over-the-top, "heard-his-every-WHK-show" fan of Levine, but he beats the living daylights out of many people masquerading as sports talk hosts in this market. No, we're not naming any names. And his less experienced co-host, WKNR utility player Neil Bender, is handling his new assignment well...and could develop a good chemistry with Levine...


As you can see, the "Rants" set, presumably at FSN Ohio in Independence, is a bit "busy". We're sure that thing behind Les with the logo is a standard set of window blinds you can buy at any Home Depot, but we get the effect. The artwork on the walls needs to be toned down a bit. But at least it's not fake brick wallpaper...(sorry, Les...)

And we're now convinced the radio-only part of "Rants" is done at the WKNR studios. We started thinking that, because we noticed it takes a good 10 to 15 minutes after the TV side signs off before WKNR's Bender is heard again on 850 AM...with a long run of commercials and promos to fill the gap. That, and the fact that the 'KNR side of "Rants" uses the standard WKNR call-in numbers, where the show uses a different number on FSN Ohio (see above).

We plugged the FSN Ohio address and the WKNR studio address into our mapping program, and sure enough, the drive mostly down I-77 South is supposed to take about 11 minutes at the speed limit. We're surprised that Bender hasn't opened up the radio microphone out of breath, or that he hasn't run into a traffic snarl at some point in the run of the show...

Anyway, the show could evolve into the most promising thing WKNR has implemented on its schedule since they signed up that "Rome" guy for early afternoons. It's certainly brought a lot of attention to the Salem sports talk station, if only for the external advertising FSN Ohio has done for the show.

But please...whoever at FSN Ohio screens the calls for "Rants"...some of the show's callers shouldn't be allowed near a telephone! You know which ones we're talking about...and that's OUR "Rant"...

A SPECIAL PART: Casey Blake may have been the Tribe's star of the day, but another Casey's star shone pretty brightly as well. WTAM's Casey Coleman had the honor of throwing out the first ceremonial pitch...clearly a Big Deal in this town on Opening Day...


And we're happy we caught the veteran sportscaster smiling...as he continues to fight pancreatic cancer, and hopes to return to the WTAM airwaves sometime this summer...

Opening Day - Play Ball!

It's not just a sports moment, but it's a bit of local TV history...the first-ever live high-definition event broadcast (non-news) by a Cleveland market TV station.

And here are a couple of screen shots from today's Indians/Twins game via WKYC/3, broadcast on WKYC-DT in HDTV. Click on the pictures to enlarge them...



The game is being televised under the SportsTime Ohio banner. It's a bit of semantics, of course, because WKYC is the production partner for both broadcast and STO cable/satellite games.

The first picture doesn't have the full score bar up at the top because it was the very first pitch, and the score bar was in the process of being put up...

Opening Day Stuff

It looks like the weather will allow the Indians to get in their home opener with the Minnesota Twins late this afternoon at Jacobs Field.

As noted, the event prompted something you don't hear a lot of anymore - lots of live and local radio, even blowing out popular syndicated programs. The usual radio battle between WTAM/1100 afternoon motormouth Mike Trivisonno and WKNR/850's Kenny Roda is happening a few hours early, with first pitch set for just after 3 PM today. Both men are doing live broadcasts...Triv from Gateway Plaza at Jacobs Field, and Roda at Pickwick and Frolic on 4th Street downtown.

WKYC/3 is doing a live, 90 minute pre-game show called "Cleveland Celebrates", before airing the game itself...the first over-air Indians telecast in this market since 2001, when the team left the broadcast airwaves for a cable-only deal. The pre-game is not in high-definition, but the game itself will be.

The pre-game special is also being fed live over the Internet at WKYC's website.

However, the webcast does not work for us on Firefox 1.5 for Windows. (It does on Internet Explorer 6.0.) If you're a Firefox user or anyone else having problems, here's the link to launch the WKYC webcast in a regular Windows Media Player window:

Cleveland Celebrates

You're welcome, Channel 3...

Drennan In More Trouble

Former WKNR/850 sports talker Bruce Drennan, forced off the air due to a gambling probe, is in more trouble with the government.

The Plain Dealer reports today that the Internal Revenue Service has charged the former WKNR mid-morning host with cheating on his taxes. The move comes after that agency, along with the FBI, raided his home in Strongsville in September 2004 as part of their investigation into an alleged gambling ring. The PD notes that the IRS charges do not specify illegal gambling, though they point out that such income would have to be reported on tax returns.

After the investigation became public, Drennan left WKNR's 9-noon show only to return a while later. He left the station for good in October 2004...after a lengthy Plain Dealer article detailing parts of that federal investigation, management at the Salem Cleveland sports talker placed him on leave. That turned out to be a permanent departure for Drennan, as WKNR sports director Greg Brinda took over mid-mornings after that.

Drennan later resurfaced in sports media, joining former WKNR Internet partner SportsTalkCleveland.com as host and program director. The site, now calling itself SportsTalkNetwork.com, still lists Drennan on its schedule today from 10 AM-2 PM, though a quick check with the site's streaming audio at just past 1 PM has us hearing a repeat of the STN morning show...

Thursday Afternoon Mix

...and no, we don't mean "Mix 106.5" in Cleveland. At least in this update:

ITEM 1: NBC owned-and-operated Columbus station WCMH/4 has found a buyer. The Media General group, which up to now has mostly focused on the southeast U.S., is buying WCMH and three other NBC O&Os in smaller markets - Raleigh, Providence and Birmingham. The reported price - about $600 million.

While Media General owns a handful of stations in Kansas and Iowa, this is a big move north for them. Media General CEO Marshall Morton tells the Columbus Dispatch that the company's "pleased" to add a station in a key political battleground and state capital. (You can almost watch the TV executives drool when they talk about hotly contested elections.)

We've lived in a market with a Media General station, and the company tends to standardize its newscast style...at least in the smaller southeastern markets. We wouldn't be surprised if SOME changes are made at "NBC 4", but tend to think they'll not do a drastic overhaul in a market the size of Columbus. It's just a guess on our part.

ITEM 2: While we're in the state capital, AllAccess reports the resignation today of Dispatch hot AC WBNS/97.1 PD Jeff Ballentine, and the impending announcement of his replacement. Ballentine exits the building on April 28th.

(UPDATE: AllAccess reports that it's Jay Taylor, regional operations director of the Triad Broadcasting cluster in Biloxi/Gulfport MS, coming aboard as the new WBNS-FM PD.)

ITEM 3: A correction to our earlier report on new Q104/Cleveland night guy Tim Richards. He's indeed in the chair 7 PM to midnight, but we erred with Leeza Gibbons' placement on the station. The 7-10 PM slot used to be occupied by current middayer John Connor, and Leeza aired 10 PM-1 AM. With Richards going to midnight now, it appears Ms. Gibbons is off Q104.

ITEM 4: We hear that some viewers out of the assigned ZIP codes for SportsTime Ohio actually got to see yesterday's win over the Chicago White Sox. We understand that DirecTV is calling that an error, sort of a "free preview", and that the non-Cleveland/Akron/Canton and non-Columbus customers WILL be blacked out for Saturday's STO contest between the Indians and the Twins.

We also hear from the head cow at Moohead Radio that DirecTV was none-too-pleased with the publication of a certain presidential assistant's E-Mail address, which we posted here as well. They asked Moohead to remove the address, which the Internet radio host says he won't. They haven't asked us yet. Frankly, we'll wait for 'em...at least they'll contact us!

DirecTV has only SportsTime Ohio to blame on this, and not us...as STO was actively giving that address out to viewers the other morning, saying "use this!" to contact DirecTV about the whole ZIP code/outer market issue...

Two Music Format Updates

UPDATE 1: We've confirmed with our own ears tonight - by that esoteric method of turning on an FM radio and listening to 104.1 - that it's indeed former WZKL/92.5 "Q92" morning co-host Tim Richards holding down a newly-opened local evening slot at CBS Cleveland hot AC WQAL "Q104". He's been on past 11 PM, which would either push Leeza Gibbons to midnight, or off the air...

UPDATE 2: OK, Dan...you get your mention. AllAccess reports that former Clear Channel Sandusky promotions director Dan Baisden - who's also been with the BAS Broadcasting stations in Mount Vernon - gets his first PD gig. If you want to find Dan, his new home is at CHR WQHY/95.5 "Q95" in Prestonsburg KY.

Now, we're sure that folks in Kentucky can't really find Mount Vernon on an Ohio map, so perhaps they'll forgive us for having to look up that Prestonsburg is in far Eastern Kentucky, not really near any major city. (Google Maps tells us it's about a three hour drive east of Lexington KY, and about a two hour drive south of Huntington WV.) But "Q95" appears to have a booming class C signal at 100,000 watts, so the station at least appears to get out over much of Eastern Kentucky.

We mention it because Dan is a regular OMW reader, and we wish him luck!

OPINION: The Little Big One

It's no secret to those who know a little about radio that Clear Channel Cleveland talker WTAM/1100's nickname - "The Big One" - was imported from Cincinnati's WLW/700. The original "Big One" was so named by the one and only Randy Michaels, who rose to prominence with Jacor in Cincinnati...and when Jacor picked up WTAM, the company copied the WLW nickname up here.

It also copied other parts of the WLW formula for success.

WTAM eventually snagged "all the balls" as the radio flagship of all three major Cleveland professional sports teams. It created a clone of WLW's morning news and information block, and even swiped then-WLW host Bill Wills to host it here in Northeast Ohio. It created a "larger than life" afternoon drive show based mainly on comedic riffs on sports and news, though there's not many in radio who would compare WTAM afternoon motormouth Mike Trivisonno with WLW's Gary Burbank and not break out laughing.

But there were certain things WTAM did not copy. Unlike WLW, which never had to pick up Rush Limbaugh due to its high ratings, WTAM had few local talk programs. For 10 years, it devoted a solid six-hour block in the middle of the broadcast day to syndicated programming.

That, of course, changed a little recently...with the addition of local mid-morning host Bob Frantz.

We bring this up because it's important to note: the "man in charge" at the top of Clear Channel Cincinnati for some 11 years, Mike Kenney, left there late last year to take the same role at Cleveland's Clear Channel cluster.

And while a Cincinnati Business Courier article from December notes Kenney's role in making the Cincinnati cluster wildly successful financially, how he DID that could be more important to our discussion.

Local programming.

A MediaWeek profile of the Cincinnati market, just out recently, tells the tale. WLW is by far the biggest billing station for not only Clear Channel Cincinnati, but for the market as a whole. Number two, with roughly half of WLW's billing? A sister FM, popular rocker WEBN. WLW is so successful for the cluster that it bills a respectable number compared even to Clear Channel's CBS TV outlet in the Queen City, WKRC/12! (We'd link to it here, but it apparently has disappeared behind the magazine's subscriber wall.)

WLW, as noted here before, programs locally nearly 24/7. Its overnight show, "America's Trucking Network", originates from the station. It runs Premiere's "Weekend with Mike McConnell", but the host, of course, is its own mid-morning star (9-noon weekdays). And it is a ratings and revenue monster in the market. It's nearly embarrassing to the other stations in Cincinnati.

Keep all this in mind when you look at the recent move to "go local" in WTAM's mid-morning slot. Keep it in mind when you hear WMMS/100.7 afternoon driver Maxwell doing local talk on weekend nights...and wonder, perhaps, if WTAM will open up a weekday late night local show after the Indians/Cavs/Sportsline slot at some point...maybe 10 PM-1 AM or 11 PM-1 AM.

(With our previous record of accuracy, we must point out that we're speculating here, and that the last musing is not based on anything we're hearing out of Oak Tree or beyond. It's just an Educated Guess.)

Just a thought...

Warren Will Be STO-ing It On DirecTV

As OMW earlier suspected, the absence of the 444xx ZIP codes on SportsTime Ohio's "You Can Watch Us On DirecTV Here" list was apparently a typographical goof.

The updated list, now on STO's website, includes ZIP codes 44400-44499. Among other places, this includes not only Warren and Niles, but also Newton Falls and other parts of Trumbull County. It didn't make any sense to us that Warren was not on the original list, and Youngstown was able to see STO via DirecTV.

But, as far as we can tell, the 449xx ZIP codes for the Mansfield area are still out of the loop. And from what we're hearing, STO via DirecTV is still "hit and miss" at times even if you're IN the ZIP codes prescribed in the deal...

News Not Involving A Round Ball

In some other items:

* We neglected to mention it this week, but it appears Canton market CHR WZKL/92.5 Alliance ("Q92") has officially installed "Igor" into the night slammer chair. (And boy, that has to hurt, being slammed into a chair.)

The station part-timer, who's also been heard on then-WXTM/92.3 up in Cleveland, also takes imaging director duties. And as far as we know, he's at least a semi-regular reader of Your Mighty Blog of Fun(tm), so that gives him the OMW Karma... which certainly works better for readers than it does for Your Primary Editorial Voice...

Igor also returns as imaging voice for non-comm alternative WSTB/88.9 Streetsboro, in its weekday incarnation as "The Alter-Nation".

* Speaking of Q92, we're hearing rumblings that former station morning co-host Tim Richards has picked up evenings at CBS Radio hot AC WQAL/104.1 ("Q104") in Cleveland. The move, assuming our information is correct, pushes the syndicated show by Leeza Gibbons out the evening slot.

No offense to Leeza, but it couldn't happen to a...oh, you know. Q104's schedule doesn't list Richards yet, but does have Leeza in a later time slot...10 PM to 1 AM. Richards and former Q92 co-host Kathy Vogel - reportedly doing weekends at Q104 - are not yet on the station's website.

We heard Leeza's show for the first time late last week in early evenings. And frankly, we really didn't want to know that much about C-sections...

Talkin' Tribe - Again

We're really trying not to turn this into Indians Media Watch, but it's a big couple of weeks for the local baseball team media-wise, so...let's look at Opening Day on Friday:

* We mentioned this a few weeks ago, but it will indeed be WTAM/1100 morning co-host Casey Coleman throwing out the first pitch at Friday's Indians' home opener against the Minnesota Twins. Casey, who appeared better than he has in weeks at a recent event honoring him, told WJW FOX 8 at the time that he was hoping to be back on the air at "The Big One" roughly around the 4th of July. No matter how he feels Friday, we have no doubt he can toss out the first pitch better than, say, we could...

* Opening Day is also a big day for radio remotes. Team flagship WTAM will broadcast live from Gateway Plaza from 9 AM until the Indians pre-game at 2:37 PM with the station's normal afternoon motormouth Mike Trivisonno and Indians beat reporter Mark Schwab.

Sportstalker WKNR/850 will hold live broadcasts at Pickwick and Frolic - not only with station personalities Greg Brinda and Kenny Roda, but ESPN morning team "Mike and Mike" will be in town as well on Friday. (The radio remote takes the ESPN morning duo off of ESPN2, as they're apparently not sending live cameras for the remote.) The Plain Dealer's Roger Brown reports that co-host Mike Greenburg will host a book signing Thursday night at a Lyndhurst book store.

You know Opening Day is big - when both WTAM and WKNR blow out signature national personalities Rush Limbaugh and Jim Rome for the day - though we suspect 'KNR will run a delayed Rome at 3 PM on Friday, in the "no one who follows sports is listening to us anyway" category. Limbaugh fans can find his show on roughly 300 other Northeast Ohio stations, including WHLO/640 Akron and WFUN/970 Ashtabula, not to mention 50,000 watt Detroit powerhouse WJR/760, almost a local signal in much of greater Cleveland...

TV-wise, Indians' over-air station WKYC/3 will also broadcast its 1-3 PM pre-game show live from Jacobs Field. Well, we'd hope they would, since they're already there to broadcast the game...

* And one more note regarding SportsTime Ohio and that quirky "only greater Cleveland" deal with DirecTV - STO's Jim Liberatore tells Brown that he's "hopeful" the satellite service will open up the Indians' TV network to subscribers outside the immediate Cleveland/Akron/Canton and Columbus areas.

Uh, OK...we were hoping for more details, but will have to settle for that until Liberatore returns our own messages. Memo to the Indians: A LOT of people read this thing, believe it or not, including a bunch of people following the whole SportsTime Ohio saga...

Booms Lands On FSR

As rumored earlier here on OMW, Euclid's Chuck Booms has officially landed with a regular shift at his old home - the Fox Sports Radio network.

FSR's brand new schedule, released just Monday, lists him as the host of "Fox NFL GameTime Rewind" on Sunday nights from 11 PM to 2 AM. It's hardly a prime-time gig...but it gets him regular on-air exposure SOMEWHERE, at any rate.

Booms is best known in radio for his stint as FSR afternoon drive co-host with partner Kevin Kiley ("Kiley and Booms"). As reported here earlier, the pair recently did some fill-in at Philadelphia's legendary sports talker, WIP/610. And Booms' most recent local appearance was as one of the "auditioning" hosts on WTAM/1100's mid-morning show.

His new gig on FSR may be heard in parts of the area on the network's Elyria affiliate WEOL/930, though WEOL's nighttime pattern mainly serves Lorain and Medina counties. We're also not sure if WEOL is running FSR on Sunday nights. FSR affiliate WJMP/1520 Kent is not even close to being on the air during his program, being a daytimer...

That STO/DirecTV Twist

Despite having a deal with DirecTV, only about 275 to 300 thousand of the service's subscribers in the Cleveland Indians viewing area will actually be able to see the Tribe on SportsTime Ohio...according to an article by Paul Hoynes in today's Plain Dealer. The article quotes STO chief Jim Liberatore as saying the deal brings STO into 2.6 million cable and satellite homes in the market.

We've unraveled more of the quirky deal that STO reached yesterday with DirecTV, and we still don't get the "why" of it, aside from it apparently being based on finances. But here's what we do know:

* The deal only covers two of four "zones" for DirecTV's viewing area that matches up with the Indians' TV "footprint". Those are zones 1 and 2. If your ZIP code is off of the list we published below, you won't be able to see the Tribe take on the Chicago White Sox this afternoon on DirecTV channel 657. Zones 1 and 2 apparently include the bulk of the Cleveland/Akron/Canton area, and the bulk of the Columbus area. Zones 3 and 4? Everything else.

* In addition to giving folks a number to call if they're affected, SportsTime Ohio is giving out an E-Mail address for a DirecTV staff member - eryan (at DirecTV - the usual dot-com address - we're trying to protect poor Mr. or Ms. Ryan from spambots). The numbers are 800-494-4388 for residential subscribers, or 888-200-4388 for commercial subscribers. Tribe fans outside the two "inner" zones are urged to call or E-Mail...because they will not get the games at ALL, even in the "Extra Innings" pack for those living outside the home team's market area.

It appears to us that STO's Liberatore was faced with a choice - stay firm about making the games available to the entire team viewing region, and be forced to go without ANY DirecTV subscribers picking up the games before the first regular season game...or accept this deal so DirecTV subscribers in the bulk of the team's viewing area can see the games. They're getting some heat from DirecTV viewers outside Cleveland/Akron/Canton/Columbus, but imagine the heat they'd get if NO DirecTV viewers were aboard!

We still think at SOME point, perhaps even this season, the other "zones" will be brought into the fold. It's easier to work from an existing relationship, than from the outside.

And a plug for someone who gave us some help understanding this. He's "Moohead", host of the Internet radio show/podcast Moohead Radio. As near as we can tell, the man known as Marc Steenbarger when he's not four-legging it is a former radio station owner in markets in Michigan and New York State...and a long-time Cleveland sports fan.

On his Monday show, he said he felt almost like he was a part of the negotiations, taking E-Mail and calls from both STO and DirecTV while the talks were going on. (Trust us, Moo, we've been there more than once on other topics.)

Anyway, Moo/Marc seemed to be "plugged in", and he's given us some insight we may not have already had. His one-hour afternoon Internet radio show (live 5-6 PM Eastern and podcast) is worth checking out...and at least he doesn't eat while the microphone is open...

SportsTime Ohio and DirecTV - It's Official... With A Slight Hitch

As expected, SportsTime Ohio has announced the final major piece to its TV puzzle, with the addition of DirecTV to its affiliate roster. STO will show up, also as expected and as hinted here since last Friday, on DirecTV channel 657. The release says DirecTV will be on board for tomorrow's STO regular season opener with the Chicago White Sox.

But for some DirecTV viewers outside the immediate area (and outside the Columbus region), there's a hitch. The release linked above says the channel will be available in "greater Cleveland and (the) surrounding area", and makes references to just which DirecTV ZIP codes that will get SportsTime Ohio.

We have copied that ZIP code list from SportsTime Ohio's pull-down menu, and have reproduced it below. It would appear to include the Cleveland/Akron/Canton area, as well as ZIP codes in and near Columbus. But for whatever reason, it does not appear to include the 444xx ZIP codes, which cover the Warren area, and the 449xx ZIP codes for the Mansfield area.

We see no reason why Warren would be out of the loop if Youngstown is slated to get STO (445xx). For one, Warren is closer to Cleveland than Youngstown, and is in the same TV market. And why would folks in the Columbus area have no problem getting STO on DirecTV, but people in Warren can't?

And though the Mansfield area ZIP codes are also missing from the list, folks in nearby Ashland (448xx) are on the list. It doesn't make any sense to us what either DirecTV or STO gain (presumably financially) by flipping out Warren and Mansfield, but keeping Columbus and Youngstown.

For whatever reason, it appears some folks outside of greater Cleveland who have DirecTV and would expect to get SportsTime Ohio, will not be getting it. WTAM's report on the deal says it covers the "inner" part of the Cleveland TV market. (Our ears are thankful that our now-infamous Indians fan relative is in the immediate area, and is well within the STO-supplied ZIP code list.)

With 17 major cable systems and both satellite providers along for the ride with STO...the network now has to play "cleanup", working to sign the smaller local providers that are not hooked up with the big companies. The network also has to figure out the problem outlined above. The release provides a number for fans outside "the greater Cleveland and surrounding area" to call DirecTV, so perhaps they're hoping for a nudge from folks in the areas listed above.

Now, here's that list...

--------------

The following Zip Code areas can watch on channel 657: 43000-43099, 43100-43199, 43200-43299, 43300-43399, 43407-43408, 43410-43410, 43412-43412, 43416-43416, 43420-43420, 43430-43433, 43435-43456, 43438-43440, 43442-43442, 43445-43446, 43449-43449, 43452-43452, 43456-43456, 43458-43458, 43464-43464, 43468-43469, 43701-43702, 43711-43711, 43717-43717, 43720-43725, 43727-43727, 43730-43736, 43738-43740, 43746-43746, 43748-43750, 43755-43755, 43760-43762, 43764-43764, 43766-43768, 43771-43773, 43777-43780, 43782-43783, 43788-43788, 43791-43791, 43800-43899, 44000-44099, 44100-44199, 44200-44299, 44300-44399, 44500-44599, 44600-44699, 44700-44799, 44800-44899

Talkin' (More) Tribe

ANOTHER STO ITEM OR FOUR: Yes, there's still more on SportsTime Ohio's regular season debut on Tuesday night, and the behind the scenes negotiations to get it carriage.

It took THREE Plain Dealer writers - not counting sports media columnist Roger Brown - to produce a Q&A about STO's first season in this morning's paper. TV writer Mark Dawidziak, tech writer Henry Gomez and sportswriter Bob Roberts contribute to this screed. A couple of points:

* As of this writing, at about 1 PM on Monday, there's no agreement with DirecTV. The Q&A asks why DirecTV hasn't signed up with STO yet - and says the answer is simple: "Money." It then regurgitates an old quote from DirecTV's Dan Fawcett, which should look familiar to anyone who follows Brown's sports media columns...where the Q&A says "he has said" that the service is worried SportsTime Ohio won't have enough content to justify its cost. The quote is a few days old, so DirecTV apparently wasn't talking to the media about STO this weekend.

This also ignores an item by Brown over the weekend, where STO's Jim Liberatore said a deal was "likely" by today, and that the network and DirecTV had "gotten past" the money issues. (Or maybe the PD staffers take Brown's reporting with the same grain of salt that we do...)

Perhaps DirecTV is looking for Liberatore to seed more programming this season - the network may indeed, as reported, program weekdays 6 PM-midnight and full-time weekends as soon as July.

* The article ventures a guess at how costly STO would be for cable operators, and thus, to subscribers. It quotes Time Warner as definitely ruling out a rate increase tied directly to the new network. Cox says "eventually" customers could pay about a buck more a month. (Our general experience: cable rates go up. Period. No matter if it's the programming costs, the weather, someone sneezed at the cable headend...)

And the PD trio enlists a sports media analyst, who surmises STO is charging anywhere from $1.65 to $1.85 per subscriber a month.

If you're a regular reader here, you know the actual numbers are already out there...as we reported last Tuesday. A simple Google News search yielded an article by Multichannel News, which reported rates as low as 94 cents a subscriber out in the "hinterlands" far from Jacobs Field, to $1.83 a subscriber for Cleveland area systems. If we can find this stuff nearly a week ago, why can't the Plain Dealer find it for an article running today, with three writers contributing?

The numbers could be frightening for small cable systems like Oberlin's Cable Co-Op, which tells the PD they're even balking at the $6,000 needed to buy the proper equipment for STO, let alone the per-subscriber cost. STO has managed to sign up all the cable "biggies", covering the vast majority of local cable subscribers...but at last count, about 20-plus of those small, scattered systems are not aboard. Our guess - STO will eventually cut them something of a break to get them on the roster.

* Dawidziak has a flattering profile of STO's Jim Liberatore. We'll save you the reading time - "Experienced cable network vet and Bay Village native returns home".

* The PD has a graphic with the current STO channel list, and a location guide to where the network will put its cameras at Jacobs Field. It incorrectly notes that "all the games" will be aired in HDTV and 5.1 surround sound...when in fact, only the 63 STO home games, and the 20 WKYC games, will be in HD.

* Among other things, Brown's Monday column notes the eight open dates on the STO schedule. STO's Liberatore says despite those mostly afternoon games not being on the schedule, they'll be flexible, and that "there's not going to be a significant Indians game that fans won't see, one way or the other." Maybe that's a direct response to FSN Ohio declining to show a crucial late season Sunday afternoon game last year... even though it wasn't even directly in conflict with the Browns game that same day...due to money concerns.

RANTS?: In a semi-related item, we totally forgot about the heavily promoted FSN Ohio/WKNR post-game alternative, "Cleveland Rants".

But with a multi-hour rain delay, and an Opening Day game that lasted until around 2 AM locally, we're wondering if Les Levine and Neil Bender even DID the first show late last night. Even Tribe radio voice Tom Hamilton, on the team's network, sped through the post-game show...which was easier to do because there were no other games on the "out of town scoreboard", a segment which lasted roughly 20 seconds.

If Levine and Bender were doing the show in the middle of the night last night, they sure had plenty to "rant" about...

Local Papers Visit SportsTime Ohio At Season Opening

Most of this is old hat if you're a regular reader of OMW, but Northeast Ohio's two largest newspapers have weighed in on the progress of new Cleveland Indians' television network SportsTime Ohio on Opening Day.

The Plain Dealer's Roger Brown does it twice, in both a separate basic "recap" article, and in his regular Sunday column. That column contains one news nugget - STO's Jim Liberatore tells Brown that DirecTV will likely sign up with the network "by Monday". That is what we predicted here in an item just below this...considering the fact that DirecTV is already making a place for the network on one of its regional sports network channels (657), something that hasn't been noted in either newspaper.

Over in the Beacon Journal, TV columnist R.D. Heldenfels has a meatier item, quoting Liberatore as saying that STO was "past the rate issues" with both Dish Network and DirecTV, hammering out "a lot of little things". Yes, it appears Heldenfels filed the story on Thursday (when he says the quote was made), and did not update it to include the late Friday news of Dish Network's signing.

Liberatore has a quote that basically addresses another question of ours from earlier - when he says that carriage of HDTV telecasts of 63 Indians home games is "up to cable operators". Note, he didn't say "cable and satellite operators". And as such, based on an earlier item about a Time Warner Cable/STO newspaper ad, we don't expect HDTV for STO games on Dish Network and DirecTV.

Widespread local RSN (regional sports network) coverage in HD on satellite is probably a year or two away, anyway, as both services roll out HD "local-into-local" (LIL) channel packages. Cleveland's HD LIL package from DirecTV is probably coming very soon, perhaps as soon as later this month or by May 1st. But for now, those packages do NOT include HD versions of the regional sports networks.

Oh, and the Beacon's Sheldon Ocker gets in the game (so to speak). He fires back at an impatient Wooster man concerned - three weeks ago - that no new cable TV affiliation announcements were coming out of SportsTime Ohio. Telling the man that "patience is a virtue", he notes the changes in the past three weeks...which include, of course, the signup of Wooster's Clear Picture cable as an STO outlet...

Late Saturday Check-In

Three things:

Thing 1: We happened to catch a brief liner during WTAM/1100 programming this afternoon... something to the effect of - "Triv Quits! Details Monday at 8:15..." - or close to that, at any rate.

No, we're pretty sure afternoon motormouth Mike Trivisonno is not leaving his perch at WTAM. We're guessing he's quitting something other than the radio business. Perhaps he'll stop eating while broadcasting? Now, THAT would be an effort! Heh. Anyway, we're not hearing anything from the usual rumor mill sources, so we're doubting this is anything but an ear-grabbing promo liner...

Thing 2: We're pretty sure that CBS Radio morning man David Lee Roth's on-air struggles are not a "News Flash", but that's what happens when websites like Cleveland.com automatically put up wire stories...


Anyway, the latest version of this Associated Press story notes that Roth received "four letters in five days" from his CBS Radio employers, demanding "major changes" in the show. Some of those, we heard on Friday...with sidekicks pushed to the curb, and the show's signature long music beds going away...

Thing 3: If you're a fan of CBS' "The Amazing Race" like we are, you should probably welcome the show's move out of what's become a death time slot for it, Tuesday nights at 10 PM ET/PT. Starting this coming week, TAR9 will be seen Wednesdays at 8 PM ET/PT (WOIO/19 Cleveland, WKBN/27 Youngstown, and other Ohio affiliates), a much better time slot for a show that picks up a wide variety of demographics.

We're still not sure if it shouldn't have been moved back to its original slot (Tuesdays at 9), but "The Unit's" success after "NCIS" means that'd be impossible...

The April Fool's That Wasn't

The Massive OMW Editorial Staff had a meeting this afternoon...and decided not to play any "April Fool's Day" jokes here on your Mighty Blog of Fun(tm).

We're still new at this, and our background - mostly in straight-ahead radio news - led us to decide that pranking people wouldn't be a good idea, even on a day where most people expect odd news stories that just don't sound right. For example, our colleague Dave Hughes over at DCRTV.com spun a tale of FOX's Rupert Murdoch buying ABC's WMAL/630 Washington, and turning it into an all-FOX News Radio talker.

But we didn't want to deprive our readership of some of the ideas we had for potential jokes. So, here they are:

* SportsTime Ohio announcing that 63 Indians home games would not only be in HDTV, but would also be in 3-D. Special 3-D glasses would be available at Giant Eagle, Dairy Mart and all Time Warner Cable offices.

* Fox Sports Net Ohio and WKNR/850 announcing that they need even MORE attention for their alternative simulcast TV/radio postgame show "Cleveland Rants", so they're changing the name of the show with Les Levine and Neil Bender to "You Really Know Cleveland Sucks And They'll Never Win Anything".

* WTAM/1100 announcing that it would change format on Monday, implementing the "All Triv All The Time" format. Afternoon motormouth Mike Trivisonno would run continuously, interrupted only by sporting events, both live and taped, interspersed with Triv's favorite music - a segment which actually happened on Friday. The idea would have been scrapped when WTAM realized that Triv doesn't even do all 4 hours of his 3-7 PM show, give or take Paul Harvey's Rest of the Story and taped segments and interviews at the end of the show.

* CBS Radio's WQAL/104.1, Clear Channel's WMVX/106.5 and Clear Channel Akron/Canton's WKDD/98.1 announcing that they'd merge into one station, known off-air as "Super Hot AC", and on-air as "The Best of the 80's, 90's, and Today's Hottest Music On Three Stations". WKDD program director/afternoon driver/CC Akron-Canton operations director Keith Kennedy would program it, and do both mornings and afternoons, along with doing traffic, voicing commercials and cleaning the toilets in all three buildings between his air shifts.

All of the above are jokes, of course, and would never happen. But then again, WTAM would never run a polka show on Saturday mornings, would they?

Weekend Update

STO-ING IT: OMW is getting confirmation from numerous readers that DirecTV channel 657 is showing future SportsTime Ohio programming. (Unfortunately, our in-family confirmation will have to wait until our Indians fan-relative gets home from the hardware store.)

So far, there's no word of that official deal, but STO boss Jim Liberatore tells the Cleveland Plain Dealer's Paul Hoynes that he's "optimistic" about reaching a deal with the nation's largest satellite provider before the first regular season STO-televised game on Tuesday. DirecTV must be "optimistic" too, since they're seeding the program guide with STO games...much like Dish Network uplinked STO in the background before an agreement was reached.

Liberatore notes that the negotiations with Dish "hit a big snag" on Friday, and he was concerned that they'd fallen through...before a deal was actually nailed down later that day.

POLKA?: We weren't near a radio to hear it at 6 AM-ish, but OMW hears that Clear Channel talk powerhouse WTAM/1100 Cleveland pre-empted an hour of Bob Becker's Saturday morning time slot with...and no, we're not making this up...polka. In specific, an hour titled "Polka Motions".

As we look at the calendar and note that it's April Fool's Day, we're wondering if this was a prank by the folks at the Clear Channel World Domination HQ on Oak Tree. Thankfully, it didn't last until this late, as WTAM's Andre Knott is hosting "Weekend Sportsline" as we write this, leading into a Cavs/Indians doubleheader this afternoon...

Q-ING: An OMW tipster tells us he's heard two former staffers of Canton market CHR WZKL/92.5 ("Q92") on Cleveland's WQAL/104.1. We're hearing that former Q92 morning team members Tim Richards and Kathy Vogel are doing separate weekend shifts on the CBS Radio hot AC station. Kathy and Tim were let go from Q92 last year, and replaced with former night slammer Pat DeLuca. (For whatever reason, CHR night jocks are "slammers". Don't ask us why...)

RUMORAMA: And DirecTV With SportsTime Ohio, Too?

This one's only at the unconfirmed rumor stage right now, but read along with this thread on an Indians fan board - where folks are reporting SportsTime Ohio listings on DirecTV channel 657:

STO AVAILABLE ON DIRECTV 4/4 (message thread on www.scout.com)

At least one of the users on that board says he was told by a customer service representative that DirecTV would carry the Indians' new network by the April 4th opening regular season broadcast, though others got the usual conflicting stories from other CSRs.

If you have DirecTV, please respond in our comments if you see any sign of SportsTime Ohio in the program guide on channel 657, or any other channels. We're told you should see the phrase "STO Programming Block", and if you go far enough ahead, you should eventually run into Indians games in the program guide.

We don't want to wake up anyone in our family to find out ourselves, like a certain DirecTV subscriber/Indians fan...though we're sure he'd like the good news.

Oh, and despite the day, this is NOT an "April Fool's Day" joke, unless we're getting fooled ourselves!