Big Monday Roundup

We've been compiling this one on and off over the weekend, and it's grown seemingly by the hour.

So, let's unleash the Big Monday Roundup, with 60's and 70's oldies music in the background, in honor of WZOO/102.5's flip from top 40 to oldies over the weekend...

NO FSN OHIO HD?: Since the channel is not used all that often, we didn't know about this until the appearance of George M. Thomas' "Airing It Out" column in the Akron Beacon Journal on Thursday.

But it appears FOX Sports Net Ohio has slammed the door on its HDTV broadcasts on Time Warner Cable in Northeast Ohio - only. The SD/analog version of FSN Ohio remains unaffected, and is still on the air on TWC.

This would explain why we didn't see the Columbus Blue Jackets' opening FSN HD TV game the other night, on TWC's "HD Bonus" channel 798...that Adelphia leftover which was set up to air HD broadcasts from either FSN Ohio or SportsTime Ohio.

And it'll also explain the absence of the Cleveland Cavaliers in HD later this month, if the dispute drags on.

The move, according to Mr. Thomas' column, was made by FSN Ohio as a negotiating chip. Both versions of FSN Ohio - standard and HDTV - have been carried by Time Warner Cable, with FSN's blessing - since the contract between the two expired at the start of the year.

Quoting FSN Ohio chief Steve Liverani in Mr. Thomas' column:

"It appears that Time Warner is taking the customers that are sports fans for granted. The bottom line is if they don't want to offer sports to their customers, then they should be honest about it.''

As thousands of cable subscribers cry "not again!", TWC local spokesman Bill Jasso responds:

''Giving in to prices that sports networks are charging would be a long-term problem."

Mr. Jasso has a point.

Sports networks all over, from new ones like the Big Ten Network and the NFL Network, to established networks like FSN, know their programming is popular. They want to get as much money as possible.

Meanwhile, cable operators like Time Warner realize that despite the sports networks' popularity, the money those networks command is often outsized compared to actual viewership. FSN Ohio may be one of the "high profile" sports networks that many people do watch, but even they lost the Cleveland Indians a couple of years ago.

FSN Ohio does have, of course, the TV rights to the NBA Eastern Conference Champion Cleveland Cavaliers, and that may have emboldened them to ask for more money, as was rumored even before the start of the last basketball season.

The wrench in the works is something we noted before: the FSN/TWC negotiations aren't between Steve Liverani and TWC NEO's Steven Frye. The dispute is being negotiated at the corporate level between TWC and FOX Sports Net, nationally.

Add in the fact we mentioned also - FSN owns half of the Big Ten Network, and is rumored to be linking that network with the TWC national talks over the FSN regional networks...and it could get interesting...

RUBBER CITY NEWS MOVE: There's another personnel move at the Akron Radio Center.

Rubber City Radio country WQMX/94.9 will have a new news anchor starting today, as part-timer Chris Keppler moves into a full-time gig as WQMX's morning news anchor.

The name may be familiar to regular OMW readers. Before joining Rubber City, Keppler had experience as news director of Dover/New Philadelphia's WJER, then at both AM 1450 and 101.7 FM, now solely at 1450.

(And if we have to explain THAT change to any long-time readers, you're just not paying attention! Feel free to put "WJER" into our search box above if you weren't around in late 2006...)

Meanwhile, Marcy Pappafava stays with the company. She'll fill in this week for the vacationing Larry States on WAKR/1590's "Ray Horner Show", then will transition to become the regular midday anchor on WAKR (and on WQMX/WONE if needed for breaking news and the like).

Marcy has been, behind the scenes, assignment editor for the Rubber City Radio newsroom, and will continue that role after moving to WAKR middays.

We'll assume this means that the combo move basically fills the opening left by the departure of long-time WAKR news anchor/reporter Pat Kennard a couple of months ago.

And following the long-held tradition of radio news types finding a second career in state government jobs, Ms. Kennard is now a spokesperson for the Ohio Department of Transportation's Division 4, the agency's Akron-based district...

WMRN/MARION'S COLUMBUS MOVE OK'ED: We are a day or two late on this, but yes, the FCC has officially OK'ed the move of Clear Channel's WMRN/106.9 from Marion to the Columbus suburb of - wait, let us get out a map - Dublin.

A helpful OMW reader dug up the official approval, which we're linking here.

And it's all rather simple.

"Informal" (FCC wording) objections filed by opposition group The Committee for Competitive Columbus Radio and Sandyworld, Inc. were rendered moot by one other move: the approval of WHIZ-FM/102.5's COL move from Zanesville to the Columbus market outburb/wide spot on the road of Baltimore, Ohio.

That move nudged the Columbus market up from 44 signals to 45, which allowed the FCC to clear the way for Clear Channel's fifth Columbus market FM signal per existing ownership rules.

The Sandyworld folks are the licensees of the WOSU-FM translator currently operating at 106.7 FM (legally W294AH). WMRN's move from a Marion station to one fully within the Columbus market also means a facilities change - from 106.9 in Marion to 106.7 in Dublin.

That automatically means the unprotected translator has to go off the air, per FCC rules...though it'd probably have to go anyway even if the current WMRN weren't moving down one channel.

Though a lot of the technical and studio work has already been done by Clear Channel for the incoming station, it may be at least a few months before the move is made by the current WMRN.

One reason?

The move is linked to other moves of stations licensed to Hillsboro and Chillicothe, which have to be done before the current Marion-based station moves south...

WILLIE'S DEBUT: Clear Channel talk WLW/700 Cincinnati early afternoon host Bill Cunningham made his regular national radio debut on Sunday night, hosting a show called, well, "Live On Sunday Night, It's Bill Cunningham". (We're about ready to lay odds on how long that long official title lasts, except as an outcue to spot breaks.)

The show, like his WLW weekday program, originates from Clear Channel's big cluster studios in the Kenwood area of Cincinnati.

"Willie's" opening two hours were not heard on former Matt Drudge affiliate WTAM/1100 in Cleveland, due to a lengthy postgame show for the Cleveland Indians' game 3 loss to the New York Yankees. WTAM joined in for his last hour at midnight.

The show was heard on talk WHLO/640 Akron, and we presume on other Clear Channel talkers like WKBN/570 Youngstown. We caught it on WLW itself, via its simulcast on XM Satellite Radio channel 173.

Cunningham is a long-time friend of ABC Radio syndicated host Sean Hannity, who appeared in the show's first hour. And according to Cincinnati Enquirer TV/radio guru John Kiesewetter in an item posted on his blog on Sunday, Hannity stepped in to try to ensure that "Willie" got to keep as many affiliates from Drudge's roster as possible.

Hannity works for ABC Radio Networks, and is based at flagship WABC/770 in New York City. Both are now owned by the folks at Citadel.

But Hannity's affiliate grouping and Drudge's 325-station list probably have a lot of overlap. And it's pretty safe to say that Hannity has a lot of pull with Phil Boyce, program director of the largest affiliate in both lists, New York's WABC.

In reality, Hannity probably didn't have to lift a finger or make a single phone call, or send a single E-Mail, to stem possible defections from the Drudge affiliate list.

Sunday night at 10 PM ET is like the similar time slot on Saturday, where many stations have satellite receivers permanently tuned to the Premiere radio channel that delivers "Coast to Coast AM". Premiere could air an hour of polka music on weekend nights, and it would probably take program directors about three weeks to figure out that it wasn't Art Bell or George Noory on the air.

We intend no offense towards Ian Punnett, the host who launched "Coast to Coast Live" in the 10 PM-1 AM Saturday slot displacing "Coast to Coast AM" early reruns.

But like that situation, Mr. Cunningham probably retains nearly all of Matt Drudge's 325 affiliates through inertia...without help from his ABC Radio-syndicated friend.

For "Willie", it's a good place to be...

BROWNS HAVE A TOLEDO RADIO OUTLET: We don't know how we missed this, but an OMW tipster up in Northwest Ohio tells us the Cleveland Browns Radio Network did indeed land a Toledo station after all.

It's Cornerstone Church-owned Christian contemporary AM outlet WDMN/1520 Rossford, known on the air as "Dominion 1520".

We're told that WDMN has been airing the Browns Radio Network broadcasts since the last pre-season game.

And yes, that's the same Cornerstone Church which also owns the Browns pre-season TV network outlet in the Glass City, MyNetworkTV affiliate WMNT-CA 48 (aka "My 58", for its cable position on Toledo's Buckeye Cablevision).

You could hardly find two weaker stations.

Even when Cumulus talk WTOD/1560 expressed interest in the Browns rights, and was plotting alternatives for games that went beyond the station's daytime-only broadcast hours, the station at least had a little power behind it.

WDMN/1520 is not a daytimer, but it throws out a puny 500 watt directional daytime signal, and 400 watts nighttime, from a site south of Toledo in Ottawa County. The station moved there from a two-site operation - actually a two-state two-site operation! - a ways back, when it changed its COL from Toledo to Rossford.

And we've already talked here about the low-wattage signal of Cornerstone's TV outlet, WMNT-CA 48. (By the way, we believe that station's case is STILL in court, with the former owners once again trying to wrestle control back from the Cornerstone folks.)

Cornerstone also still owns former dance outlet WNKL/96.9 Wauseon, which it is now LMAing to the folks at California's "K-Love".

Our question: We reported earlier from outposts all over the state that the Browns Radio Network had been asking for a decent chunk of change for rights fees, and that at least one Ohio station had been forced to leave the network after a long run because of that.

Did Cornerstone ante up the same kind of money that other Toledo stations owned by two major broadcast companies refused to pay? Or did they get a "fire sale price" because the games would not air otherwise? We don't know...

TRIBE SONG: And with the Cleveland Indians in the American League playoffs, we may have a candidate for a "Tribe song" for the post-season now.

No, it's not the team's own "Tribe Time" jingle, which has translated into a very, very popular T-shirt slogan. We mean the "non-team produced song" that has become a Cleveland tradition for local teams making sports playoffs.

"Mambo for the Tribe" came from Salem Cleveland CCM outlet WFHM/95.5 "The Fish", and specifically, the station's Dale Officer and Nick Kubik. It's a rework of Lou Vega's hit "Mambo Number Five".

We're told it's played on at least two other Cleveland stations not owned by Salem, though we can't verify that.

You can sample it, or purchase it, here on Officer's "HitzTheSpot" production website.

The download is priced at $1.50, which we believe is 51 cents more than the 45 RPM record of "The 12 Days Of A Cleveland Browns' Christmas" back in the early 1980's ("...on a Rutigliano Super Bowl Teammmmm...").

Or it's much less, if you account for inflation...

BREAKING NEWS: Ashtabula CHR "102ZOO" Flips To Oldies

UPDATE 10/6/07 10:55 AM: OMW hears from a listener in the Ashtabula area...who tells us 102.5 there is already playing oldies, but promoting the official launch of "Magic Oldies 102.5" on Monday.

The station is running a promo promising "the best music of the 60's and 70's" with current WFUN/WREO news voice Kathy Davis promoting her own new show on 102.5. We don't know when Ms. Davis' show will be heard on the new "Magic Oldies", aside from sometime in the morning.

We're pretty sure of the spelling of "Magic" by the way, as that's how it was presented to us in the trade database change - and after all, with Clear Channel no longer owning any of the Ashtabula stations, the new owners probably wouldn't use the CC-trademarked "Majic" with a J...

Stay tuned over the weekend into Monday. We'll have any more updates, and we'll have a brand new item with other news that'll probably go up on Monday morning...

Our original item is below:

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

OMW hears that if it hasn't already happened this evening, Media One Group CHR WZOO/102.5 "102ZOO" in the Ashtabula market will change between now and Monday to oldies.

We hear that a report of a new format and moniker for the station are listed as of tonight in an industry database. "102ZOO" will become "Magic Oldies 102.5".

We also hear that newswoman Kathy Davis has already announced, on the air, her new role in the Media One cluster - as midday personality in the new 102.5 oldies format.

"102ZOO" was a Hot AC station, under that name and calls, until a recent format change to CHR.

And the OMW Mobile could well point into the far northeast corner of Ohio over the weekend, to provide some first-hand reporting on this story.

This was the change we hinted about in our last item about the takeover of the former Clear Channel Ashtabula cluster by Sweet Home Ashtabula (aka Media One Group), the group headed up by Cleveland's own Tom Embrescia and his brother, James, with Tom Embrescia's son Matt involved as well.

Well, at least we think so.

Someone associated with the Media One operations contacted us recently, wondering where we got our information, and telling us that our "sources are incorrect in much of what you had printed regarding the Jamestown, NY and Ashtabula, Ohio radio clusters", and that they'd like to set us straight.

We're not sure what was inaccurate in the previous post(s), but we suspect it had to do with our on-the-fly reconstruction of the Media One family/corporate umbrella - which was based primarily on our examination of the public records attached to FCC filings, and previous media reports.

We also realize that there are at least two, if not three, "Media One" groups under the Embrescia umbrella. We spotted two of 'em - Media One Group, LLC and Media One Group, Inc. Effectively, for this report, we've shortened all of the sub-groups into "Media One".

We've made an offer, to get "set straight" on whatever we had wrong, and the offer still stands. Not only for Media One/Sweet Home Ashtabula/Mr. Embrescia (any of them), but for anyone.

We are as accurate as we can possibly be here, given the limitations of what this report is.

We mainly make our offers for clarification here on the blog, as many who aren't aware of OMW are taken aback by us, if we approach them first. Some of 'em are even downright hostile, though our contact with the Embrescia operations would not at all fall into that category. They've actually been very polite and understanding.

In the immediate Cleveland/Akron/Canton area, we have direct, daily contact with dozens of staffers at all levels of local clusters, and what we'd consider a very good relationship with nearly all of them.

We'd like to extend our offer of friendship and accuracy to other groups or staffers outside our immediate coverage area. We're not here to tear down. We'll make well-deserved criticism, if we feel it's needed, but we try to base it in accuracy.

Soapbox mode...off.

Thursday Update

Yep, we're still around.

We haven't had much to say since our last update, but we've cobbled together enough items - including some news, some revisits and some other stuff...

COLLINS NAMED OPERATIONS MANAGER: A local radio veteran has increased his role at his employer's cluster.

Rubber City Radio has named Chuck Collins as operations manager for the company's three Akron stations - standards WAKR/1590, country WQMX/94.9 and rock WONE/97.5.

Chuck has been program director of WAKR, leading its move off of a Westwood One/Dial Global satellite feed into a locally-programmed music format. He'll keep that job with his promotion to OM.

But Mr. Collins joined up with the Akron Radio Center first to help company news director Ed Esposito launch the now-extensive AkronNewsNow website. Chuck is now associate editor of the site.

The longest run in local radio for Chuck Collins was, by far, his tenure at hot AC WKDD/then-96.5 in Akron. He joined the station in 1988, and programmed it from 1992 to 2001.

And it's there where he first worked for Nick Anthony, the RCRG senior vice-president who hired him to take over the operations manager post.

Quoting Mr. Anthony, the long-time local radio executive we still remember from his days hosting a mid-morning show on talk WHLO/640 in the mid-1970's, in a Rubber City press release:

"We knew we had a major talent when we hired Chuck last year. He has proven to be passionate about our people and our radio stations. There are few people who understand the Akron market better."

In the same release, Rubber City president/GM Thom Mandel calls Collins "a teacher for our rising talent", and cites his "energy, creativity and innovation".

But we call Chuck one of local radio's "good guys", and congratulate him on the promotion...

92.3 NOW WKRK: We told you earlier that CBS Radio FM talker WKRK/97.1 "Free FM" in Detroit had dropped the format, in favor of a sports radio simulcast with WXYT/1270.

What we didn't tell you comes in a tip from RadioInsight's Lance Venta. WKRK is now in the Cleveland market.

That's right. The appropriate WKRK call letters have supplanted the WKRI calls, at CBS Radio's alt-rock/talk at 92.3/Cleveland Heights, the station still known as "92-3 K-Rock".

92.3 may hang onto these calls because of it, at least as long as alternative rock and the "K-Rock" name stay on the frequency.

After dropping the WXTM calls, the local station grabbed WXRK from the much more famous station on the same frequency in New York City.

92.3 in the Big Apple grabbed WFNY for its new "Free FM" talk format, then swiped back WXRK from Cleveland when returning to "K-Rock".

And the local outlet, we hear, now lets WKRI back into the wild.

Confused yet?

There are rumblings that CBS is eyeing two format changes in Pittsburgh - the rumored return of top 40 "B94" at once-talk WTZN/93.7, and a companion change at hot AC WZPT/100.7 "Star 100.7" to some flavor of classic rock or urban.

But RadioInsight's Mr. Venta tells us that he doesn't expect the WKRI calls to migrate to the Steel City, even if 100.7 there went to a rock format.

All this movement, for something that will only air once an hour near the top of the hour. Somewhere in the Midwest, a man named Brian is smiling...

OOPS, THE BIG TEN NETWORK AGAIN: With the Ohio State Buckeyes plunging into the meat of their conference football schedule, most folks thought the mess involving the lack of cable carriage for the Big Ten Network would be over.

Ah, but as the Akron Beacon Journal's George M. Thomas points out, there is at least one more Buckeyes football game on the Big Ten Network schedule - the October 13th contest with the Kent State University Golden Flashes.

The fans? They're yet again the losers in that epic battle between large athletics and big cable.

OSU/Purdue, this weekend, gets the full ABC treatment. And we've checked the OSU schedule, and it looks like most, if not all, of the team's remaining games will at least be on ESPN or ESPN2...

TBS REDUX: Mr. Thomas also writes about the addition of the HD feed of cable network TBS, just in time for playoff baseball, on Time Warner Cable.

But Thomas writes that the TBS HD feed will be on channel 600 - which we thought may be referring to the TWC Akron/Canton "legacy" system. TBS HD was added this week, as we reported, on the TWC/former Adelphia Cleveland system on channel 778.

Oops! We're both right.

For whatever reason, TWC has added TBS HD on BOTH channels on the Cleveland-based systems - 600 AND 778.

Does this show a possible channel realignment at some point, or is it just for convenience? And just what IS the mystery "TW609" channel on the company's Cleveland system?

Oh, and credit one to Time Warner, for having a local spokesman like area media veteran Bill Jasso. Quoting him from the George M. Thomas column, talking about the reasons for adding the TBS HD feed:

"Since they will be carrying the playoff games, we figured our customers would want to really see the Yankees sweat."

A home run of a quote, if we've ever seen one, at least if you're a Cleveland Indians fan.

OK, enough sports metaphors...

AND FINALLY IN TWC LAND: We haven't yet contacted Mr. Jasso about some of our questions above.

But we did ask him about "NEON". No, not the substance which lights up tubular signs, but the new name being attached to Time Warner Cable's local programming in Northeast Ohio.

It's, as the legend indicates, the "Time Warner Cable's Northeast Ohio Network"...in labeling and announcements for such things as high school sports broadcasts.

But don't expect much more cohesion than that. Jasso tells OMW that it's basically an umbrella name, to call the local programming SOMETHING.

It's sure shorter than "That Stuff We Throw Onto Cable Channel 23 Or 15"...

CBS Kills Off Two More Nearby FM Talkers

The FM Talk Watch isn't looking good at this hour, and the carnage is not far from Ohio's borders. In fact, the stations are close enough that both can claim at least some Ohio listeners.

This time, it's the death of two CBS Radio-owned FM talk stations, one which had been in the format long before the whole "Free FM" thing (think David Lee "Awful Radio Show" Roth).

That's Detroit's WKRK/97.1, which did eventually adopt the "Free FM" name, but continued with a mostly local lineup until recently - with the presence of CBS Radio's Opie and Anthony, moved from a brief clearance on the AM dial on sister sports WXYT/1270, displacing WKRK's previous morning show, Cleveland's own "Rover's Morning Glory".

WKRK was once "Live 97.1", and was a part of the company's older line of successful FM talk stations - with similarly named stations in Los Angeles and Dallas, and Washington DC's WJFK-FM, to name just three. All three were anchored by former morning man Howard Stern, now broadcasting to a few hundred thousand on Sirius Satellite Radio.

The "hot talk" ended Monday, as WKRK has dumped "Free FM" talk for...a simulcast of WXYT's sports format, to be known (presumably legally, soon) as WXYT-FM. The new sports duo carries a host of sports teams which previously had broadcasts on one or both of the stations.

But O&A are nowhere to be found in the move.

Their show was dumped, along with most of WKRK's "hot talk" personalities. Among those on that list - former Toledo radio host Johny D, once of Clear Channel top 40 WVKS/92.5 "Kiss FM" and Cumulus top 40 WTWR/98.3 "Tower 98-3". Dumped on the AM side was ESPN's Mike and Mike, who slid into the 1270 slot after O&A went to FM.

In morning drive on the new AM/FM sports simulcast "XYT - Detroit's Sports Powerhouse" - 97.1's highest-profile local talk show, "Deminski and Doyle", which aired in afternoon drive on the FM talker. The rest of the schedule appears to be live and local all the way until 2 AM weekdays.

It's no surprise to anyone that the second FM talk casualty was also a move of CBS Radio, with national programmer Dan Mason making the rounds to fix the company's failing program moves.

The FM talker launched on 93.7 in Pittsburgh was never known as "Free FM". (By that time, the brand became somewhat toxic, with Mr. Roth and company long gone.)

CBS Radio in Pittsburgh branded the station as "The Man Station", under the name of WTZN "The Zone", but the "Zone" apparently has found its limits.

The station, a curious mix of local and national hot talk, political talk and sports talk, was an oddity from the start.

It had to wait a week after launch to feature one of it's highest-profile personalities, Scott Paulsen, as he awaited being let free from a contract with Clear Channel.

It ran O&A in mornings, and piped in Pittsburgh-native Dennis Miller's Westwood One-syndicated show. It also ran a local show by former KDKA/1020 and cable TV (PCNC) political talker John McIntyre.

But now, it no longer talks, and is playing Christmas music for the next week. The station has set up a new website with the legend atop: "PITTS-URGH - Something's Missing".

Among the choices presented to forum users on the site is "B94 Radio". And gee, the above legend (and the site's URL) are both, well, missing a letter B...leading to massive speculation about the venerable "B94" top 40 format being returned to its former home.

(Lightbulb goes on over head!)

We wouldn't bet against a top 40 "B94" return. CBS' Mason has already swooped in and "restored" once-successful formats displaced on other large market CBS stations...in particular, New York oldies outlet WCBS-FM, and San Francisco oldies outlet KFRC-FM.

We don't know what format a new "B94" would take, if it is indeed coming back to the Pittsburgh airwaves. In the other two examples, a more updated version of the "classic hits" took hold.

But considering the likely low ratings for "The Zone - Pittsburgh's Man Station", just about anything would be welcome at 93.7. Whatever happens, it's promised for Friday.

Stepping away from the Pittsburgh and Detroit markets long enough to address our usual question: What does this mean for our long-time contention that FM talk is a format on the rise?

Well, not "FM hot talk".

Some of the programs placed on these stations border on the amazingly idiotic. They're aimed at very young audiences, usually males 12-24 or so, and apparently feel the need offer to talk about body parts, sex and juvenile humor. It's like stations only believe that you can reach young males with such drivel.

Our general contention is that the talk you hear on AM stations today, perhaps skewing a LITTLE younger, will end up on FM in the next 5 years or so - even as a simulcast of existing stations.

The problem is quite simple - an entire generation of incoming radio listeners couldn't find the AM band if you handed them a picture of a radio and highlighted the "AM" button. (Then again, there's the problem of many not listening to even FM at all, thanks to the iPod and the like.)

And the Detroit flip is in our favor in this regard, with an AM sports talker expanding its wings onto the FM dial...

BREAKING NEWS: TBS-HD Added To Time Warner Northeast Ohio

As speculated in the item just below this one, Northeast Ohio's Time Warner Cable systems have added the HD feed of the TBS cable network, just in time for the one-game pre-National League Divisional Series baseball contest between the San Diego Padres and the Colorado Rockies.

TBS-HD has made its mark on Time Warner Cable's channel 778 on the Cleveland-area system formerly owned by Adelphia.

We don't know what channel numbers are used elsewhere, but we believe it is also now available on the other local TWC systems, including the Akron/Canton(/presumably Youngstown) "legacy" Time Warner system, and the one formerly owned by Comcast.

While we're not sure what, if any, other HD programming TBS will feature, the reason for "urgency" is the fact that TBS is the exclusive carrier of the MLB Divisional Series games.

That means Cleveland Indians fans will only be able to watch the team's series with the Yankees on TBS (and now, TBS-HD). The network has the exclusive rights to the games, and local RSNs like SportsTime Ohio are not able to run the games.

If the Indians/Yankees series gets bumped off of TBS, it'll air on sister network TNT - which is conveniently located right next to TBS-HD on the Time Warner/Cleveland lineup - cable channel 779.

As far as we know, the alternative WOW Cable system in Cuyahoga County is not yet carrying the HD version of the TBS network.

In case you're wondering, TBS-HD is NOT an HD feed of Atlanta local TV station WTBS/17, like the national TBS feed was (mostly) for many years.

Just today, WTBS's local feed split from the national TBS network, and became Atlanta-oriented "Peachtree TV"...ending the long-running days of the local station feeding national cable systems.

Well, technically, it's mostly been the other way around recently, with WTBS-TV effectively acting as a repeater for the cable network - give or take some weekend public affairs programs...

Monday Big Update

A lot has happened since our Friday night update, for whatever reason. So, let's try to start strong this week...

FROM THE BONDS OF CLEAR CHANNEL: Two weeks ago, Tom Embrescia's Sweet Home Ashtabula, LLC took control of the now-former Clear Channel cluster in Ashtabula, a group that once only consisted of talk WFUN/970 and AC WREO/97.1.

Since that era, the cluster added now-top 40 WZOO/102.5, classic rock WFXJ/107.5, and the most recent entry, country WYBL/98.3 - which means a total of five stations went under Mr. Embrescia's umbrella earlier this month.

The station group has now also severed itself from the Clear Channel web server farm, with new local websites completed for WREO and WYBL. (Sites for WFUN, WZOO and WFXJ are "up", but marked "coming soon").

And aside from what looks to be a quick reimage of the previous Clear Channel sites, we noticed one other thing.

This logo.

This, and other references on the site, indicate that the Sweet Home Ashtabula stations will operate under the same "Media One Group" name as James Embrescia's cluster that dominates the small city of Jamestown, NY.

And Tom's brother is a significant investor in the Ashtabula effort - it's basically half and half, if we're reading the FCC application info correctly, with the two Embrescia brothers, with Tom's son Matt in there somewhere as well.

So, the Media One Group era begins at the five Ashtabula stations.

And we noted from E-Mail "Contact Us" pages that former cluster GM Dana Schulte has indeed returned in the same role at the group he once managed - before Clear Channel gave oversight of Ashtabula to Youngstown market manager Bill Kelly.

Are there changes in store? OMW hears rumblings that one of the four FM outlets may see some changes down the road, if not sooner. But we haven't confirmed it as of yet...

SULLIVAN EXITS: OMW hears that Metro Networks/Cleveland afternoon traffic reporter Jamie Sullivan, who also does weekend shifts on CBS Radio hot AC WQAL/104.1 "Q104" and AC WDOK/102.1, is leaving town.

Jamie is headed for Indianapolis, where she's going to be an airborne traffic reporter for Emmis news/talk powerhouse WIBC/1070.

The youthful Jamie has been on the radio in some form or another in Cleveland for over three years.

She's been heard in afternoons on Metro client stations including CBS Radio alt-rock/talk WKRI/92.3 "K-Rock" and Radio One urban AC WZAK/93.1. Her shows include Q104's Saturday "Party Zone", and a Sunday shift on WDOK.

And we understand that Ms. Sullivan has been on the air one way or another locally since she was 18 years old.

Our congratulations to a young, and rising, local radio talent...

WOIO, NOT JUST CBS, DROPS THE BROWNS BALL: Honest, we didn't plan another missive aimed at Raycom Media's alleged local CBS affiliate, WOIO/19.

But judging from comments from many others, we're far from alone in this assessment - the Sunday NFL game between the Cleveland Browns and the Baltimore Ravens looked very, very, very bad on "Cleveland's CBS 19".

And for once, we're not talking about the local team's play.

We've said twice before that this game was not to be broadcast in HDTV, a decision that was made at the network level. (WOIO helpfully reminded viewers of that, with a frequent crawl blaiming the network for the lack of an HDTV broadcast.)

But the folks at Reserve Square can't pass THIS off to the gang in New York - the STANDARD DEFINITION quality of the game on 19 was below par, by a large amount.

We figured this out very easily. All you had to do was watch the HDTV broadcast of "The NFL Today" before the game.

When James Brown and company tossed it to a field report from a non-HDTV game site, the video was still at least reasonably clear, if not in HD.

When CBS ran its own network commercials that were not made in HD, the ghosting seen on WOIO's upconvert was not there. At all.

But 19's own local pre-pre-game show, "Tailgate 19", looked for all the world like it was converted from another video standard...if not transmitted from another country.

The local broadcast was so washed out and fuzzy, it was barely watchable...both from the convenient remote studio location at Scorcher's sports bar (just up the elevator from the Reserve Square basement), and from the Muni Lot.

This also effects advertisers. The "fine print" below many car ads was barely readable for viewers watching the WOIO-DT broadcast, and it looked just as bad on analog cable, for that matter.

It was the most embarrassing display of video quality we've ever seen from a local station, rivaled only by WEWS's problems a couple of years ago upconverting ABC college football games. The nature of the upconverting problem back then for "NewsChannel 5" was exactly the same.

Our guess: For local upconverting, WOIO has picked up equipment in the clearance bin at Radio Shack.

OK, so maybe that's a bit hard, but the picture quality was awful. And we are far from the only ones noticing. Complaints from HDTV set owners/Browns fans all over the area are filtering in by the hour.

We don't know why CBS's SD-only broadcasts of Browns games are so bad on Channel 19 - we're going to start calling them "SSD" (Sub-Standard Definition).

But OMW hears from some of our friends in the Youngstown/Warren market that their local CBS affiliate, WKBN/27, had no such picture quality problems. It's making us investigate getting the proper antenna to pick up WKBN's high-power digital broadcast, which is within reach of a large chunk of the Cleveland TV market.

We'd still be able to watch CBS programming in both HDTV and SDTV, and we wouldn't risk running into "19 Action News"...

CHANNEL GONE, CHANNEL COMING?: Speaking of Raycom, the digital side of the company's MyNetworkTV affiliate - WUAB/43 - has carried the 24/7 music video channel "The Tube Network" on a subchannel for some time.

Well, until now.

"The Tube" is going away, as of today. From the network's own website:

We regret to inform you of the fate that has befallen The Tube Music Network. October 1, 2007 The Tube ceased its national broadcast.

The notice cites "financial limitations" as contributing to the network's "incapacitated state". (You'd almost think the thing was a living organism by that description!)

The loss of a subchannel is almost always good news to HDTV fans. It takes away bandwidth that would otherwise be used to provide a better quality picture for the HD side of the operation.

But we don't even know if MyNetworkTV has any shows in HD, after the mini-network dumped its all-HD "novela" schedule a while back.

Could Raycom move the "WeatherNow" subchannel from 19.2 to 43.2, to free up bandwidth for the more extensive CBS HD schedule? We'd bet against it...heavily. See our rant just above.

The "Channel Coming?" part refers to a possible new addition to the Time Warner Cable lineup - the addition of the HD version of the TBS cable network.

While the prospect may not excite many, particularly with sister network TNT-HD's frequent practice of upconverting and stretching of programming, there's one big reason TBS-HD should be seen here before Thursday.

Your American League Central champion Cleveland Indians.

TBS has the exclusive rights this season to both the American League and National League Divisional Championship series. And of course, the Tribe plays the New York Yankees in the "A" series of the ALDS - starting Thursday night at Jacobs Field.

OMW hasn't heard anything about a potential addition of TBS-HD to the Time Warner Cable lineup in Northeast Ohio, but we wouldn't be surprised if it shows up sometime this week. For a number of reasons:

1) TBS is owned by TWC's parent company, of course. The rights issues would be trivial, and we've heard of other TWC systems already announcing the addition of the channel for this week.

2) TNT-HD, also owned by Time Warner, was added to the former Adelphia systems in Cleveland immediately after TWC took control of those systems.

3) The Indians' playoff games will NOT be seen on SportsTime Ohio, in either HD or SD, due to the rights being exclusively owned by Turner Broadcasting. There's nothing STO can do about it...it's part of the national MLB TV contract.

One note: Any Division Series game that needs to be bumped from TBS, due to scheduling, will end up on TNT...which as mentioned, is already in HD on the Time Warner systems locally...

CALLING CINCINNATI: And finally, we make a brief electronic stop in the Queen City, where a big change debuts this morning on one Cincinnati radio station.

And it's no surprise, as it's been expected by just about anyone who keeps track of the Cincy radio scene: Local sports talkers "The Two Angry Guys" have joined former Clear Channel/WLW co-worker Andy Furman in the lineup of Cumulus talk WFTK/96.5 "SuperTalk FM".

Starting today, Richard Skinner and Tom Gamble take the FM talker's morning drive slot, airing weekdays from 6-10 AM. It's the same time slot they held for years on Clear Channel sports talk station "Homer", the station now otherwise known as WCKY/1530 (it was once on 1360, before the swap with the then-liberal talk format).

Exiting morning drive is Chicago-based TRN FM syndicated hot talk host Erich "Mancow" Muller.

Skinner and Gamble also shared the same frequency Furman was on, the flamethrowing "Big One" WLW/700, as they hosted a weekend show there in addition to their weekday morning show on "Homer".

And it was Furman's exit from WLW which actually prompted the breakup of the "Two Angry Guys", with Gamble called to take over the 6-9 PM weekday WLW shift solo after Furman's departure.

Skinner, by then doing the "Guys" shift solo himself on "1530 Homer", was eventually let go. Gamble left the "SportsTalk" gig on WLW after a few months - the time slot is now held by Cincinnati Enquirer sports columnist Paul Daugherty.

And of course, Furman landed in "SuperTalk FM's" afternoon drive shift, which he continues to hold today.

And as such, the move puts a sports-heavy schedule on the Cumulus FM talker, at least locally.

WFTK retains Premiere's Glenn Beck and the self-syndicated Dave Ramsey money advice show in between the drive times, and Westwood One's Bill O'Reilly gets shuffled to late nights. But both drive-time slots will now be taken by well-known local sports talk hosts.

It's no surprise to anyone who watches Cumulus' "SuperTalk" stations in other markets.

But Cincinnati is very heavy with sports talk radio...in addition taking a decent chunk of WLW's evening and weekend attention, sports radio also airs on the aforementioned "1530 Homer", and its new "little brother" station, all-network "ESPN 1360"...

Memo To Reserve Square

It looks like WOIO/19 "19 Action News" anchor Sharon Reed isn't proud of taking her clothes off in front of a camera, anymore.

Some three years after Ms. Reed became perhaps the most infamous local TV news anchor in America for her "Body of Art" series, the anchor and her station are now making the rounds of various websites, trying to get them to remove the racy pictures.

The Plain Dealer's Michael K. McIntyre quotes Sharon's immediate boss, news director Dan Salamone, in Saturday's "TipOff" column:

There are as many as two dozen Web sites still using images and or videotape from this story. I have sent them letters. It's our copywritten material. They don't have the right to use it.

We actually knew about this a couple of days ago, when an unrelated search brought us to another blog - not the one mentioned by Mr. McIntyre (wizbangblog.com). That blog was unrepentant, and even posted a copy of Ms. Reed's E-Mail threat. So did the folks at Wizbang.

Since the latest entry includes a repeat of one of the "Body of Art" pictures, and since we here at OMW don't wish to increase Ms. Reed's, uh, exposure - for entirely different reasons - we won't link the entry in question here.

Feel free to use Wizbang's handy "search" function, put in Sharon's name, and enjoy. Or not.

For their part, the blog folks enlisted a lawyer who specializes in defending blogs from this sort of thing. Quoting lawyer Ronald D. Coleman:

Your wish to un-ring the bells sounded by the singular performance depicted in these images, while understandable, is not a legitimate ground for you to prevent their reasonable use in connection with news reporting about that performance.

And here's where WOIO and Ms. Reed become inhabitants of Hypocrite City, a special subsection of the Reserve Square news dungeon.

OMW chuckles at the contention by Mr. Salamone - that the pictures should be pulled for copyright reasons, and that "fair use" isn't a defense for the websites and bloggers in question.

Ah, but back in 2004, these pictures popped up on websites all over the world! And oddly enough, Raycom Media, WOIO or Ms. Reed said NOTHING. They weren't sending out letters to webmasters, as far as we know, asking the removal of the pictures. (If we're wrong on that, we'd like to know.)

They WANTED the pictures all over - so they could PROMOTE their willful ratings sweep stunt and drive up their ratings!

Fast forward to 2007, where even WOIO/WUAB general manager Bill Applegate said in a recent Plain Dealer interview that the "Body of Art" series was one thing he had second thoughts about.

And just days later, the Naked Anchor In Question starts firing off E-Mails threatening legal action against sites that still carry the pictures from three years ago.

How, as Dana Carvey's "Church Lady" might say, "conVENient".

Oh, and a heads up to Reserve Square.

It should be noted that OMW has never run the actual pictures in question. It happened before we started here, and we're not a "skin blog". We don't make a habit, for any reason, of featuring women removing their clothes in front of a camera, TV news anchors or otherwise.

So, Sharon, feel free to search OMW - the "Search" box is right at the top - but you won't find the pictures.

We'll close by quoting Mr. McIntyre's last line on the subject:

Un-ring the bell? Shouldn't have unbuckled the belt.

A Tight Squeeze Play

And no, we aren't talking about a play we'd like to see the Cleveland Indians pull off in the upcoming playoff run.

We've let some items accumulate here, and we're going to put them in one big item to close out the week.

BIG TEN NETWORK GETS, UH, CABLE PRESENCE: The folks at the Big Ten Network have a cable signing to crow about.

But unfortunately for the conference-owned TV network, BTN's new signup is not Time Warner Cable, the region's largest cable provider by far.

Instead, the new sports channel has done what the football folks call an "end around".

To add to AT&T's U-verse service as a carrier, the Big Ten Network has signed up WOW Cable, the former Wide Open West service that is an alternative cable operator in some parts of the Cleveland and Columbus areas. WOW operates the system once built by Ameritech, the former Ohio Bell and today's AT&T.

BTN's channel will be in the high-expanded basic range - cable channel 87 on the Ohio systems, starting Saturday. As of yet, there's no word about HD carriage, but we'll assume WOW will air the HD version of BTN at some point.

Meanwhile, we haven't nailed it down 100 percent yet, but OMW hears that discussions involving adding Big Ten Network to Time Warner Cable are also tied in with renewal discussions for FOX Sports Net Ohio. (FOX's cable network arm owns BTN, along with the conference.)

Whether that helps or hinders the process remains to be seen.

FSN Ohio is one of a number of networks involved in what's usually a standard process to renew carriage agreements with Time Warner.

Don't let that lengthy legal notice throw you, despite the fact that it includes ABC affiliate WEWS/5 and its digital side. It's just a notice TWC is required to make public.

In addition to FSN Ohio and WEWS (and its associated Scripps-owned cable networks),
there are cable networks owned by Time Warner Cable's parent company - the On Demand versions of networks like CNN, as well as CNN en Espanol. You don't think THOSE are in trouble, do you?

TWC has not always "played nice" with corporate sisters - witness the trouble getting Cincinnati CW affiliate "CinCW" on basic cable on the company's Cincinnati system, despite the fact that Time Warner owns half of that network. But they own 100% of the above mentioned networks, and there's no other intermediary here...in Cincinnati, the latter was then-Clear Channel CBS affiliate WKRC/12, the parent of "CinCW".

And an OMW Jeer aimed at the aforementioned "NewsChannel 5". Their evening story on this news item made it look like there was a deal between Time Warner Cable and the Big Ten Network.

Oh, sure, the audio had the proper information, but a glance at the TV gave no indication that the deal was for an alternative provider - with not even a WOW Cable logo on the screen, let alone the service's name.

And consumer reporter Angie Lau's story also gleefully repeated that the BTN folks were celebrating their 30 millionth subscriber. We could have gotten that from their press release, and WEWS could have saved the electricity needed to run the camera.

At least it wasn't a 5 minute long promo for this fall's ABC entertainment lineup, disguised as a series of "news stories". That happened the other day...

THIS JUST IN: And we mean JUST in...

OMW hears that Clear Channel talk WHLO/640 Akron has parted ways with news director Tom Duresky, who's been handling those duties for WHLO and other Clear Channel Akron/Canton stations for some time. (He has also been heard on sister hot AC WKDD/98.1, and was heard on WARF/1350 in its previous liberal talk format.)

We don't know why Tom is no longer there, but best of luck to him in the future! And may that OMW Karma work its magic for the long-time OMW reader.

Back at Freedom Avenue, operations chief Keith Kennedy needs a replacement. If you read this blog and don't know the World Domination HQ/Southern Command's full mailing address, good luck to you....

AWARDS: A tip of the hat to Clear Channel country WGAR/99.5 Cleveland mainstay Chuck Collier, who just picked up the NAB "Marconi Award" as Large Market Personality of the Year.

And we mean mainstay, as we didn't realize he's been on WGAR for over 30 years. We know he's been there for a long time, dating back into the station's days on AM 1220 (now Salem Christian teaching/talk WHKW), but we didn't realize it had been 30 years.

That tidbit comes from Chuck's show page on the WGAR site, where you can also get pictures from the awards event earlier this week at the NAB Radio Show in Charlotte...

WHICH ONE DO WE CURSE?: As mentioned last week, be prepared for fuzzy pictures on Sunday if you're a Cleveland Browns fan.

CBS will once again designate the Browns' contest with the Baltimore Ravens as a game that doesn't deserve an HDTV broadcast. This week, the local NFL team's game shares that dishonor with the Houston Texans' game with the Atlanta Falcons.

HDTV once again returns for Browns viewers the following Sunday, with CBS listing Cleveland's game against the New England Patriots as an HD contest. But it's back to fuzzy SD for the following week's game against Miami.

The week after that? Close your eyes and hope Derek Anderson doesn't throw an interception in your imagination, as the Browns will be in their "bye" week.

As we've said before, with one less game due to that "bye" week the rest of the season, and with other providers (NFL Network, etc.) picking games away from the CBS Sunday schedule, there might be a chance it'll be all HDTV for the Browns - no matter how badly they play - the rest of the year.

And in 2008, it all lights up in high-definition for CBS, and all other NFL carriers, as part of a new TV contract...

BREAKING NEWS: Ex-ESPN Host Patrick Picks Up Local Affiliate

UPDATE 9/26/07 3:35 PM: AllAccess points out that Dan Patrick's new show, which will debut on WARF and other early affiliates on Tuesday, October 1st, will actually air live 9 AM-noon Eastern Time.

Any affiliate that carries the show in Patrick's former ESPN Radio time slot (1-4 PM) will be carrying it on delay.

We're curious if this "changes the game" for former affiliates of that show, who could presumably carry the show before Jim Rome. For WWGK/1540, Good Karma's "KNR2", that'd mean replacing part of shows hosted by FOX Sports Radio's Steve Czaban and ESPN's Colin Cowherd.

But as we note below, the Good Karma folks are pretty tied to the ESPN branding, and we're not sure Bristol would like such a move. Or, for that matter, if the folks currently on Broadview Road are considering it at all...

----------

OMW hears - and we mean literally, on the station - that Clear Channel Akron sports talker WARF/1350 "SportsRadio 1350" will be one of the first affiliates carrying the new afternoon show hosted by now-former ESPN Radio host Dan Patrick.

An on-air announcement during a local football-oriented talk show Tuesday evening says Patrick will air on WARF in his old ESPN Radio time slot, 1-4 PM Monday through Friday. And we believe that so far, only WARF has announced his carriage in Northeast Ohio's largest markets.

OMW reported a while back that Patrick's Cleveland affiliate in his ESPN Radio days, Good Karma sports WWGK/1540 "Cleveland's AM 1540, KNR2", has already announced that it's staying with the network's own replacements for the former SportsCenter anchor, who is a native of the Dayton area - by the way.

Those replacements would be "Monday Night Football" voice Mike Tirico (1-3 PM) and ESPN basketball talk contributor and sportswriter Stephen A. Smith (3-4 PM, a one hour national simulcast of his show on ESPN Radio O&O WEPN/1050 in New York City).

We can't find the earlier announcement on the station's ESPNCleveland.com website, but we have no indication that 1540 is dumping the Tirico/Smith combo for Dan Patrick. For now, at any rate. One wonders how ESPN Radio would feel about it if they did...

Indians' Clinching Game To Be Replayed

SportsTime Ohio is planning a replay of Sunday's game between the Cleveland Indians and the Oakland A's - the win which gave the local Major League Baseball team its shiny, new American League Central title.

The game will air Tuesday starting at 5:30 PM.

One reason STO cites for the replay - the Sunday game aired on WKYC/3, the Cleveland NBC affiliate which is the team's over-air home, instead of on STO.

Quoting the press release:

The Indians clinched the Central Division Title on Sunday and the game aired on WKYC Channel 3. STO will replay it as an instant classic to provide out of market viewers the opportunity to relive the game in its entirety, including the post game celebration.

We don't know if the other over-air out-of-market affiliates carried the game, but we'll assume they did. But there are still many areas of Tribe fandom where they CAN get STO, but can't get an over-air affiliate.

The Indians Radio Network flagship, Clear Channel talk WTAM/1100 Cleveland, has a ton of pictures and sound from the game on its website...

Passings

We note the passing of two names with history in Northeast Ohio media.

REX HUMBARD DIES: As far as we know, Rex Humbard hasn't been seen on local TV for many years, and he moved to Florida years ago.

But Humbard turned Northeast Ohio into the epicenter of televangelism, as one magazine noted, bringing televised evangelism "to Main Street" from its center in suburban Akron.

The New York Times notes the height of his worldwide television presence:

At its peak, in 1977-8, the program leased time on 378 television stations in the United States and Canada and broadcast on about 1,200 more in other countries. Mr. Humbard claimed that “Cathedral of Tomorrow” was on more television stations than any other program in the nation.

Humbard was a massive presence even locally, even to those who did not tune into his long-running TV programs. Shoppers at State Road Shopping Center in Cuyahoga Falls could not miss that white domed Cathedral of Tomorrow across the street, and eventually, the concrete tower Rex built next door.

That tower was destined to be a monument to the heavens, almost literally. It would have held a revolving restaurant at the top, providing expansive views of the region.

But more importantly to this group, it would have held the transmission tower for what was then known as WCOT-TV 55 - the call letters standing, of course, for Humbard's church below.

As far as we know, WCOT never made the air, and we're not even sure it got any construction permit. The unfinished tower remains today, providing a home for antennas for cellular phone service.

Rex Humbard moved his operation to Florida, and sold both the Cathedral of Tomorrow and his television studios to fellow televangelist Ernest Angley in the mid-1990's. (The tower eventually went to the family which owns Krieger's Farm Market on nearby Graham Road.)

After converting the Cathedral of Tomorrow to the new location for his Grace Cathedral, Angley got Channel 55 on the air as independent WBNX-TV Akron. The transmitter site for WBNX was originally in Brecksville, but moved into the Parma antenna farm to its current location. WBNX is, of course, today's CW Network affiliate for the Cleveland market.

WBNX had a ready-made TV studio operation, of course, because the same building which houses the Cathedral Buffet was well-equipped for Humbard's own TV empire.

Humbard continued his TV ministry from Florida, going into "semi-retirement" from it in 1999.

Rex Humbard died at the age of 88 on Friday, of natural causes...

"HOOLIHAN'S" WIFE PASSES ON: The second death we mark today is of someone who wasn't as well known in front of the camera in Northeast Ohio - but you surely know her husband.

OMW hears that Barbara Wells, wife of former WJW/8 personality Bob Wells, passed away on August 28th in Florida, after a lengthy bout with cancer.

Mrs. Wells' husband was a local TV icon - "Hoolihan" of Channel 8's "Hoolihan and Big Chuck" show. The show survived in a new form through recent years at today's "FOX 8" as "Big Chuck and Lil' John", until the recent retirement of "Big Chuck" Schodowski. Bob Wells was also a weatherman at Channel 8, then the area's long-running CBS affiliate, known as "Hoolihan the Weatherman".

The Wells family moved to Florida, after Bob had a stint managing Christian station WSUM (now WCCD)/1000 Parma.

But it's not just her more well-known husband with an extensive media background.

Barbara Wells was, we're told, one of the first female disk jockeys at then-WJW/850 in Cleveland, and also was on air at WTAN in Clearwater FL. She was very active in both community and professional theater, modeled on TV's Home Shopping Network, and did radio and TV commercials.

And like her husband, she was quite active in the church community.

An excellent look into their history and family life can be found in this article on the Cleveland Seniors website, where we also found the photo we've used here.

Barbara Wells passed away at the age of 72...

Friday Stuff

We're clearing out the decks for the weekend...with some updates, some new stuff (mostly from elsewhere), and some thoughts...

"SISSY'S" START: As it turns out, the Stefani Schaefer Era (round 2) on WJW/8's "FOX 8 News in the Morning" hasn't officially started yet.

The former WJW and WEWS anchor returned home to Cleveland after leaving NBC Universal's talk show for company O&O's, "iVillage Live". And her return was announced on the FOX 8 morning show last week, complete with an appearance by her in studio.

We don't really watch the TV morning shows, but Schaefer - known by her childhood nickname "Sissy" on the "iVillage Live" show - apparently just made the one day appearance a week ago Wednesday.

We know that because "FOX 8" has been frequently promoting her official start date on the air. Schaefer will join the "FOX 8 in the Morning" team starting Monday.

As we reported earlier, she'll only be on the 7-9 AM part of the show, the part that competes against the network morning shows like NBC's "Today" and ABC's "Good Morning America". Oh, and whatever CBS is doing in that time slot these days...

NO BROWNS HD, AGAIN: A reader reminds us of a sad fact we already know. If you're a Cleveland Browns fan and an HDTV owner, prepare to squint at a really, really fuzzy picture.

CBS, the carrier of games involving AFC teams, will once again not carry the Browns' contest with the Oakland Raiders in the HD format (Sunday, 4 PM, WOIO/19 in Cleveland).

And furthermore, the Browns game the following week against the Baltimore Ravens will also be Standard Definition Only.

This week's Browns game at Oakland is the ONLY CBS game not in HDTV, and likely the only NFL game this entire week not to get the HDTV format.

We've detailed the problem before.

CBS has said it would carry "up to 6" Sunday games in HD format, and Browns/Raiders happens to be Game 7 this week.

As we've said, this will all clear up next season, with every CBS game broadcast in HD.

In our "sports media competitive balance" department: Sunday afternoon's Cleveland Indians game with the Oakland A's will most assuredly be in HD, via Indians over-air television flagship WKYC/3 in Cleveland. (As per usual, we're pretty sure the team's TV network affiliates outside of Cleveland won't broadcast the game in HD.)

And the local MLB team could very well clinch an American League Central Division title that very day...

SPORTS LEAP: OK, more sports stuff, but this is one we teased a ways back.

A well-known local sports radio caller has parlayed his training and education into a career - as a TV sportscaster.

He's Anthony Lima, who's now the weekend sportscaster for Parkersburg/Marietta NBC affiliate WTAP/15.

And his linked bio tells interested WTAP viewers the "rest of the story", and how you may know him:

Anthony has always had a passion for talking sports in one medium or another since the age of 15, when he first became a Cleveland radio celebrity under the moniker “SportsBoy Tony.”

Yep. "SportsBoy Tony", who was calling WKNR/850 "ESPN 850" mid-morning host Tony Rizzo's old show on the former WHK/1420 sports format as a teenager in the mid-90's, is now a member of the TV sports fraternity along with Rizz, the lead sports anchor at WJW "FOX 8".

Well, OK, he's in a very small market, doing weekends...but everyone's gotta start somewhere!

Tony, er, Anthony, tells OMW:

It's truly a rags to rags story...young sportstalk show caller becomes weekend sports anchor in the one of the smallest markets in the country...and that's including a stop at Syracuse University...

Heh.

Actually, young Mr. Lima is modest about the educational part of his resume.

He picked up a master's degree at Syracuse, that communications school powerhouse responsible for starting sportscasters like Bob Costas and Marv Albert. If you're plotting a career in sports media, Syracuse is stop number one. He's also holding a degree from THE Ohio State University.

It's quite a different route from "caller to pro" than the one taken by a certain afternoon talk radio host who launched his sports radio post-caller career reading sports headlines out of the paper on an FM station.

So, best of luck to you, NoLongerSportsBoy Tony....may we proudly say, down the road, that we "knew you when"...

What We're Not

OMW gets a lot of E-Mail.

We'd estimate that roughly two dozen items come through our E-Mail account every day. And that's not including copies of blog comments - which used to be a lot more.

Some folks seem confused about who we are, and why they're writing to us. We're a blog covering local radio, TV and other media, mainly in the Northeast Ohio area, with some forays beyond the Cleveland/Akron/Canton/Youngstown axis.

So...here's what we're not.

NOT A SHOW: No, we're not a radio show or station.

We've gotten many E-Mails from folks telling us about something they heard us broadcast. No, we don't have "OMW Radio", and no, we weren't conducting a survey on fast food the other morning.

We can't play your favorite Shania Twain song. We can't do a thing about that annoying caller on talk radio yesterday afternoon. (Or for that matter, that annoying host.)

We don't have a link to the Patriots song on the radio the other day - though we now suspect that was syndicated morning team "Bob and Tom" out of Indianapolis airing the song. (No, we're not connected to the show or any of its affiliates.)

We'll be helpful and pass along your E-Mail and request to the station or show involved, if we can figure that out (we still don't know who was doing the fast food survey).

NOT A PUBLICITY OUTLET: We get roughly two or three E-Mails a week from people looking for us to "spread the word" about some injustice or news item.

We aren't a news outlet. We don't cover stories here, we cover local media.

If you're not able to find the various TV or radio stations that might be interested, we'll be happy to provide you with their contact information - if you can't already find it on their websites or via Google.

But putting the item here? Even if we are read in most TV and radio newsrooms in Ohio, we aren't doing it. This is not a site to advance people's agendas to advance possible news coverage, and we bet if we started running such items regularly, the insiders at local newsrooms who DO read this blog would go away.

We're not your way to get around the "gatekeepers" of news coverage. It just doesn't work.

We'll be more than happy to provide help with stuff you can't otherwise find in a Google search.

But the E-Mail as described above is more numerous than it used to be, so we felt we had to say something...

The Radio No Factor

UPDATE 9/20/07 2:35 PM: Mr. Maloney backs off just a little in an update to the below post.

The "Radio Equalizer" blog editor says that O'Reilly may sign a "short-term" extension to the "Radio Factor" contract into early next year. But he believes the FNC host is still destined to dump radio, to concentrate on his popular evening TV talk show.

Our original take on his report is below...

----------

This word comes from a blog just across the Blogger-sphere:

According to "Radio Equalizer" blogger Brian Maloney, FOX News Channel evening host Bill O'Reilly is bringing his Westwood One-syndicated talk radio show - "The Radio Factor" - to a close in December.

The move, if it happens, wouldn't really be a big deal in Northeast Ohio, where the O'Reilly radio show has had a tough time gaining traction. Clear Channel owns most of Ohio's major talk stations, which carry Rush Limbaugh and have for some time, and the O'Reilly radio show airs on maybe two or three of Clear Channel's talk stations nationwide.

In this region, "The Radio Factor" is carried on weekend evenings on Media-Com Akron market talker WNIR/100.1, in a two hour slot that could just as easily filled by another Westwood One show. Dennis Miller, anyone? Does Canton market news/talk WHBC/1480 claim Akron market rights to Miller? Is his show still on the air? We haven't checked...

And on the eastern fringes of the Cleveland market, talk/brokered WELW/1330 Willoughby carries Mr. O'Reilly's program twice a day, once live, and once repeated in late nights. Maybe the station just expands Tony Petkovsek's 2 hour afternoon polka show to four hours?

For either scenario above, we're just guessing...we haven't heard what WNIR or WELW would use to replace the O'Reilly show. For that matter, we haven't even confirmed this original report.

The reason the radio show has lasted so long is the weight O'Reilly's name carries among conservative talk listeners, due to his much more successful TV show.

But at some point, assuming this report is true, he apparently has given up the towel competing against conservative talk icon Rush Limbaugh. Mr. O'Reilly actually had a modest amount of success in some markets, but his affiliate list beyond New York and Los Angeles was rather spotty.

And oddly enough, Mr. Maloney had earlier actually strongly refuted a liberal blogger's contention that O'Reilly was leaving the world of talk radio - a fact Maloney himself acknowledges in the above item.

It would, presumably, mean that radio industry people with connections pulled Brian aside electronically, and said, "well, actually..."

Speaking of Sports Again

This update will be mostly related to sports and local media, since that's where the news is...

BIG STO PICKUP: In its continuing drive to have programming other than Cleveland Indians games and assorted Cleveland Browns shows, pre-season game repeats and low-rent wrestling and poker shows, SportsTime Ohio has landed a big one.

The Cleveland-based sports network has officially announced a one-year deal for the statewide rights to the Ohio High School Athletic Association's playoffs and championship games. (The Associated Press story on it can be found here via Cleveland.com.)

Quoting STO's own press release, which the network helpfully sent to OMW:

SportsTime Ohio will have exclusive rights to televise eight (8) football playoff games, six (6) football championship games, eight (8) boys’ basketball playoff games, four (4) boys’ basketball championship games, and four (4) girls’ basketball championship games. In addition, STO has exclusive distribution of a minimum of four (4) other OHSAA events to be determined.

Though STO's coverage will drastically increase the number of potential viewers for the high school games, there is one problem: The Cleveland-based network has no cable or satellite carriage in the Cincinnati and Dayton markets.

To address that problem, SportsTime Ohio turned to close partner Time Warner Cable, which will air the OHSAA contests for its viewers in Southwest Ohio. (There's no word on if STO or TWC will offer games to other cable systems in the Dayton and Cincinnati regions.)

We'll have to assume that STO upped the dollar ante, after the OHSAA folks rejected earlier bids from both that network and the previous incumbent rightsholder, the Columbus-based Ohio News Network, as being inadequate.

The release says games will be seen both live and on tape delay (digital delay now?)...

STO CROWING ABOUT RATINGS: Another press release from the Cleveland Indians-associated STO crows about ratings.

The network says Monday night's Indians contest with the Detroit Tigers, capped by a walk-off home run winner by Casey Blake, garnered the highest ratings in SportsTime Ohio's history:

According to Nielsen’s preliminary ratings, the last hour of the Indians extra innings win over the Tigers delivered a 15 rating, peaking at a 17.9. These numbers equate to over 517,500 viewers 18+ watching the game.

Now, if only we had FSN Ohio's numbers from the Indians' 1995 and 1997 World Series runs to compare...

NEW "KNR2" SHOW THIS WEEK: ESPN Radio has announced its replacement for former early afternoon host Dan Patrick, who left the Worldwide Leader in Sports a while back.

It'll be Monday Night Football play-by-play voice and ESPN TV mainstay Mike Tirico sliding into the 1-3 PM slot formerly occupied by Patrick, with a national simulcast of New York-based WEPN/1050 "ESPN 1050" host Stephen A. Smith in the 3-4 PM time slot weekdays. Smith, of course, is also a mainstay on the TV side of ESPN.

Both shows will only be heard on small stations in Northeast Ohio.

With primary local ESPN affiliate Good Karma WKNR/850 Cleveland running other programming - the last two hours of Jim Rome's Premiere Radio show and the first hour of local afternoon drive show "Munch on Sports" with Mark "Munch" Bishop, the new ESPN shows won't air on "ESPN 850 WKNR".

Instead, they'll be welcomed into Patrick's old time slot on 850's little brother station, WWGK/1540 "Cleveland's AM 1540, KNR2". The station has put up an announcement to that effect on the ESPNCleveland.com website.

We'll assume, for now, that Canton market ESPN affiliate WTIG/990 Massillon "ESPN 990", and Youngstown ESPN affiliate WBBW/1240, will carry the new shows.

But...for how long?

Patrick's new radio show, for Chicago-based "The Content Factory", will start soon - October 1st. Will some ESPN Radio stations hang in there for a few weeks with Tirico and Smith, or will they bolt for the new Dan Patrick show? We'll find out in about three weeks...

Keeping Busy Tuesday

We hadn't planned on an update Tuesday, but some stuff to sweep up after...

IT'S OFFICIAL: The day it happened, and two days after OMW reported it would happen, the takeover of the former Clear Channel Ashtabula stations was reported in the national radio trade press.

The announcement, which we saw on AllAccess's Monday Net News scroll, says Tom and Matt Embrescia's Sweet Home Ashtabula spent $3.5 million on the WFUN/WREO/WZOO/WFXJ/WYBL combo in Northeast Ohio's most northeastern-most small market.

The living is easy, competition-wise, for the long-time Cleveland radio executive and his son. The group is the dominant broadcast operation in the market, with only nearby WKKY/104.7 Geneva as an in-market commercial competitor.

Even tiny AM WWOW/1360 Conneaut has mostly gone to a religious format with Catholic programming from the EWTN folks. And WKKY itself, as we've written often here, spends most of its time with nearby Lake County.

Ashtabula gets hit signal-wise from Cleveland to the west and Erie to the east. But by far the strongest out-of-town signal in the region is Canadian rock outlet CFPL/95.9 "FM 96", booming across Lake Erie from London, Ontario.

OMW hears that while major changes may not happen this week, there are already some changes possibly in the works. We just don't have any details about what the Embrescia father and son team will plan, or for that matter, what's on the mind of former cluster GM-turned-returned GM Dana Schulte...

SOME ALLACCESS ITEMS: ...involving Ohio stations in the trade website's recent Net News scroll.

Clear Channel rock WNCD/93.3 "The Wolf" in Youngstown says goodbye to middayer "Tina", who takes at very least a first name, if not a last name, to an unspecified station in another market. WNCD PD and OMW reader (Matt) Spatz takes over. We're not sure when Matt lost his first name, or why Tina didn't use a last name.

And AllAccess also reports that Clear Channel 80's outlet WBWR/105.7 "The Brew" in Columbus goes a different direction from PD Bob O'Dell, which means he's no longer there.

More Columbus items, as North American Broadcasting active rock WBZX/99.7 "The Blitz" adds a "Morning Blitz" team member - Jay Charles, from San Antonio.

And former Saga AC WSNY/94.7 "Sunny 95" staffer Chuck Knight takes the programming reins of locally-owned Philadelphia AC powerhouse WBEB "B101", which segues into a new presentation under the "Fresh" label...

WOIO'S NON-HD NEWS: We made a quip earlier this week that Raycom Media CBS/MyNet combo WOIO/19-WUAB/43's "19 Action News" (motto: "First. Fair. Everywhere. In Color!") has yet to implement a rumored plan to broadcast its newscasts in HDTV, which would make the Reserve Square operation the last HD newscast in the Cleveland market.

As it turns out, perhaps Raycom has discovered that you can't just put in a new HD/digital control room to go HD.

OMW hears that WOIO/WUAB did indeed convert its news control room to HD. But they apparently are missing more than one piece (cameras?), and the local rumor mill has no clue when they may put it together.

We also hear that the folks at Scripps ABC affiliate WEWS/5 "NewsChannel 5" are readying the next step in the HD News chain - shooting field footage in true HD format, and being able to edit it in HD at 3001 Euclid.

The missing link will be "live" HD, as most remote live HD broadcasts (from live trucks, etc.) will depend on equipment being bought for stations under a government program by the folks at Sprint.

We don't quite remember all the details, but it goes something like this: the Nextel folks (cell/digital walkie-talkie) agreed to buy equipment for TV stations so they could use some bandwidth now contentiously shared with their own system. The new equipment is all-digital, and on a different set of frequencies than used by Nextel, which is now part of Sprint.

Now, we'd assume stations CAN go outside this program and pay for new digital over-air links themselves - else, WJW/8 "FOX 8" couldn't have SkyFOX HD - but most stations are waiting to retrofit their remote live equipment "for free" courtesy of the Sprint/Nextel folks.

The problem? We hear that program is dragging its heels.

Anyway, the recorded field video aired on "NewsChannel 5" will air in HD in the next few weeks.

There's no word on if the folks at Reserve Square will contemplate giving away 3-D glasses to viewers to make their currently non-HD broadcast "19 Action News 3-D".

(That's a joke, folks!)

A BELATED WELCOME BACK: No, not to Mr. Kotter, but to Mr. Sylk.

We'd heard rumblings about this for a while, but it does appear former Cleveland radio personality Sam Sylk has taken the "former" off of that title, as he returns to the North Coast for afternoon drive on Radio One hip-hop/R&B outlet WENZ/107.9 "Z107.9".

Sylk went to Chicago, where he did afternoons on legendary Clear Channel urban outlet WGCI, then went to sister urban station WUSL "Power 99" in Philadelphia for mornings. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that he left that station in August, and his new website shows he returned to Cleveland for Z107.9's afternoon drive slot a week ago.

We're far too old and unhip to have "Z" on our presets (see the "Welcome Back, Kotter" reference above), so we can't remember the details. But we seem to recall Sylk syndicated back to Cleveland at some point, from either Chicago or Philly...

Monday Stuff

We start off this week with an update or two, a musing or two, and other stuff...

SANDY'S OUT: Here's an item that showed up on AllAccess late last week, but we didn't get to it yet...

SAGA COMMUNICATIONS AC WSNY (SUNNY 95)/COLUMBUS, OH midday jock SANDY BENNETT exits. She is replaced by sister station Smooth Jazz WJZA midday talent TRISHA MOORE.

Of course, Sandy also has history in the Cleveland market, at stations like WMJI/105.7 and the old "Jammin' 92" (then-WZJM/92.3, now CBS Radio alt-rocker WKRI "K-Rock").

OMW has no word why Sandy is no longer at "Sunny", or if she has landed or will land somewhere else, but we'll pass it along if we find out...

A REMINDER: Today is the scheduled day for the takeover of the former Clear Channel Ashtabula market stations (WFUN/WREO/WYBL/WZOO/WFXJ) by Tom Embrescia's "Sweet Home Ashtabula".

We'll have our ears pointed to the northeast, and hope listeners in the market tell us about any immediate changes to any of the five stations - though we don't expect any major overhaul on Day One.

And going back through our own older items, we reminded ourselves (nice trick) that Mr. Embrescia's son Matt is indeed listed as president for the company.

One point we didn't make earlier.

We don't know what plans either Embrescia has to expand the company beyond the new Ashtabula cluster. (The MediaOne cluster up in Jamestown NY and environs is owned by another family member.)

But don't let the Ashtabula-only operating company name fool you. It's a 100% owned subsidiary of Tom Embrescia's Cleveland-based Second Generation, Ltd., according to FCC records...

FUND RAISING: The folks at Clear Channel Cleveland hot AC outlet WMVX/106.5 pass along the final total for the station's "Brian and Joe Rainbow Radiothon", an effort to raise money for Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital.

"Mix 106.5" morning drivers Brian and Joe, and the rest of the WMVX crew, raised $537,000 for the Cleveland pediatric hospital.

The station morning duo hit the airwaves from Rainbow for 12 hours a day for three days late last week to bring in the cash...

FOOTBALL FLINGING: Sunday's jaw-dropping 51-45 win by the Cleveland Browns over the Cincinnati Bengals was the first Browns game of the season not to be broadcast in HDTV format by CBS, the NFL's carrier of games broadcast from AFC teams' home stadiums.

CBS is not yet to the point where they'll broadcast all weekly games in HD. But in 2007, they'll do all but one or two games in the format on most weeks. (Considering the Browns' performance last week, could anyone blame them for putting today's game on the "no HD" list?)

In 2008, from what we've heard, all NFL games will be in HD. And even later this year, as games start being seen on other networks, more games will be in HD on CBS.

After the Browns wrapped up their improbable win Sunday, CBS' second doubleheader game (New York Jets vs. Baltimore Ravens) was also in not in HD.

But you can blame local CBS affiliate WOIO/19 for that, as the game was broadcast nationally in the HD format. Someone at Reserve Square A) apparently wasn't aware of that, B) just didn't care, or C) had some sort of technical glitch preventing them from making the switch after the Browns game ended.

Which would YOU bet on, if you were us? This is the station, after all, that was rumored to be the last local station to broadcast news in HD...a plan/decision/thought that never took hold.

From what we saw of the Browns game today, it was even blurrier than can be expected in standard definition.

And once we saw a dual legal ID super (the upconverted analog ID with the digital "Cleveland's CBS 19-1" ID next to it), it became clear that WOIO was actually upconverting its own SD signal directly, not sending down the network digital, but non-HD, signal...which is probably a good reason it looked even worse than normal. It probably saved them on staff somehow, though.

One other problem has reared its ugly head for HDTV sports watchers on that station.

Last week's Browns/Steelers game was in HD on CBS. But the game was plagued not just with poor play by the local NFL team...the CBS broadcast on WOIO-DT was indeed in HD, but full of more macroblocking and motion sickness than any 1080i game we've ever seen. It was almost unwatchable when anything was moving.

We hear from an OMW reader that it looks like WOIO did not reduce the bandwidth to its "WeatherNow" subchannel (WOIO-DT 19.2) during the game last Sunday, like it has apparently done in the past.

Meanwhile, over at NBC affiliate WKYC/3, they DID throttle back the bandwidth on their "NBC WeatherPlus" subchannel (WKYC-DT 3.2). That made the network's Sunday Night Football MUCH easier to watch than Browns/Steelers earlier that day.

Sometimes, we wonder how programming even shows up in color on Channel 19...by far, the worst-looking TV station in the Cleveland market as far as picture quality goes...in HDTV, SDTV or any other definition...

Columbus Radio Shocker

We don't have really good sources in Central Ohio, so we apologize for being a couple of days late with this one.

We were started on this road by rumors that Christian Broadcasting Services 80's/eclectic pop non-comm outlet WHKC/91.5 Columbus was playing Christian pop instead, starting this weekend.

The station was established last year by Robb Case, the popular former helicopter pilot/reporter for Columbus NBC affiliate WCMH/4 - the latest in a string of Central Ohio radio stations he's been involved with...including Spanish-language WDLR/1550 Delaware "RadioSol".

So, imagine our shock when we researched this, and stumbled onto this Columbus Dispatch article from Friday - Channel 4 helicopter pilot Robb Case dies.

Dispatch radio/TV writer Tim Feran reports that Case died at the age of 50 Thursday morning, after a "long battle with cancer".

Case, born Robb Casagrande, had become something of a radio folk hero to those seeking out non-corporate radio music programming in the Columbus market. His WHKC launched nine months ago with 80's pop music and other stuff thrown in, and was getting a "buzz" among those looking to alternatives to offerings from commercial music radio outlets.

But it was pretty much assumed by everyone, even 91.5's most devoted listeners, that the 80's and 90's tunes were destined to be replaced by some sort of Christian-themed programming. After all, look at the name of the station's ownership company - Christian Broadcasting Services.

Not long after Robb Case passed away, WHKC started replacing the secular 80's pop with Christian contemporary music.

But it isn't a reaction to his death. Business partner and long-time friend Mark Litton tells the Dispatch that such a move - to a Christian-oriented format - was already in the works.

And the CCM playing now will apparently make way for a Christian talk format as soon as later this week.

What would appear to be a legitimate website registered in the WHOIS database to the late Mr. Case touts the station as "Central Ohio's only FM Christian Talk Radio", with this mention apparently directed to station personnel about the upcoming launch:

As you can see the site isn't completely finished. It should be fully working by Wednesday morning, though portions of the site will come online throught the next few weeks.

We can't verify the veracity of this, but the registration info and the site looks legitimate to us.

The move to Christian talk pits WHKC up against established Salem outlet WRFD/880 "The Word", which shuts down at sunset due to its presence on the channel dominated by CBS Radio all-news WCBS in New York City.

And it also sends 80's music fans scurrying to out-of-market stations, weekend programs or satellite and Internet radio...

Death Of The Buzzard

We'd like to point out this fascinating article by the Cleveland Plain Dealer's Michael Heaton - on Cleveland.com today, presumably in the Dead Trees edition of the newspaper Saturday.

It's all about rumblings we had here earlier this week, with Clear Channel rock WMMS/100.7 Cleveland rapidly de-emphasizing its call letters on air - the station is now mostly known on-air solely by its 100.7 frequency.

And it would appear that WMMS, er, 100.7, is sending the well-known "Buzzard" mascot to fly away somewhere else. 100.7 programmer Bo Matthews tells Heaton that it's not about changes in format, or killing iconic call letters or mascots:

"Nobody's killing anything. Chief Wahoo is not on every piece of Indians promotional material they send out. Ronald McDonald is not in every McDonald's commercial you see. We're not losing the letters. All we're doing is shifting an image. We do a lot of research, and it tell us our listeners feel that music content is the star. We're just reflecting that."

Matthews, and Clear Channel regional programming VP Kevin Metheny, point to the WMMS calls, and the "Buzzard" slogan and cartoon mascot, as being more revered by listeners who are off listening to other stations - presumably older skewing listeners spending most of their time with CBS Radio classic rock WNCX/98.5.

Former WMMS programmer John Gorman also weighs in, suggesting that the earlier, unsuccessful attempt to get rid of the "Buzzard" mascot may have diluted the brand's importance to the station for good.

There's no indication, or questioning, in the article about the newly minted "100.7" changing format.

As we noted before, there's plenty of speculation about it, but we have absolutely no information that a full format change (aside from rock playlist changes) is in the works at the station now whispering the "WMMS" call letters.

And if you think OUR comments get a bit wild (or used to), check out the comments on the Cleveland.com story...

Sweet Homecoming Monday

OMW has confirmed that the new owners of the soon-to-be-former Clear Channel cluster in Ashtabula will take over Monday morning, September 17th.

That would be the company known as "Sweet Home Ashtabula", which is owned by long-time Cleveland media executive Tom Embrescia.

The sale was actually approved by the FCC back in August, and involves:

* WFUN/970 Ashtabula (news/talk/sports)
* WREO/97.1 Ashtabula (AC "Star 97.1")
* WYBL/98.3 Ashtabula (country "The Bull")
* WZOO/102.5 Edgewood (hot AC-turned-top 40 "102ZOO")
* WFXJ-FM/107.5 North Kingsville (classic rock "The Fox")

So, what changes on Monday?

We've heard a lot of rumors, but the only other solid piece of information we can offer is that former cluster GM Dana Schulte will back in charge with the new ownership. Schulte's role running the CC Ashtabula cluster ended when Clear Channel Youngstown market manager Bill Kelly took direct oversight of Ashtabula from South Avenue.

Embrescia's son, Matt, will also play a key role - we'd presume he's being groomed to eventually take over "Sweet Home" from his very experienced father at some point down the road.

We haven't heard any rumors of wholesale format or personnel changes at the opening of the Embrescia era.

But if Schulte's return to the building is any indication, we'd expect at least some more localization, perhaps with a beefing up of local sports coverage. It's a formula that works very well for many similar stations in small markets like Ashtabula...

Radiothon Time

Here at OMW, we've paid some attention to local media participating in charity events, like the long-time Akron Children's Hospital Radiothon produced by the folks at Clear Channel hot AC WKDD/98.1.

For whatever reason, we've not really mentioned a similar effort undertaken by WKDD's hot AC sister station in Cleveland, WMVX/106.5 "Mix 106.5". But it's going on now, and we'd like to give it a boost.

The 5th Annual Brian and Joe Rainbow Radiothon is a three-day event, which started Wednesday, and runs today and tomorrow from 6 AM to 6 PM. "Mix" morning guys Brian and Joe are handling the 12-hour-a-day live broadcast from the beneficiary for the event, Cleveland's Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital.

OMW hears Brian and Joe and the WMVX crew brought in some 418-thousand dollars in last year's version, and are hoping to have even more success this year.

Like the WKDD radiothon, the Cleveland effort will also feature change collection "Change Bandits", hoping to turn small change into big cash for the Rainbow folks.

You can donate via phone (216-983-5437 or toll-free, 888-431-5437), or via an online donation form found here...

Thursday Collection

Some updates, some speculation, and some mea culpa from your Mighty Blog of Fun(tm)...

SHE'S IN: As reported here late Tuesday night, former local TV anchor Stefani Schaefer is back in Northeast Ohio, taking an apparently new position on WJW/8's FOX 8 News In The
Morning.

UPDATE: The station has posted information about her return, and video from the announcement, here.

It's a return to the area, and a return to the very show she was on in the mid-1990's.

Stefani was the "big announcement at 8 AM" - which, in true TV style, was made in the last 10 minutes of the hour on Wednesday morning (gotta keep those viewers watching!). She told viewers she hadn't even sold her house in Cleveland - where her family has moved in again - while doing "iVillage Live" for NBC's owned-and-operated stations.

Schaefer will be on the air for only two hours of "FOX 8 News In The Morning", in the 7-9 AM segment...the one where WJW's popular local program competes with the three big network morning shows on NBC, ABC and CBS. (OK, maybe two and a half.)

And our "mea culpa".

Our item posted Tuesday night on her return to FOX 8 had a number of errors, which were corrected Wednesday morning.

* No, Stefani wasn't on "Good Morning Cleveland" - as our original item on her departure from WEWS accurately reported, she was on "Live on Five". But we'd tabbed her to "GMC" in at least one other item, which we've also now corrected.

* As far as we know, her first name is NOT spelled "Stephanie", though we have seen Google references to items on her with that spelling as well.

By some of the private brickbats we received from overheated anonymous readers, our "poor reporting" was responsible for mass illness and panic across newsrooms in Northeast Ohio, or something of the sort.

Though we do extend our apologies to the NewsBlues folks, who picked up our item with the above errors just minutes before we made the proper corrections, we do have to make a point here.

This blog is not the Cleveland Plain Dealer. We're not connected to the Akron Beacon Journal, or any other professional publication.

OMW is basically a hobby, as we've said more than once, without benefit of proofreaders or a large editorial staff. We are also free, like good things in life are supposed to be.

We also strive to be as accurate as possible. Please note: "as possible".

If we mess something up, tell us, and we'll fix it at our earliest convenience.

We're not responsible for making you "look bad" by posting our items, or items based on our items, in your newsroom. If you're not happy, please contact OMW's financial office for a full refund of every penny you've paid us.

And we wonder why we even do this...

SHE'S ALSO IN: Like a comfortable blanket on a chilly day (no, not a wet one), WNIR/100.1 morning co-host Maggie Fuller has indeed returned to the show she left in June, the station's morning drive show with Stan Piatt, Steve French and Jim Midock.

And though we don't check in with the WNIR morning crew a lot, we did catch a little of her return on Monday - and it's like she never left. That appeared to be a "good thing" for regular listeners and callers, who were welcoming her back.

Piatt himself welcomed back his once-and-again co-host on his website:

THE GANG IS BACK TOGETHER AGAIN!!!
WNIR Morning Show gang reunited

September 10, 2007

Pick your song:

Reunited - Peaches and Herb
Welcome Back - John Sebastian
Return to Sender - Elvis Presley

After 8 weeks away and multiple "replacement" trials, Maggie Fuller has returned to the WNIR Morning Show.

Maggie, it's great to have you right back where you belong!

OMW hears that at least one of the women who took part in those tryout shows, former Cleveland radio personality Sally Ride (WDOK/Metro Traffic/etc.), is still out there looking for on-air work...

AND IT'S FIXED: OMW reported a while back on a tip from Akron Beacon Journal sportswriter George M. Thomas, a long-time reader of This Space who told us that the new AT&T U-verse system did indeed carry the first week of the Big Ten Network - but not the Ohio State-Youngstown State opening contest.

AT&T's new cable TV competitor had apparently not made arrangements to carry BTN's "overflow" channel. While attempting to record OSU-YSU back home while he covered the game from Ohio Stadium, Mr. Thomas returned home to a DVR with the Michigan-Appalachian State upset instead of Buckeyes-Penguins.

The item George started here ended up finished in his own "Airing It Out" column, which has continued since he started as the Buckeyes beat reporter for the Beacon.

Mr. Thomas confirms something we heard in comments here: The "glitch" was fixed for AT&T U-verse subscribers (George is on a 30 day trial) last weekend, with the OSU-Akron Zips game and other non-primary BTN contests carried on "overflow" channels.

(And another "glitch" has been fixed by the folks at the ABJ's Ohio.com - the link to find George's writing now works! Until recently, it's been bringing up an empty page.)

AND WHILE WE'RE ON THE BTN: The new cable/satellite network's pitch to Big Ten fans hasn't diminished.

We continue to see the custom TV spot for Ohio, with Buckeyes coach Jim Tressel being a "company man", urging viewers to call the BTN toll-free number - where, if it's like the NFL Network, they likely get pitches to sign up for DirecTV and Dish Network. The latter satellite provider also just signed a pact with the Big Ten Network folks.

But, of course, Time Warner Cable hasn't - and that by far covers the largest chunk of Ohio cable subscribers.

Don't expect much change.

For one, the next Ohio State Game, the Big Ten opener with Northwestern on Saturday, will be on ESPN. Even if there are a lot of OSU fans clamoring to see that opener, it'll be on the nation's most widely available sports network - which has been carried on Time Warner Cable and its predecessors since nearly its inception.

Though it would seem possible that one or maybe two Ohio State games may end up being snatched by BTN - if the other networks pass them up - most of them will air on ABC or ESPN.

This, again, reminds of us of the NFL Network urging fans to call a toll-free number to "get" the network...when there weren't any games on the network's schedule at the time of the commercial's airing...

AND ONE FINAL NOTE: This is one that flew up the AllAccess Net News scroll the other day - so fast, that we missed it.

The popular trade website reported that Clear Channel rock WRQK/106.9 Canton, now officially in the company's hands, was one of the latest stations the company applied to put in the "Aloha Station Trust."

That's the resting place for stations Clear Channel is moving off its books, to pave the way for the eventual sale of the company (we THINK that's still in the works) to private equity funds.

"Rock 106.9", known for most of its life as "Rock 107", joins all of the Oak Tree-based Clear Channel Cleveland FMs in the list of stations "flipped" to the secretive trust.

The prevailing opinion in this corner, and among most folks we trust, opinion-wise, is that the move doesn't necessarily mean the stations are tabbed for exit from either Oak Tree or Freedom Avenue, the Jackson Township building now housing WRQK.

We'd still guess that this was a wide shot meant to reduce the overall bulk of Clear Channel, to speed along the deal for federal regulators. Then, we'd assume that the new CC ownership would "keep" as many stations as they could fit, ownership-limit-wise...give or take a new set of "eyes" deciding to cast aside assorted stations for other reasons.

From this vantage point, speculation that stations like WGAR, WMJI, WMMS, WMVX or WRQK are headed out of Clear Channel's domain at ANY point is premature. We'd take the bet that they don't even move one Prophet computer out of their current homes...

BREAKING NEWS: Schaefer Returns To Cleveland TV

It's an item we hinted about way back in mid-August (see last item), and it's about to come true. VERY soon.

OMW hears from reliable sources that former WEWS/5 "NewsChannel 5" anchor Stefani Schaefer is returning to Cleveland.

This time, though, she's landing a few blocks to the northeast of the local ABC affiliate - on South Marginal Road, as she'll be joining the WJW/8 "FOX 8 in the Morning" team. Or rather, "rejoining", as she was on the program before heading to 3001 Euclid in the late 1990's.

FOX 8 has teased her return with a "big announcement" scheduled for Wednesday morning at 8 AM on the show.

We had heard earlier that it was a battle between WJW and NBC affiliate WKYC/3 for Schaefer's services.

Schaefer left WEWS in 2006, after some seven years on the set, to join the startup for NBC-TV produced magazine show "iVillage Live".

The show was produced for NBC's owned-and-operated local stations, and since WKYC hasn't been owned by the network in many years, it never aired in Cleveland.

A recent shakeup in that show's production may have prompted Schaefer, known by her family nickname of "Sissy" on the show, to return to Northeast Ohio...