Out Of The Box Monday

Items have been piling up, almost literally, over the weekend...so, let's give them room to breathe free. But this update is so big, we'll have to split it into two...with more coming later today...

WRUW BACK: Case Western Reserve University's WRUW/91.1 Cleveland is back on the air again.

The non-comm station's website has details:

We were able to turn on our transmitter again just after 9:30 am on Friday, December 5, 2008, after almost two weeks off the air due to a fire at our transmitter site in East Cleveland.

The fire was on the lower floors of the building, so our equipment remained unscathed, but the building has been without power for about 10 days. Residents of the 27-story apartment building were able to begin moving back in earlier this week.

As we noted, that building was the same building featured on local TV newscasts for the past couple of weeks. When we looked into news reports of the fire's aftermath, it appeared that those who lived in floors above a certain level (like, the 10th floor) were allowed to return when power was restored, and of course, WRUW's facilities are up on the roof of the building...

CRAIG LIKES THE WORLDWIDE LEADER: It should be no surprise to anyone who follows sports radio either here in Northeast Ohio, or in Milwaukee.

But Good Karma Broadcasting boss Craig Karmazin finally gets to unite his Madison WI radio station with his favorite sports radio network, The Worldwide Leader In Sports(we're-pretty-sure-that's-a-tm), ESPN Radio.

Karmazin's WTLX/100.5 Monona WI, once an FM "hot talk" station and now a sports outlet, becomes "ESPN 100.5" in January - as the owner of Cleveland's "ESPN 850 WKNR" and "AM 1540, KNR2" takes the ESPN affiliation in the Madison market from its longtime affiliate there, crosstown Clear Channel sports WTSO/1070.

The station will mix ESPN hosts like "Mike & Mike", Colin Cowherd and Scott Van Pelt with its established simulcast of local host Steve "The Homer" True in afternoon drive. True is based at Karmazin's "540 ESPN" in Milwaukee. In Cleveland, "Mike & Mike" air on Good Karma's WKNR, with Cowherd and Van Pelt on "KNR2".

And like "KNR2", the Good Karma Madison market station on 100.5 is getting a signal upgrade. WTLX is moving from its home as a rimshot out of Columbus WI to a tower in the heart of the Madison market...an upgrade Karmazin expects to be complete when the ESPN Radio affiliation starts.

Here, by the way, at last check, WWGK/1540 - the radio artist known as "KNR2" - is still broadcasting its 1,000 watt daytime-only signal from a tower next to a church and a drug store at 80th and Euclid Avenue on Cleveland's East Side, the transmitting equipment in a temporary trailer setup. (We took a quick ride on RTA's new "HealthLine" bus rapid transit system to get a look.)

"KNR2" is destined for a new 3,500 watt (still only) daytime signal diplexed with big brother WKNR at the station's transmitter site in North Royalton, but a quick radio signal check the other day confirms that they aren't there, yet...

RE-CLIPPED: A Columbus radio station is about to start another run as the flagship station of the AAA Columbus Clippers minor league baseball team.

If you guessed that the Central Ohio entrant in the International League will return to North American Broadcasting standards WMNI/920, you are correct.

Friday, the team and station announced a new five-year deal that will put every Clippers game on WMNI, starting with this season's debut at the new Huntington Park ballpark in downtown Columbus' Arena District.

Quoting the release:

The partnership will include all 144 regular season Clippers games, the broadcast of the annual Triple-A All Star Game, all post season games and the Triple-A Championship Game known as the "Bricktown Showdown."

WMNI stepped in to carry Clippers games back in 2006, when former Clippers flagship WVKO/1580 went off the air in that mess between former owner Stop 26-Riverbend Productions and current owner Bernard Radio.

Bernard Radio took the station off the air after taking over the management of it, due to a lost transmitter site lease...and eventually returned WVKO to the air from a new transmitter site near an apartment complex on Morse Road.

But WMNI only ran a package of weekend games ("Weekend with the Clippers") in both 2006 and again later in 2007.

The Clippers' games then returned to WVKO, by then a liberal talk station operated in an LMA by Gary Richards' Cowtown Communications, for the full 2008 season.

(A Columbus Dispatch article on the Clippers/WMNI signing doesn't even mention WVKO by name or frequency, only calling it "the team's radio affiliate" that went off the air in 2006.)

Both the article and release note that WMNI has history carrying Columbus baseball games even before it stepped in to air the weekend games a couple of years ago...the station was the flagship of the old Columbus Jets team in the 1960's.

The team says broadcaster Scott Leo returns for 2008, and the Dispatch also reports that the games will be made available on the Internet.

After getting Rodney Dangerfield-style non-respect the past few years, the Clippers are becoming a hot ticket in Central Ohio...with the move to the new ballpark, and with the recently announced four-year development deal that makes the Cleveland Indians the team's new parent club...

AND SPEAKING OF WVKO: Despite a number of issues, the aforementioned WVKO/1580 has made it through its first year as a liberal talk outlet.

WVKO hit the airwaves on December 3, 2007, offering a lineup of syndicated progressive talk fare once heard in the market on Clear Channel's WTPG/1230, which is now WYTS "Your Talk Station"...featuring a decidedly non-liberal lineup.

Since then, WVKO has added local talk, including a weekday afternoon show now hosted by Dr. Bob Fitrakis ("Fight Back"), along with some local weekend shows ("Blue State Diner", etc.).

It hasn't been an easy year for Mr. Richards and company.

After enduring brickbats from, well, certain media blogs about a lack of satellite delivery for its syndicated programming and poor audio quality, WVKO hung in there...even while Mr. Richards and company expressed serious concern before the November election that left-leaning political candidates didn't feel they "needed" to advertise to the audiences that would "already vote for them".

And the station is still asking listeners for contributions, selling T-shirts and magnets online (with free bumperstickers and window clings), and looking for "progressive minded" sales people to help jumpstart commercial sales.

(Of course, the problem of selling commercials is not at all limited to any one station in the current economy. And really, what WVKO needs more than "progressive minded" sales people is "aggressive minded" sales people, but that's another matter.)

After all of that, and in the middle of a breathtaking economic downturn, the station is still around to hold a shindig celebrating its first anniversary.

It'll be held Tuesday night at Studio 35 Cinema in Columbus. The evening features a special movie double-feature aimed right at WVKO listeners' political sweet spots - "Religulous" by Bill Maher at 7 PM, followed by Oliver Stone's "W." at 9 PM.

Doors will open at 6 PM, and the station says admission is free.

Now, we have a touchy history with WVKO.

When we first brought up the bad-sounding Internet-fed audio, we tweaked them here pretty good, which led a mini-army of WVKO supporters, staffers and those associated with the station to go after us on the station's message board...saying we were, let's see if we can remember, "right-wingers enjoying the station's troubles".

No, we are media professionals, who were calling out a top 40 market radio station for sounding like it was an Internet audio feed with an AM transmitter, that audio delivered by an unequalized phone line. (That's all been fixed, as far as we know, and has been for some time.)

Politics had absolutely nothing to do with it. And remember, we're big fans of one of WVKO's most prominent national hosts, Dial Global's Stephanie Miller.

Since then, it's also become quite apparent to us that WVKO is, as has been put, a "below shoestring" operation...basically, it's Mr. Richards' one-man band with assorted help from some others.

We're big fans of "the little guy" trying to make a go of it in a complex, big company-owned media world...especially one that puts his own financial livelihood on the line, literally putting his money where his (radio) mouth, er, microphone, is.

So, here's hoping that WVKO actually hangs in there through what'll be a very difficult time for all media outlets in this country.

The station operates in a niche, to be sure. It's never going to give Clear Channel talk powerhouse WTVN/610 any indigestion, and it's a high-band, modestly powered AM station.

But maybe WVKO's very vocal and active supporters and listeners can help 1580's current operation make it to its second anniversary...

ZANESVILLE CHANGES: An OMW reader reports that Zanesville hot AC WHIZ-FM/102.5 "Z102" has ended its long run on the frequency, as WHIZ Media Group prepares to move 102.5 to the Columbus ex-urb of Baltimore OH, presumably to sell it to a new owner at some point.

Our listener tells us that 102.5 is still on the air, from what sounds like its Zanesville transmitter facility, but running a crudely-put-together presumably automated country music format as "Highway 102.5".

We have no other confirmation, other than our reader's report.

But WHIZ has been simulcasting its FM side for some weeks now on WCVZ/92.7 South Zanesville, the former "92.7 the River" that WHIZ's Southeast Ohio Broadcasting System is in the process of buying from Christian Voice of Central Ohio.

CVCO launched WZNP/89.3 Newark "89.3 The Promise" to nominally replace the 92.7 "River" CCM format in the region. CVCO, of course, owns the "River" mothership in the Columbus market - WCVO/104.9 Gahanna.

A quick check of the WHIZ website shows that they've even kept the WCVZ calls for the FM side, at least online, and the FM's page now identifies it solely as "WCVZ Z92.7", complete with the new logo pictured at right.

So, even though we can't hear the country music said to be wafting over the airwaves on WHIZ-FM's former home at 102.5, it sure looks like the WHIZ Media Group folks have "closed the books" on that frequency - with just some automated country music meant to keep the frequency warm, but also meant to make sure "Z102" listeners made the move to 92.7 permanently...

Wrapping Up December's First Week

UPDATE 10:29 PM 12/5/08: Umm, oops.

Our apologies to Akron Beacon Journal popular culture writer and OMW reader Rich Heldenfels, for posting this item without yet reading his detailed story on the WKYC changes in Friday's paper.

Rich's item even contains some of the information we listed as "not confirmed 100%" below, including the weekend anchor moves involving Jeff Maynor and Kim Wheeler. We guess "not confirmed" meant "we hadn't read the Beacon yet" in this case.

Since we're pretty sure Rich reads here, our apologies again.

Regular readers will tell you that it's not the first time we've overlooked a newspaper story on a media item. We apologize pretty well around these parts, and we always try to give proper credit for items that appear elsewhere first. When, well, we're aware they're out there.

Anyway, the Heldenfels piece also answers a question we had - as WKYC news director Rita Andolsen says the station's Akron bureau at Main and Market won't see a permanent bureau chief after Eric Mansfield moves his work desk north, and moves into the 7 PM anchor slot.

But Andolsen tells Heldenfels, as Eric has also said himself, that the soon-to-be-former Akron bureau chief is hanging onto his Akron/Canton area contacts, and will still be working on stories in the area - even if his overall beat expands to the entire Northeast Ohio region.

In an update not contained in the Rich Heldenfels story, Mansfield noted on Friday's edition of Western Reserve PBS' "NewsNight Akron" that he'll remain as anchor of that weekly Akron-based news discussion program (Fridays at 9 PM on WNEO/45-WEAO/49)...now based next to what will soon be his "old desk" at WKYC's Akron bureau.

And if he's working on an Akron-based story on a Friday, he can use the facilities WKYC still has at the United Building to work on the story...before turning to the other side to host "NNA", though having to be in Cleveland at 7 PM will certainly affect the taping schedule for the Western Reserve PBS show.

Andolsen says the station will maintain its Akron bureau facilities, in what's now a combined facility for WKYC, Western Reserve PBS and NPR affiliate WKSU/89.7.

Our original item is below...and again, congratulations to Eric on a well-deserved move up!

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We'd call it a "Friday Clear Out", though right now we're not sure if this will be our final item of the week. Read on, anyway...

MORE WKYC MOVES: Yesterday's announced changes at Gannett Cleveland NBC affiliate WKYC/3 aren't the only changes in store at 13th and Lakeside. (And really, in the current environment, we don't think we can close that "change" book for ANY broadcast outlet.)

We have not confirmed these moves, but OMW hears that WKYC is apparently splitting up the weekend morning anchor team of Jeff Maynor and Kim Wheeler, with Maynor heading for the weekend evening newscasts, and Wheeler staying behind in mornings - both anchoring solo.

And as a result, it sounds like recently installed weekend anchor Chris Tye returns to a 5-day-a-week weekday reporting slot.

We caution again - we haven't confirmed this 100%, but our sources are good. And the moves seem reasonable when you read the language attached to Romona Robinson being named the solo anchor of the 6 PM and 11 PM weekday shows after Tim White's departure.

We'll quote (again) from an item we linked yesterday, from our friend Frank Macek's "Director's Cut" blog:

"...as newsrooms across the nation begin shifting away from traditional two anchor teams for their newscasts."

With Romona "going solo" in weekdays, it makes less sense to have dual anchors on weekends.

Of course, with the appointment of Eric Mansfield and Carole Sullivan as 7 PM anchors, that'll be one time slot with two anchors...but the 7 PM show is a little different, and has no news competition in the market. Oh, and WKYC has no 5 PM show. (Sorry, "Dr. Phil" fans...we're not. Fans of "Dr. Phil", that is...)

And as far as we know, Mark Nolan and Abby Ham continue as a team on WKYC's morning show. But again, that's a different kind of show...we don't expect to see any solo-anchored weekday morning news shows anywhere, at least in any large market...

DIGITAL TV SOFT TEST: We've been railing about this for so long, we're wondering if they did it just to shut us up.

The Ohio Association of Broadcasters has lined up TV stations statewide for an analog shutoff "soft test", on December 17th from 7:30-7:35 PM, two months before the "real thing". Stations will air a five minute interruption alerting analog viewers that they need to take action before February 17th to avoid losing their signal.

Cincinnati Enquirer TV/radio guru John Kiesewetter has more in his blog. (We can't get the link to work in Firefox 3.0, so either use Internet Explorer or another browser if you're in the same boat...or use the "Blogs and Forums" > "Entertainment Blogs" menu to get to Kiese on that junk-laden, piece of crap website.)

We're just guessing here, but it could look similar to this video (YouTube) from the Washington DC market. We've seen the exact same video airing in at least one other market, and we believe it's probably being given to local TV stations by the NAB or some other trade group to use in this testing.

But viewers in Ohio's TV markets will also be directed to a local phone bank if they have any questions about the transition.

In Cleveland, we hear the phone bank will be hosted at ideaStream PBS affiliate WVIZ/25...an oddity, when you consider that WVIZ's temporary digital signal can be seen (without cable) by roughly a few thousand lucky souls in southern Cuyahoga County...

A "FREQY" CHANGE, PART 2: We told you earlier about the format change at Beacon Broadcasting gospel WRTK/1540 Niles, the Mahoning Valley station now pumping out its own Christmas music instead of the usual satellite-fed "Rejoice - Musical Soul Food".

We have some more details on the flip, thanks to the station's minimal, but newly established web site. Quoting:

. . .Coming Soon . . . Freq1540 AM will be playing Christmas music from November 27 (Thanksgiving Day) through January 4, 2009!

Then January 5 the all-new Freq1540 will be released!

With a new logo - with the legend "Reaching The Kingdom" - we'll take a guess...and this is only a guess...that on January 5th, Beacon will simulcast the original "Freq" in the 5-station chain straddling the Ohio/Pennsylvania border, WEXC/107.1 Greenville PA "Freq 107".

Christian rock music on an AM daytimer, to extend the FM's range? Why not?

Beacon certainly has a history of shuffling around formats and simulcasts, sometimes in head-scratching ways. Remember early in the Beacon days, when the pre-Beacon "Wexy 107" oldies format was fully moved to new AM WLOA/1470 Farrell PA, complete with the "Wexy 107" name?

Or, they could mount a more adult skewing CCM-ish format to complement 107.1. Again, at this point, we are just guessing.

The "Freq 1540" website promises "Listen Live 24/7", but we see no link to a webcast.

So, we took the existing WANR streaming audio URL, changed the call letters to "WRTK", and there it is...

The "Freq 1540" Windows Media stream.

Enjoy!

BYE, BYE, BILL: As hinted earlier, rumors become reality.

Popular FOX News Channel host Bill O'Reilly is going to only have one "Factor" soon, his TV "O'Reilly Factor"...as O'Reilly and Westwood One confirm the end of his two-hour weekday syndicated "Radio Factor" is near.

The show will end, says troubled Westwood One, "in the first quarter of 2009".

O'Reilly tells the New York Post's David Hinckley:

"The media business is getting more and more intense," O'Reilly said Thursday. "We've got to keep the TV show at the level we have it now, and that means more and more time to keep it competitive and fresh. I've been working 60, 65 hours a week and I just can't keep doing that."

OK, so O'Reilly just signed a new multi-million dollar, multi-year deal with FOX for his TV show, with more work ahead.

But it's no secret in the radio business that the FNC host, on radio, basically failed to do what he first set out to do - provide a serious challenge to the early afternoon time slot's entrenched superstar, Premiere's Rush Limbaugh. Quoting the New York Post again:

"I knew my show couldn't be ideological," he said. "Going up against [Rush] Limbaugh, that would be suicidal. Why would a listener who's already got Rush turn to someone else to hear the same things?

"So I was doing a show that was fact-based. It was more news/talk. And we were very competitive. In some cities, like Boston and St. Louis, we beat Limbaugh outright."

Umm, OK. And in some cities, like New York City, O'Reilly got his lunch handed to him again and again. He was tape delayed into afternoon drive in the Big Apple on 50,000 watt WOR/710, where ABC Radio/Premiere's Sean Hannity beat him like a rag doll.

WOR isn't waiting for O'Reilly to turn off the "Radio Factor" microphones. The station recently announced a number of schedule changes, including the addition of Premiere's Glenn Beck and United Stations' Lou Dobbs.

That, radio wise, translates to something like: "he's giving it up, right? Right? We can change the schedule now, right?".

Here in Northeast Ohio, O'Reilly is not even remotely a factor. He counts a clearance on Spirit Media talk/variety WELW/1330 Willoughby as his Cleveland market affiliate, and Media-Com talk WNIR/100.1 in the Akron market runs "The Radio Factor" on delay late on weekend evenings.

(And while checking the WNIR schedule, we see that no, WNIR's long-rumored web site upgrade is still not live. We're wondering the Internet, as we know it, will still exist by the time it goes up. We'll probably be in the year 2020 with "Internet 15.0 3-D", and WNIR will finally get its "Web 2.0" site up with streaming mono audio...)

WBQC-US: Another case where we wonder if this ran because of us.

Thanksgiving weekend, we noted that a name change for Cincinnati LPTV/Class A outlet WBQC-CA/38 to "WKRP" made the national news, and was a dependable item on national radio newscasts all day on Saturday.

We also noted that from here, at least, it appears that - despite an Associated Press story on the name change - that WBQC-CA did not "change its call letters" to any form of the moniker made famous by the late 70's/early 80's sitcom "WKRP in Cincinnati". (We're pretty sure Jennifer could have handled that up at the front desk, if it was a problem.)

As it turns out, the news that "WKRP Cincinnati" existed only as a branding identifier and a trademark - not call letters - made it to the AP wire, with this correction:

The station refers to itself as WKRP, reminiscent of the 1970s hit television show "WKRP in Cincinnati," and changed its trademark to WKRP Cincinnati but did not change its call letters, said Elliott Block, general manager.

If the Cincinnati Enquirer's John Kiesewetter made the correction to his original story on the name change, we can't find it in that aforementioned junk-laden piece of crap that masquerades as the Enquirer's web site. (It's enough to drive you into the arms of the Cleveland Plain Dealer's Cleveland.com and ITS junk-laden website, and that's saying a LOT...)

Replacing Tim, Adding Eric and Carole

OK, so now it can be told.

Gannett NBC affiliate WKYC/3 Cleveland has come up with its plan for replacing news anchor Tim White, who was unable to reach a contract renewal agreement to remain as co-anchor alongside Romona Robinson. White's last day at WKYC will be one week from Friday, on December 12th.

Tim's replacement on "Channel 3 News" at 6 PM and 11 PM weekdays starting Monday, December 15th is pictured here:





No, that's not a broken picture link.

Co-anchoring WKYC's 6 and 11 PM weekday shows with Robinson after White leaves the anchor desk will be - no one.

Get out your Channel 3 News anchor guide, and where it says "Romona Robinson and Tim White", use the white-out to cover up everything starting with "and". (Don't do it on your screen. It'll leave a mark.)

Robinson will be the sole anchor of those programs. Romona will, of course, continue to be joined by sports anchor Jim Donovan, weather anchor Betsy Kling, or whoever else is filling in for them. Plus, of course, the reporters doing live shots from either the studio or from the field.

But there will be no second news anchor on those 6 PM and 11 PM shows...when it comes to news, she'll be solo at the anchor desk. (For out of towners, there is no 5 PM edition of "Channel 3 News", when the incredibly annoying "Dr. Phil" picks up viewers who don't share our tastes in TV programming.)

That's not to say there aren't other people involved in Channel 3 News' moves today, and two of those people get a weekday showcase.

In addition to confirming Romona's solo anchoring at 6 and 11, WKYC senior director and "Director's Cut" blogger Frank Macek notes big changes on the station's 7 PM newscast.

Romona will get the 7 PM edition of "Channel 3 News" off, as WKYC Akron Bureau chief Eric Mansfield will be teamed with reporter Carole Sullivan to anchor that half-hour news program.

Macek writes:

(Eric and Carole) will bring a fresh new approach to our 7 pm newscast while Channel 3 News Anchor Romona Robinson will handle the 6 & 11 pm broadcasts as newsrooms across the nation begin shifting away from traditional two anchor teams for their newscasts.

While times are difficult, we look forward to the new challenges that our business has to offer and the opportunity this presents us in television to re-invent ourselves.

Mansfield himself has more on his move on his "Have I Got News For You!" blog, after 15 years covering news out of Akron for WKYC.

Though he says the change means a "move up north" to Cleveland, workplace-wise, he says he isn't letting go of Akron, and still has some Summit County based stories working:

Akron's my home .. so I'm not moving either .. but the opportunity to cover more of Northeast Ohio is one I welcome. This truly is the best place in the world to live.

Eric reminds us in the item that he has known his new 7 PM co-anchor for a long time, as the pair worked together at the old WAKC/23 news operation:

Carole and I go back 15+ years to "23 News" on WAKC, and I couldn't ask for a better partner. I like to call her the "TV sister I never knew I wanted" because I grew up with two brothers .. and never realized how great it can be to share laughs with a "girl" of all things.

In all seriousness, we're both committed to making the new 7 p.m. newscast a top-notch broadcast; we've got some creative ideas so come along for the ride.

OMW hears that in addition to co-anchoring the 7 PM show, Eric will also be available to co-anchor with Romona Robinson - in the event breaking news calls for an extra anchor at 6.

But in general, it sounds like this move puts Mansfield into the mix as a Cleveland-based reporter during the day, which brings up another question - if that assumption is correct, who replaces him in the Akron bureau at Main and Market?

That's one piece of information we don't have...

Waiting For Shoes To Drop

This is an item filled with mostly some random items, much of the content from outside the immediate Cleveland/Akron/Canton area.

But as they say, "stay tuned".

The rumblings surrounding pending major moves at one local TV news operation are very loud...so loud you could probably hear them while standing on, oh, just to pick a street totally out of random, Lakeside Avenue in downtown Cleveland.

What we're hearing will probably surprise you, and not just because of any names involved, or for that matter, not involved.

We're thisclose to nailing down all the details, which are bouncing around the rumor mill at all the other local TV newsrooms as well. We expect to have details later today.

Meanwhile...elsewhere...

FIRED OUT: We don't know how we missed this, but a local non-commercial radio station has been knocked off the air. And this time, no digitized pictures are involved.

An OMW reader passes word that Case Western Reserve University's station, WRUW/91.1 Cleveland, has been silenced over the air - offering its programming only via Internet stream - since a high-profile fire at its transmitter site.

From WRUW.org:

The station's transmitter is located on top of an apartment building in East Cleveland. Around 12:00 noon on Saturday, November 22, an electrical fire broke out on the sixth floor of the building, forcing evacuation of over 400 residents of the 27-story building. There appears to be smoke and water damage to the building.

The staff of WRUW hopes to resume normal over-the-air broadcasts when power is restored to the building. At the present time, it is unknown how long until we can turn our transmitter back on.

And yes, as far as we know, that's the same apartment building fire that has been featured on local TV newscasts the past few days - unless there's another 27 story apartment high-rise in East Cleveland that also caught on fire recently.

We don't know if WRUW's signal has returned yet (we aren't currently within its signal range), even though some residents may be back in their apartments.

But, we got the idea from a brief TV news report that the power situation may not be permanently resolved, and we'll assume WRUW won't be able to return to the air until things are no longer temporary.

In the meantime, the CWRU station continues uninterrupted online, via its 56Kbps and 128Kbps Internet streaming audio feed...

A "FREQY" CHRISTMAS: Here's a surprise entrant for your Ohio Christmas Music Stations list.

It's Beacon Broadcasting WRTK/1540 Niles, the long-time gospel daytimer now under the control of the Glunt World Broadcasting Empire. (For those who haven't kept track, "Glunt" is Harold Glunt, the steel supply company magnate who took over Beacon Broadcasting's five Mahoning/Shenango Valley stations some time back.)

OMW hears that WRTK recently dumped the "Rejoice - Musical Soul Food" satellite gospel format (formerly an ABC Radio Networks product, now on its own), and is now playing a curious mix of pop Christmas tunes and occasional Christmas music from the R&B music world.

An OMW reader also tells us that the WRTK Christmas music is being promoted over on WRTK's sister classic hits station, Warren's WANR/1570.

The header for this sub-item is no joke, as the Christmas music format is being promoted as "Freq 1540". "Freq" is an abbreviation for "Frequency" (not "Freak"), we assume, as Beacon uses it as the station name for sister Christian rocker WEXC/107.1 Greenville PA ("Freq 107").

At this point, we have no word what'll happen on the Mahoning Valley's 1540 after, well, the last hall is decked and after Santa's sleigh pulls away from Niles for good.

If we had to bet, we'd put $10 on a return of "Rejoice - Musical Soul Food" after the 25th...

SALE DONE: A radio station sale in western Ohio is on the books.

Blanchard River Broadcasting reports the closing of its purchase of former Clear Channel station WBUK/106.3 Ottawa, which has most recently been carrying Clear Channel's "Fox" classic rock format.

WBUK's call letters come from its previous incarnation as oldies "106.3 The Big Buck" in Clear Channel's Lima market cluster. When the company decided to keep the "Fox" format after selling WPFX/107.7 North Baltimore to BAS Broadcasting, it moved the rock to 106.3. (BAS, of course, later flipped WPFX to Dan Dudley's "Toledo Radio", and 107.7 is still silent as the new owners seek a new facility to house it.)

But Clear Channel knew the Fox-to-106.3 move would be temporary, as WBUK was one of the very first small market stations it tabbed to be sold. WBUK was actually transferred into the Aloha Station Trust holding company, where Blanchard River picked it up for a reported $500,000.

Whatever Blanchard River does with WBUK, it'll be likely aimed at Findlay. The station just southeast of Ottawa is roughly an equal rimshot to both Findlay and Lima, but Blanchard River is the radio arm of Findlay Publishing.

In addition to owning the daily newspaper in Findlay (the "Findlay Courier"), the Findlay Publishing/Blanchard River folks also already own the city's two main radio stations - talk WFIN/1330 and rock WKXA/100.5...

A Packed Wednesday

This one's full of both radio and TV items, news updates and enough to make us want to charge you for it. Hey, a Primary Editorial Voice(tm)'s gotta eat somehow.

But alas, fortunately for you, OMW is free, as always...

MORE 92.3 FALLOUT: It's not really a format change, per se...just a deeper playlist and a more shallow staff list. But we're still picking out the details from the changes of the newly revamped CBS Radio alt-rocker WKRK/92.3, now known as "Radio 92.3".

As befitting the bare bones name (a la the Clear Channel "Radio" rockers in the Columbus and Cincinnati markets), 92.3's new on-air voice is doing sort of an alt-rock version of the voice of the adult hits "JACK FM"' format.

We've heard the voice assure listeners that unlike other stations, "Radio 92.3" won't talk over song intros and outros. The "JACK FM" attitude isn't QUITE there...it's more of a "sit back and listen to the music" thing, with no "hype". (Isn't a "too cool for the room" FM station with a stylized logo a bit of "hype" on its own? Just wondering.)

Anyway, OMW has confirmed that yes, the weekend specialty local music show "The Inner Sanctum" will continue to be heard on 92.3, which has been its home since it lost alt-rocker "The End" (WENZ/107.9) when it changed to hip-hop "Z107.9" a few years ago.

We hear the composition of the show hasn't changed, with Pat The Producer, Jim Benson and Matt Wardlaw still aboard...and some new things are in the works.

As for "Radio 92.3", we wouldn't have minded a brief format stunt of playing TV theme songs, something Clear Channel Columbus market rocker WRXS/106.9 Dublin did before it started its new format - using the moniker "Television 106.9".

(That's a nod to OMW reader - we think he still is, though we've definitely been off his Christmas Card list - John Crenshaw, CC's Columbus operations manager...)

WHILE WE'RE AT CBS CLEVELAND: OMW can also confirm that classic rock WNCX/98.5's morning drive show has officially slimmed to two hosts - Scott Miller and Mike Olszewski.

We're hearing from inside the station that the show's third host, Kim Mihalik, is no longer with WNCX. The reason? She's a victim of what we'd call, if it weren't for the general state of the economy and the media business, "CBS Radio Disease".

Yes, Mihalik is out due to CBS Radio budget cuts.

A quick look at the AllAccess "Net News" scroll shows she's among dozens the company has released nationwide just in the past few weeks due to the chain slimming staff sizes pretty much everywhere.

Among the latest moves - "major staff changes" at the New York City "K-Rock" sister station to our local 92.3, WXRK/92.3. The Cleveland market station carried those calls during the New York station's run as "Free FM" talk WFNY, before becoming WKRI, and eventually, taking the WKRK calls from Detroit's former "Free FM" talker, now sports WXYT-FM.

CBS Radio is obviously not alone in sending a lot of people to radio's beach, which isn't feeling very playful these days. But the company's size and reach makes the list larger...a list that Clear Channel employees, for example, hope won't be duplicated on their side of the ledger in this current economic environment.

Mihalik joined the WNCX Morning Show at its start, first co-hosting a program also known as "Mud, Mihalik and Mike"...the local replacement after CBS Radio canned former "Van Halen" frontman David Lee Roth's attempt to replace Howard Stern. (Of course, one of the other Stern replacements was Shane "Rover" French, who, well, eventually left 92.3 for Clear Channel and WMMS/100.7.)

"Mud" was the artist formerly known as Wynn Richards ("M105", WGAR/1220)...who was replaced a while back by former WDOK/102.1 "Soft Rock 102.1" programmer Scott Miller.

And Mihalik is remembered, of course, from her long stint as Clear Channel talk WTAM/1100's afternoon co-host alongside Mike Trivisonno...

SPEAKING OF JOB CUTS: A former Northeast Ohio sportscaster and radio personality was recently the victim of one, and you know it's bad in radio when someone like Lee "Hacksaw" Hamilton has to actively announce his availability.

But yes, he did, via AllAccess:

Sports talk radio veteran LEE "HACKSAW" HAMILTON is available now for fill-ins and auditions for the holidays and beyond (and full-time as well).

The 22 year vet of sports radio has been doing some work lately appearing on SIRIUS XM RADIO's MAD DOG SPORTS channel and on XM's HOME PLATE baseball talk channel, and has been filling in at FOX SPORTS RADIO and at NPR affiliate KPBS-F/SAN DIEGO.

His resume includes a long run on the various incarnations of XTRA SPORTS in SAN DIEGO (on XETRA-A and, most recently, KLSD-A, where he was caught in the recent CLEAR CHANNEL budget cutting) and on KLAC-A/LOS ANGELES.

It's been a long time since Hamilton was here in Northeast Ohio, where he did play-by-play for the World Hockey Association's Cleveland Crusaders (via then-WWWE/1100 "3WE", today's Clear Channel talk WTAM), and also did a regular weeknight sports talk show in the mid-1970's on Akron's WHLO/640 "News/Talk 64", then owned by Susquehanna (today, a company that is now part of Cumulus).

WHLO went from talk to all news to middle of the road music before being sold to religious operator Mortenson, then to Salem...it, of course, is a talk station today under Clear Channel's ownership.

After a stint in Phoenix, "Hacksaw" landed in Southern California...with the very extensive resume listed above - and some stuff not listed, including some NFL play-by-play experience.

It was thought he would be joining Sirius XM's "Mad Dog Sports" channel on a full-time basis, but that apparently never came to fruition aside from some of the fill-ins mentioned above.

"Mad Dog Sports" is the channel featuring former WFAN/660 New York City sports talker Christopher Russo, best known as for his long stint as "Mad Dog" of the station's "Mike and the Mad Dog" afternoon drive show.

Anyway, it's a symptom of the state of the radio industry that a "name" veteran like Lee Hamilton has to go out and actively solicit fill-in or full-time gigs...

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, BILL DRAKE: Tributes have been pouring out from all over the radio industry about the man who could basically be called the architect of top 40 radio in the late 1960's and 1970's, Bill Drake.

The Associated Press reports that Drake died over the weekend at age 71.

Local media consultant and former WMMS program director John Gorman weighs in on his Gorman Media Blog:

The secret to Bill Drake’s format was that it wasn’t complex. It was, quite unmistakably, logical. Play the hits in a structured format that refined one’s air personality. The fewer words one uses makes each word more important. He perfected top 40’s forward motion.

Anyone with any involvement in radio, or any knowledge of that time frame, knows that Drake crafted and cared for a number of stations with tight-sounding, high-energy top 40 formats that made the music, well, "sing"....not to mention making both the station and on-air personality seem "larger than life".

He was the creator of the "Boss Radio" concept, mostly used out west (the air personalities were "Boss Jocks" out there), but his influence on top 40 radio spread coast to coast.

It never directly spread to Cleveland, but it had a major influence here in Northeast Ohio anyway.

Top 40 here was exemplified by stations like WIXY/1260, but the region was well within earshot of a Drake-consulted powerhouse - CKLW/800 "The Big 8", booming its 50,000 watts across much of the eastern U.S. from just across the river from Detroit, in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. The open waters of Lake Erie delivered the CKLW signal like an express train right into much of Northern Ohio.

CKLW is nowhere near its "Big 8" days now, as a local talk station targeting listeners only in Canada, if you don't count a stray American fan of Dr. Joy Browne, Clark Howard or George Noory, U.S. syndicated talkers heard in today's "AM 800" lineup.

But the success the station had this far south and east of Windsor/Detroit in its top 40 music days was immense. Former CKLW staffer Steve Hunter talks about it in an article on the "Classic CKLW" web site:

One of the most important and unique facts about CKLW: for a long, relatively uninterrupted time in the late 1960's and early 1970's, the Big 8 was not only #1 in the ratings in Detroit, but also #1 or, occasionally, just below #1, in Cleveland and Toledo and Akron/Canton. This was practically unheard-of at the time, even in the days of powerhouse AM rockers, and drew a LOT of attention to CKLW from other programmers, bringing even more renown to Bill Drake.

It brought a lengthy Cleveland career to one Larry Morrow, who was doing nights on CKLW as "Duke Windsor". WIXY/1260's Norman Wain lured him to Cleveland after seeing his CKLW nighttime show top the ratings here from its home base far from Northeast Ohio.

Apparently, Larry Morrow wasn't the only evening air personality Wain imported from "The Big 8" - the Steve Hunter article linked above says he made the same move - CKLW to WIXY - as well.

As such, Bill Drake's influence was felt both directly and indirectly in Cleveland radio - even if he never set foot in Northeast Ohio...

Tim Kelly To Envision

We have details on the new destination for Elyria-Lorain Broadcasting's operations director and Sandusky market manager Tim Kelly, who announced his resignation from the Elyria-based broadcaster Monday.

Kelly moves to a management role at Beachwood-based Envision Radio Networks, where he takes a new post as vice president and general manager at the growing local radio syndication firm.

More on the move in a press release from the Envision folks, reprinted below:

-----------

ENVISION RADIO NETWORKS ANNOUNCES NEW VICE PRESIDENT/GENERAL MANAGER
Tim Kelly Joins ERN Team

(DECEMBER 2008) – Envision Radio Networks welcomes longtime Cleveland radio fixture Tim Kelly who joins the company in the newly created position of Vice President/General Manager. Kelly will begin his new duties on Wednesday, December 17th and will be based at Envision Radio Networks new Cleveland headquarters.

“We are thrilled to have Tim join our growing company,” says Envision Radio Networks COO Laura Orkin. “He brings a wealth of sales and operations experience to our expanding business.” Orkin continues, “Tim will oversee our affiliate sales team as well as manage additional operational initiatives debuting in 2009.”

Tim Kelly joins Envision Radio Networks after spending the last 13 years with the Elyria-Lorain Broadcasting Company where he was most recently Corporate Director of Operations and Market Manager for their Sandusky, Ohio cluster.

He continues his work as Chairman of the Board of Directors for The Conclave Learning Conference, where he has been involved with the organization for over 10 years.

Kelly studied at Capital University and Ashland University where he majored in Radio/Television Production and Performance. He also later obtained certification in financial management from Case Western Reserve University. Kelly lives in Huron, OH with his wife Kelly and their two dogs Bennie and Bert.

More Print Cuts

The Internet rumors we hinted about in Monday's update have, unfortunately, become reality at the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

WKYC/3 is reporting today that 50 Plain Dealer staffers are exiting the state's largest daily newspaper, in the latest round of job cuts at the Advance/Newhouse owned paper.

WKYC's Tom Beres reports that 27 PD newsroom staffers got the word via phone this morning that they were being laid off, and that another 23 workers have accepted a buyout from the paper.

Beres notes that the PD staff is "about a third smailler" since the series of layoffs and buyouts began some years ago.

So far, there's no word of any names of employees who have either taken buyouts, or been laid off.

But given the state of both the economy and the newspaper business, these Plain Dealer job cuts are not likely to be the last ones...

Radio Changes, The Tuesday Edition

When there's change or upheaval at a radio station or cluster, it often takes a while to figure out who's still around...and who's not.

So, let's try to figure out the situation at CBS Radio alt-rock WKRK/92.3, which just tweaked its music format and dumped its on-air personalities - including syndicated morning drive talk fest "Opie and Anthony" - on Monday.

Apparently still in the building, if not on the air, is program director Dom "Nard" Nardella, who describes the new "Radio 92.3" format to AllAccess:

"RADIO 92.3 is an evolution of the music that we played on K-ROCK. There's more depth on the station now as we've added titles from COLDPLAY, GREEN DAY, DAVE MATTHEWS, THE POLICE and many more. We're giving our listeners more of what they've been asking for...more music!"

And no air personalities, as "Nard" confirms that O&A and the rest of the WKRK air staff have been sidelined...the station now features "significantly less talk".

OMW hears that at least one "K-Rock" element could be retained in the "Radio 92.3" era: weekend specialty local music show "The Inner Sanctum", which landed at the station in 2006 after a run on the old "End" alternative format on what's now Radio One hip-hop WENZ/107.9. It's sounding to us like "Inner Sanctum" will continue after the changes at 92.3.

Semi-related, as it's in the CBS Radio cluster - an OMW reader points out to us that the web page for classic rock WNCX/98.5's morning drive show now only features co-hosts Scott Miller and Mike Olszewski...with the third "M" on the show, Kim Mihalik, no longer pictured or mentioned. We're checking into it.

And not related at all, but a radio change - OMW hears that Elyria-Lorain Broadcasting operations director/Sandusky market manager Tim Kelly has submitted his resignation after a 13 year run with the company. We hear that he's heading for a well-known Cleveland-based radio-related company, but are checking on the details on this one as well.

Kelly has most recently been ELB's operations director, along with his direct oversight of the company's stations in the Sandusky area: country WKFM/96.1 Huron "K96", along with AAA WLKR-FM/95.3 and sports WLKR/1510 Norwalk. ELB also owns Cleveland market smooth jazz mainstay WNWV/107.3 "The Wave" and talk WEOL/930 Elyria...

They Own Lima

The owners of Lima NBC affiliate WLIO/35 are taking over every other TV network affiliate station in the market.

The Lima News reports that Toledo-based Block Communications has agreed to pay $2.3 million dollars for Greg Phipps' four area LPTV stations, including the FOX (WOHL-CA 25), CBS (WLMO-LP 38) and ABC (WLQP-LP 18) affiliates in the Lima market. Another $100,000 will go to Greg and Kathleen Phipps for signing a non-compete agreement.

The deal also takes in one of Phipps' stations that isn't technically in the Lima market - America One affiliate WFND-LP 22 Findlay.

The Lima News reprints the deal filed with the FCC here (PDF file).

Block's Toledo empire includes the Toledo Blade newspaper, Buckeye Cablevision, CW Network cable-only affiliate "WT05" and the Buckeye Cable Sports Network.

From the article:

Block Communications President Gary Blair said the stations will be operated separate from WLIO including retaining its own newscast. The stations will continue to operate out of the South Central Avenue location, he said.

"We want to keep those stations independent," he said.

Still, Blair tells the Lima paper that they have through the end of the year to "review" the dynamics of the purchase, including anything related to jobs. We find it hard to picture that the Phipps LPTVers won't eventually be streamlined into WLIO, for efficiency and economic reasons if nothing else.

While negotiating the sale, Block and Phipps have been battling in court. The FOX affiliate's owner had charged Block with trying to get in the way of renewal talks between WOHL and the network...which will now be dealing with Block as the incoming new owners of "FOX Lima".

How can one company own basically all the viewing choices in a market like Lima?

The move will give Block control of nearly all network affiliations in the market, including the off-pattern MyNetwork TV airing on WOHL.

(We say "nearly all" because Block's WLIO dumped the CW Network feed off of its DT2 subchannel a couple of months ago, a move that returned the "CW Plus" cable-only feed to Lima viewers. And of course, religious/independent WTLW/44 is the other full-power Lima commercial station.)

But LPTV outlets don't count when it comes to FCC ownership limits. It's the second such deal in recent months, after Schurz Communications announced it was buying a similar LPTV cluster in South Bend IN to add to its full-power CBS affiliate (and a locally programmed DT2 subchannel).

The folks at Television Business Report (tvbr.com) note that the South Bend deal attracted "national attention from watchdogs", and wonder if this deal in Lima will see the same scrutiny...

BREAKING NEWS: "K-Rock" Broken

Just a few months after losing its high-profile morning star to a crosstown competitor, it appears major changes are being heard at CBS Radio alt-rock WKRK/92.3, the Cleveland market station known - apparently until today - as "K-Rock".

The station is now playing continuous alt-rock music without benefit of any air personalities, and is now using the on-air identifier "radio 92.3" in occasional recorded liners.

Radio-Info.com's news page reports that WKRK was one of two stations that dumped CBS/XM syndicated morning stars "Opie and Anthony" today. (WBCN in Boston was the other.)

New York-based O&A moved into 92.3's morning drive slot from a delayed afternoon drive clearance, after Shane "Rover" French bolted for Clear Channel rock WMMS/100.7 with his "Rover's Morning Glory" show earlier this year.

A quick run to the station's website reveals a new minimal website with the "radio 92.3" logo, with just two links: "listen live" and "feedback". There are no references to any of "K-Rock's" on-air personalities, which have included program director "Nard". Radio-Info reports that the station has dumped "all live DJs".

And just a couple of weeks ago, CBS Radio named AC WDOK/102.1 "Soft Rock 102.1" and hot AC WQAL/104.1 "Q104" programmer Dave Popovich as director of programming for the entire Cleveland cluster, including WKRK.

The music mix on WKRK may be slightly different than what's been heard over the airwaves until today.

We haven't confirmed it, but we hear rumblings that the main air signal now features the format that has been airing on 92.3's HD2 channel (seemingly verified by the "radio 92.3" page's title - "WKRK2"). Since we've long said that we're not the best source for examining changes in music playlists, we'll have to leave it to others for a bead on "radio 92.3"'s new music mix...

Radio Daze: The Documentary

A TV documentary based on Mike Olszewski's book "Radio Daze" premieres this week.

"Radio Daze: Cleveland’s FM Air Wars" debuts Tuesday night at 9:30 PM on Western Reserve PBS, the local PBS affiliate combo known to mere mortals as WNEO/45 Alliance-WEAO/49 Akron.

Quoting a release from our good friends over on Campus Center Drive:

It presents the dramatic rise of northeast Ohio’s FM rock scene, from its early days on college and ethnic stations manned by hippie disk jockeys to a billion-dollar entertainment industry.

Western Reserve PBS says Olszewski, a former WMMS/100.7 staffer now co-hosting CBS Radio classic rock WNCX/98.5's morning drive show, produced the documentary along with Tom Cummings and Dave Rogant.

Though the iconic WMMS is "featured prominently" in the documentary, Olszewski says "the Buzzard" won't be the sole focus. Quoting him in the release:

"We aimed to show the social, cultural and political changes that helped shape FM rock radio. It’s not about one station, but a number of very creative and very competitive air staffs that evolved and helped forge the strongest radio audience in America.”

The release lists a number of names, including Jeff and Flash, Matt the Cat, Kid Leo, Billy Bass, Betty Korvan, Ted Lux, Murray Saul and Denny Sanders, though it's not clear which actually appear in the documentary in new interviews. Quoting the release again:

The video stands as a historical document of a time when FM radio was the most important source of entertainment and information for the baby boom generation. According to Olszewski, “Radio Daze also features interviews with the pioneers of the medium and additional footage that should prove to us all what a long, strange trip it has been.”

Western Reserve PBS tells us that "Radio Daze" will repeat Friday at 9:30 PM, and Sunday at 1:30 PM...

Monday In December

Unless you're a big winter weather fan, or happy about the start of a new work week, the phrase "Monday in December" seems rather foreboding. For that matter, so do some of our news items as we start the week...

WKYC BUYOUTS: OMW hears that our earlier fears regarding Gannett's continuing effort to reduce staff at Cleveland NBC affiliate WKYC/3 are true.

We passed along an item earlier from Dave Hughes' DCRTV - that Gannett was actively offering buyouts to help further cut staff at its TV stations around the country.

The news came on the heels of at least four WKYC reporters exiting due to the station not renewing their contracts, and we wondered if this news was *in addition* to the exits of high-profile staffers like station veteran Obie Shelton.

It is.

OMW hears that Friday, Gannett officially offered the buyout package to WKYC staffers who are either over the age of 55, or who have more than 10 years of service with the company. We're told that the buyouts are being offered to everyone except department heads and employees with personal services contracts (i.e. they would exclude on-air staffers).

They're being characterized as "voluntary buyouts" for now, but Gannett has made it clear that if not enough people take the offers, more involuntary exits are likely...

NEWSPAPER WOES: Speaking of "involuntary exits", our friends in the print industry are getting hit hard by economics - even more so than those in broadcasting.

We haven't confirmed this one at all. But OMW hears that a rumor is floating around the Internet that more significant staff cuts could be coming to the Cleveland Plain Dealer - which could take effect soon as today.

The numbers we're hearing are well into double digits, but we haven't confirmed anything here.

But if you can't reach someone at the Plain Dealer today, and have no explanation why...

MORE NEWSPAPER WOES: While we're temporarily in Print Mode, OMW hears that you can put an asterisk next to "Kent" in the name of Record Publishing's daily newspaper, the Kent-Ravenna Record Courier.

OMW hears that this month, the R-C is closing its operations office in Kent, leaving the Portage County city without a daily newspaper's office for the first time since the mid-1880s. No, that's not the mid-1980s, it's the mid-1880s.

We're told that the paper's display advertising staff has been moving from Kent into the R-C's Ravenna office, and the R-C classified advertising and web divisions will follow them east on Ohio 59 soon.

We hear the R-C, like most newspapers, has laid off a few staff members both in editorial and production...and is struggling with the surging price of newsprint.

The company will continue to operate its weekly division separately out of Commerce Drive in Stow, the home of papers like the Stow Sentry and the Cuyahoga Falls News-Press. Though that division is said to be doing better financially, it had to close struggling weekly newspapers in Bedford and Maple Heights earlier this year.

And obviously, the Record Courier will continue to cover Kent...it just won't have production-related operations there...though we don't know if the paper will operate a nominal "bureau" in Kent.

Record Publishing has a sister radio operation, of course...Wooster-based Dix Communications has a small group of radio stations, including country WQKT/104.5 and oldies WKVX/960 in the company's hometown...

GARY'S BOOK: A veteran Cleveland TV news reporter, who recently retired after a 30 year run, has finished a book.

He's WJW/8's Gary Stromberg, who had been with the local FOX affiliate long before it switched networks from CBS in the mid-1990's.

And as such, Stromberg's new book - Aren't You That News Man? The Funny Side of the Evening News - covers, among other things, his many years working for former WJW news director Virgil Dominic in both Cleveland and Atlanta.

Stromberg tells OMW that as the title suggests, the book not only reflects on the "the professional standards and guidance" provided by Dominic:

The book provides plenty of laughs. For the first time ever, it's revealed how we smuggled a news tape on to the Channel 5 helicopter and had them ferry it to Cleveland without them knowing a thing about it.

From the book's description:

Gary explains how legendary baseball manager Casey Stengel offered him a chance to join the New York Mets.

He reveals why he is grateful to the Beatles for helping him get into Northwestern.

And, for the first time ever, he explains why Channel 8 workers pulled the pants off of a producer, and ran them up the flagpole in front of the station.

The things you learn after a veteran reporter retires, eh?

It can be purchased via online publisher "iUniverse" in both softcover and eBook form, and Gary tells us you can also find it on Amazon.com, or you can ask your local bookstore to order it...

WKRP? Well, Sort Of

A small Cincinnati TV station is getting nationwide attention for a name change - sort of.

Though we first picked up on this thanks to an item on the Cincinnati-area based Tri-State Media Watch blog last Monday, the name change of Cincinnati low-power Class A station WBQC-CA/38 to "WKRP" - inspired by the popular TV show about a fictional Cincinnati radio station - made the national news Saturday, via this Associated Press story.

That story was presumably inspired by Cincinnati Enquirer TV/radio guru John Kiesewetter's story about the name change Friday.

And now...the REST of the story. (No, ABC News Radio commentator Paul Harvey is not airing on "WKRP".)

As it turns out, so far, station owner Elliott Block has basically only changed the on-air branding of the station which once acted as Cincinnati's UPN affiliate.

The "WKRP" calls exist, for now, at least, solely on a low-power station in the Nashville TN market - WKRP-LP. If Block is making any effort to actually change the WBQC-CA calls, or if he's working out some sort of deal with the Tennessee station, we can't find it in the FCC records online.

But on a slow holiday weekend, newscasters tired of "Black Friday" stories ate up the "WKRP on the air in Cincinnati" story. We heard it all day Saturday on a number of national radio newscasts, including on both ABC News Radio and FOX News Radio.

Score one for Mr. Block.

The second score for the one-man LPTV kingpin of Cincinnati is a new digital signal.

Block has debuted the low-power digital companion channel to his other (OTHer?) station, WOTH-LP/25. WOTH-LD is lighting up digital tuners in Cincinnati, and it airs at least three subchannels...one, 25.2, is the rebranded WBQC, which does indeed show up on those digital tuners as "WKRP-TV".

We're pretty sure that the FCC has no regulations on the PSIP/tuner branding of non-primary subchannels, so Block could call 25.2 "Burnt Toast" in the digital tuner information, if he desired to do so.

For Block, it's not just the ability to join the new digital OTA universe with his new signal. Since he's not broadcasting any HDTV streams on WOTH-LD, he can pack it with SD subchannels...with a shopping channel apparently in the mix, and perhaps a third general entertainment channel possible as well.

Instead of running two or more separate LPTV transmitters, Block effectively can have four or five programming streams that appear to digital TV viewers as whole new channels. (We'll call this the "TBN Effect", as religious broadcaster Trinity pumps out five different program feeds on its stations, including Canton-licensed WDLI-DT up here.)

Block appears to be the most aggressive LPTV owner in Ohio when it comes to digital TV.

We have no word out of Lima that LPTV king Gregg Phipps - who owns the LPTV FOX, CBS and ABC affiliates in that market - is planning to go digital (or if he's even in a financial position to do so).

Here in our Northeast Ohio base, we wonder at times if Media-Com's WAOH-LP 29 Akron/W35AX 35 Cleveland "The CAT" doesn't broadcast in black and white.

And so far, Image Video's Canton-based LPTV operations (WIVM-LP 52 Canton/WIVN-LP 29 Newcomerstown) are not planning digital feeds, though one of their recently acquired stations to the west may light up as a digital station if the FCC paperwork means anything.

It's a tough road for these stations, usually run on a shoestring budget, with digital equipment adding more costs - in a time where the advertising market is depressed, and all stations are making less money.

Back to Mr. Block's use of the "WKRP-TV" name for one of his LPTV stations, even as just on-air branding. Doesn't FOX Entertainment, which bought the old MTM Productions ("WKRP in Cincinnati"'s producer), retain the trademark?

Block tells the Enquirer that he's actually registered trademarks "for 'WKRP' and 'WKRP Cincinnati.'" That's a claim repeated at the bottom of the new WBQC/"WKRP" website:

WKRP and WKRP Cincinnati are registered trademarks and owned by Block Broadcasting.

The observant viewer - we're not the first to notice this - will note that Block doesn't claim the trademark to the full name of the show that inspired him to change the station's name - "WKRP in Cincinnati". (Note that pesky "in" that's missing from Mr. Block's statements.)

And the "WKRP" calls, in some form, have bounced around small radio and TV stations over the years - even not that far from Cincinnati.

A small AM station in North Vernon IN, which is about 75 miles west of the Queen City, once took those call letters. And the "WKRP in Cincinnati" Wikipedia page claims that WCVG/1320 Covington KY took the WKRP calls and an "AM rock" format at about the time the show ended, though we have no real world confirmation of same.

Whether that's enough to stave off the FOX lawyers remains to be seen. Or, for that matter, lawyers for Clear Channel and Newport TV, which own talk WKRC/550 and CBS affiliate WKRC-TV 12 in the market, respectively.

But what won't be seen - on "WKRP-TV" or anywhere in the Block LPTV Empire - is the show itself. "WKRP in Cincinnati", the TV show, airs Sunday nights on Tribune superstation WGN America, and also airs Monday nights on the digital cable network "American Life".

The show reenters American TV lore every Thanksgiving, thanks to the infamous and wildly popular "Turkeys Away" episode - which aired on WGN America last Sunday night.

Block tells Kiese that he'd love to run the show on his new "WKRP-TV", but over-air broadcast syndication rights aren't available for the Original WKRP...

Friday Oddities

OK, so we'll squeeze out one more update of odd stuff this Friday after the Thanksgiving Day holiday.

There is some more economic bad news for those in local media, but we'll put that on the back burner until our Monday morning update...keeping the meaning of "Black Friday" for holiday shopping crowds for now...

ION OF CHANGE: A little change could be coming to the digital signals of the ION Network's owned and operated TV stations, and the ION folks are going about proposing the changes in an unusual way.

We first got word of this from Jon Ellis' excellent Upper Midwest Broadcasting site, which reports that 42 ION-owned stations have filed an FCC form 314 to assign their licenses to Urban Television, LLC. Well, assign part of their licenses, at any rate. (Here's the application for Northeast Ohio's own ION outlet, WVPX/23 Akron.)

No, ION isn't selling its stations to the Urban Television folks.

Rather, they're proposing a shared time agreement, that essentially will split off a digital subchannel for each station, that would actually be owned by the Urban Television operation.

Why doesn't ION just sell time on their digital subchannels?

Well, the reason behind the FCC application is to try to invoke must carry rules for the Urban Television subchannel on cable and satellite...the theory being that if Urban Television actually has a separate FCC license for the subchannel, it'd fall under the same rules as other FCC (full-power) TV licenses.

ION - which owns 49% of the Urban Television operation - explains their rationale in this FCC filing (PDF file).

Of course, in Northeast Ohio, this is all academic for now. WVPX/23 has never lit up its digital TV allocation due to a host of Canadian-related issues on its original allocation, RF channel 59.

Due to that, and the fact that all broadcast stations will have to abandon channels above 51 after the February 17th digital transition, WVPX's very first digital broadcast will be after it "flash cuts" to channel 23, digitally, at the transition.

But it's probably a very, very safe bet that this new request for "owned shared time" subchannels won't be approved by the FCC before mid-February...

WHILE WE'RE TALKING DIGITAL FLASH CUTS: A reminder from our friends at Western Reserve Public Media in Kent, which operates local PBS affiliates WNEO/45-WEAO/49 under the "Western Reserve PBS" banner.

We've had a couple of OMW readers tell us that they're not currently able to get the new digital signal of WNEO/Alliance, the Youngstown market side of the station which sent its analog channel 45 packing recently to recamp on digital channel 45.

"Rescan is the mantra," we hear from the Western Reserve PBS folks.

In other words, if you're easily within the expected signal range of WNEO-DT, and haven't gotten it over-air since the analog went off over a week ago, you need to rescan your digital tuner or box.

The reason? WNEO-DT's "home address" on the TV band moved from RF channel 46, to the former analog home of RF channel 45, a week ago.

If you'd scanned in WNEO DT before last Friday, that information is no good due to the move.

The solution is easy...you can rescan your digital channels from your tuner or converter box menu, more than likely under the "Setup" menu option. If you're in the Youngstown market, that should bring back WNEO's new digital 45 signal as soon as the scan is done. (If you're still confused, contact the station's DTV Help Desk, where someone will walk you through it.)

As we've said frequently, but repeat here again, the Western Reserve PBS changes this month do not affect the group's Akron operation, WEAO/49, in either analog or digital format.

WEAO's analog 49 will sign off on the night of February 17, 2009, like all the other full-power analog stations in America, and the digital side of WEAO will continue at its present location.

And of course, cable and satellite viewers of both stations won't be affected.

But the "rescan mantra" will be necessary for TV viewers in many markets - including Cleveland - on the morning of February 18th.

A number of stations will make frequency changes on the digital side at the transition, including NBC affiliate WKYC and FOX affiliate WJW...which will still appear as "3" and "8" on digital tuner boxes...though WJW's digital signal will actually replace its analog signal on channel 8...

HAPPY HOLIDAYS: OMW readers in the Youngstown market tipped us today, and we confirmed, that Clear Channel hot AC WMXY/98.9 "Mix 98.9" has indeed flipped to Christmas music as of today.

It's the second such flip within the Clear Channel Youngstown cluster on South Avenue, as sister classic hits WBBG/106.1 "Big 106.1" made the Ho-Ho-Switch earlier.

It also sounds like Rubber City oldies WAKR/1590 Akron has started sprinkling in some holiday music, with WAKR program director Chuck Collins playing that a Christmas tune or three during his air shift this midday Friday. (We have heard at least two non-holiday tunes on WAKR in the past hour or so.)

Other than that, we're not going to keep obsessive track of the Christmas Music flips from now on, since just about any station with compatible music could still make the change as the holiday season wears on...

A TIE REPORT: Do you like to keep tabs on neckwear worn by a television network news anchor? A Northeast Ohio woman has just the ticket.

Associated Press TV writer David Bauder has the story of The Brian Williams Tie Report Archives, a blog by local teacher Nance Donnelly solely devoted to tracking what's hanging from the neck of "NBC Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams during his news broadcasts.

She describes herself in the Blogger "About me" section:

I'm a high school English teacher in a public school defined as an "urban school with a significant minority population" in NE Ohio.

Nance gives thumbs up or thumbs down to ties worn on the air by the NBC anchor, even assigning some of the worst ties to a special status:

What does "TWSNLBRAINDTM" Mean?

This strange acronym stands for Tie Which Shall No Longer Be Reviewed And Is Now Dead To Me. Brian wore it with such shameless frequency and it is such a boring, pedestrian tie (which spawned a series of ties with the similar color combination and stripes--always stripes!) that I have forever refused to describe it ever again. If you wish to read a description of this awful tie, you may refer to the 2/19, 4/18, 5/3, 5/10, and 5/15 Tie Reports. After that, I went completely over the edge and conferred TWSNLBRAINDTM status.

Umm, OK.

Seriously, Donnelly explains herself to the AP's Bauder:

"People must think, 'This poor woman must be one of those stalker freaks,' but it can't be any further from the truth," said its author, Nance Donnelly, who is teaching her students by example that if you want to be a writer, write every day.

OK, so she sounds normal.

We applaud and salute Ms. Donnelly, and encourage her to branch off to watch the ties worn by Northeast Ohio's own TV news anchors.

Heck, we do THIS blog, who are WE to snicker at a blog about a network news anchor's ties? And anything that gets high school students writing regularly is a good thing...

Random Midweek Update

We guess the Mighty Blog of Fun(tm) is not very organized this holiday week...and this may well be our last update before the Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday...

CLOSING IN ON A HOME: Though it's technically a service and not a radio station, OMW has occasionally carried items about Akron's WCRS.

Those aren't FCC call letters - the acronym "WCRS" stands for "Written Communications Radio Service", otherwise known as the Akron-based radio reading service for the blind. In a previous life, WCRS was TCRRS - the "Tri-County Radio Reading Service" - and your Primary Editorial Voice(tm) may have volunteered there as a teenager.

We lost track of the story the past couple of years, where it took a rather terrifying turn, with loss of operating funding, state scrunity, and problems linked to the foreclosure of the former East Akron Rollercade on East Market Street, where WCRS' studios have been located. After a recent sheriff's sale, the building's out-of-town owner is kicking out the reading service folks.

WAKR/AkronNewsNow's Craig Simpson has the update in a story put out Tuesday. As it turns out, WCRS officials are now scouting out two potential sites - one not far from the Rollercade - hoping to find a new home sometime in the next month.

WCRS has had quite a harrowing ride in recent years, with even some legal hot water for the woman who started it all, long-time executive director Marcia Jonke.

All that's detailed in this Akron Beacon Journal article from last week.

WCRS is now under control of a new board of directors, and is being run by station manager and new board president David Binkley - who told the Beacon he managed to reduce the operation's sizable debts, and says WCRS will pay for whatever new space it finds.

WCRS' output is carried over a subcarrier of the University of Akron's WZIP/88.1, with special receivers needed to hear the programmming. WZIP has been a creditor for WCRS as well, but the Beacon story says WZIP has forgiven half the debt owed by the reading service...

NOD TO CHUCK: We didn't mention yet that long-time OMW reader Chuck Matthews has actually done something few have managed to do recently in the radio business - pick up new work.

Chuck has climbed aboard with Elyria-Lorain Broadcasting's Sandusky operation, with part-time production, on-air, voicetrack, board op and other work for ELB country WKFM/96.1 "K96" Huron and sports WLKR/1510 Norwalk "ESPN 1510", among other things, we're sure.

The former Cumulus talk WTOD/1560 Toledo program director continues to run his voiceover business, and continues to consult Matrix talk WNWT/1520, from his new perch in Vacationland...

Random Tuesday Stuff

Some items kicking around the Mighty Blog of Fun(tm)'s storage bin...

HSFB IN HD: The good folks at SportsTime Ohio have passed along their coverage plans for this coming weekend's Ohio High School Athletic Association high school football championships.

And the schedule of six games includes three that will be broadcast in HD format:

11/28 11:00am Div. VI - Delphos St. John's vs Bascom Hopewell-Loudon

11/28 3:00pm Div. IV - HD - Steubenville vs. Kettering Archbishop Alter

11/28 7:00pm Div. II - Sylvania Southview vs. Cincinnati Anderson

11/29 11:00am Div. III - HD - Columbus Eastmoor Academy vs Aurora

11/29 3:00pm Div. V - Youngstown Ursuline vs. Findlay Liberty-Benton

11/29 7:00pm Div. I - HD - Cleveland St. Ignatius vs. Cincinnati Elder

An STO release notes that only one HD production truck was available, but that still allows them three games in the HDTV format.

The STO folks note a veritable army will cover the championship games:

Matt Underwood, Al Pawlowski, Greg Frey, Andre Knott, Mike Cairns, Matt D’Orazio, Jerry Rudzinski, and Katie Witham will all be involved providing play-by-play, color commentary, and sideline reports. In addition, Mark Schwab of WTAM 1100 and Jim Isabella, the ‘Principal of High School Sports’ will be in the STO studio providing updates and halftime programming.

Cairns, Frey and Isabella will be on hand at STO tonight at 7 PM for a preview of the championship weekend...

INTERESTING HOLIDAY FILL: An alert OMW reader noted an interesting group of fill-ins for CBS Radio Cleveland AC WDOK/102.1's morning show on Monday.

And we're told among those filling in for Trapper Jack, Terry Moir and company on "Soft Rock 102.1" was a WDOK staffer who just became a former staffer. Now-former afternoon driver Dan Deely was heard by our reader on Monday morning, just days after he lost his regular shift to what we'll have to presume was a budget-linked schedule cutback.

As CBS Radio is moving rather rapidly to make live midday shows a thing of the past, Deely was bounced out of afternoon drive - after station veteran Nancy Alden was moved there from middays.

Deely was joined, we're told by our reader, by new midday voice Desiray McCray, and WKYC/3's apparently now-former reporter Vic Gideon.

(Our apologies for the earlier, incorrect name check to "19 Action News" weekend sports anchor and regular radio fill-in Chuck Galeti...the information given to us was correct, but we had Galeti mixed in our head with Gideon for some reason when we wrote it.) We weren't around this morning to hear if that group continued the fill-in today, but we'll assume so.

We'll also make the logical assumption that McCray is voicetracking the midday shift, in addition to her regular Saturday morning air shift.

As this is the Thanksgiving holiday week, expect to hear a number of fill-ins on the radio as the week progresses...

'STB: Another alert reader pointed out that the recently-returned WSTB/88.9 signal was actually off the air for a few hours on Monday morning.

By the time we were able to catch up, the Streetsboro City Schools-owned station was back on the air with its student-run "AlterNation" format.

OMW checked, and the off-air time was not planned, and not linked to the dispute that took WSTB off the air for a month recently.

But considering how closely that station has been watched, it's no wonder we were alerted...

'NEO: An official update: Western Reserve PBS Youngstown-market outlet WNEO-DT/45 Alliance is now operating on its (currently licensed, for now) full power facility.

Our friends at Campus Center Drive confirm to OMW that they've filed for a "license to cover", the official notification to the FCC that the station has successfully brought the construction permit on the air.

But as we've reported here, it's not the final signal for WNEO.

WNEO's new digital facility is putting out 44KW, a power level that will eventually increase when a new, maximized facility increases that power output by over 10 times (500KW).

But we're getting reports from well into Western Pennsylvania that even the pre-maximization WNEO-DT is putting an improved signal out that way - compared to the former WNEO-DT facility on RF channel 46.

We're not getting it here at all this far west - but we're firmly in the full-power signal grasp of WEAO-DT and the still-operating WEAO analog channel 49. WNEO-DT isn't meant for us...

Maybe Nothing To These - Yet

A couple of rumors, reports and such that may or may not mean anything to Northeast Ohio... yet:

CLEAR CHANNEL/CBS SWAP: A note in Monday's "Taylor on Radio-Info" E-Mail newsletter caught our attention.

Columnist Tom Taylor reports word that CBS Radio chief Dan Mason spent Monday in Houston, reportedly working out details a rumored swap that would have Clear Channel sending two stations to CBS Radio there.

As part of Clear Channel's recent privatization deal, the U.S. Department of Justice required it to flip a number of stations to another owner.

In addition to the two Houston outlets Taylor cites, one of those stations on the Flip List is right here in OMW land - Clear Channel top 40 WAKS/96.5 Akron, the Cleveland market's "Kiss FM", which still operates out of the Clear Channel World Domination HQ on Oak Tree while under the nominal care of the Aloha Trust spinoff company.

This is not at all to suggest that even if it were possible, that WAKS would end up in CBS Radio's cluster in Cleveland.

Not only would that put them over the ownership limits, CBS Radio itself is trying to unload its four Cleveland market stations, and pretty much all of its stations outside the top 10 markets.

But it's a reminder. The tighter-than-a-drum credit markets mean that station sales are not nearly as automatic as they once were...and by "once were", we mean even a few months ago.

Could the fate of the five Cleveland market FMs up for sale be decided, in part, by either Clear Channel or CBS working out swaps with other operators in other markets?

With debt-laden Big Deals pretty much a thing of the past, everywhere, in every line of business, this may be the only way the companies get those stations off the books in markets like Cleveland...

SPEAKING OF THE BAD ECONOMY: A brief note we spotted from Dave Hughes over at DCRTV, the long-established Washington DC-based media news and rumblings site:

Speaking of Gannett, we're hearing rumblings that the McLean-based media giant has started offering a series of employee cost-savings buyouts at many of its TV stations around the country. No word about buyout cuts at Gannett's Channel 9/WUSA.

In OMW land, of course, Gannett owns Cleveland NBC affiliate WKYC/3, which just saw a number of reporters depart 13th and Lakeside involuntarily - mainly by the station exercising early contract-ending windows.

We don't know if this was part of the company-wide initiative Dave Hughes mentions, or if more cuts are on the way.

Unfortunately, it's probably not a bad bet to say that more cuts are on the way at anything remotely resembling a media outlet nationwide. And now that local TV and radio stations are no longer swimming in political ad buys, 2009 could get worse in a hurry.

One thing that continues to bother us: in the past few months of massive layoffs, it doesn't seem to matter how important you are to a station or a newspaper, or how many years you've been there.

If they can cut costs by taking you off the books, they'll do it, and institutional memory is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. (WKYC saw this in the most recent round, with the departure of veteran reporter Obie Shelton.)

There's gotta be a light at the end of the tunnel sometime, no? A light that isn't coming from a speeding, oncoming train?

Positive thoughts...it's all we can do right now...

Two Christmas Stockings Filled

The early flip to Christmas music has happened twice in Cleveland.

As expected, CBS Radio AC WDOK/102.1 "Soft Rock 102.1" and Salem CCM WFHM/95.5 "The Fish" have become the next Northeast Ohio stations - and the first Cleveland market stations - to flip to all Christmas music.

The moves comes after Clear Channel Canton market AC WHOF/101.7 "My 101.7" and Youngstown market classic hits WBBG/106.1 "Big 106.1" flipped to holiday music in the past week.

WDOK had been promoting a Christmas music flip later this week (Wednesday morning), but apparently decided to board Santa's music sleigh a little early. Listener comments about the flip on the WDOK web site start as early as Sunday afternoon.

WFHM, meanwhile, follows at least one other Salem "Fish" station (in Sacramento) in turning to Christmas music early. The station itself was Cleveland's first holiday music format changer last year...

Just Some Monday Stuff

There's nothing particularly pressing, right now...we just wanted to clear the Friday deck:

WNEO: We have yet to check in with the folks at Western Reserve PBS, so we're just putting this item up as a placeholder until we're able to get with them for an update on the newly-returned WNEO-DT/45 Alliance signal.

But our own observations - far afield from the WNEO transmitter in Salem - saw the WNEO digital signal lighting up on and off over the weekend, but not quite locking a signal from OMW World Headquarters in the Cleveland TV market.

(As we told our friends on Campus Center Drive, we suppose that's why they have that little WEAO transmitter site in Copley Township, with a full-power signal we have no trouble watching in large parts of the Cleveland market. Heh.)

As soon as we get the update, we'll change this item as well...the delay is ours, as we just contacted them a while ago...

SORT OF RELATED: A note from a reader about Northeast Ohio's other PBS affiliate:

Maybe it is just a freak of Lake effect snow, but I am receiving WVIZ-DT in northern Summit County today after never getting any kind of signal before. Is their new tower now broadcasting?

As far as we know, ideaStream's WVIZ is still broadcasting digitally from its second temporary location, an auxiliary tower at the WKYC transmitter site in the Parma antenna farm, with 10KW of power. (So our answer to our reader is - yes, we guess it's atmospheric conditions helping deliver WVIZ-DT.)

The move has at least provided much of southern Cuyahoga County with a shot at receiving the station...but the entire market will have to wait until WVIZ-DT's full-power post-transition signal lights up - possibly as soon as this month - from the new tower at WKYC's site.

From WVIZ-DT's latest FCC transition update, filed in mid-October (forgive the caps, it came that way):

THE SCHEDULE HAS BEEN MET EXCEPT FOR DELIVERY OF THE TRANSMITTER AND ANTENNA, DELIVERY OF WHICH IS EXPECTED ON OR ABOUT NOVEMBER 15, 2008. TRANSMITTER INSTALLATION AND PROOF ARE NOW ANTICIPATED FOR DECEMBER.

As we've posted here more than once, WVIZ-DT will be able to light up the full-power DT 26 operation on the new WKYC site tower before the February 17, 2009 national transition...since unlike WKYC, it will not have to wait for an analog station to vacate its permanent digital home.

WVIZ will stay on its current RF channel (26), while WKYC can't light up RF channel 17 until WDLI/17 Canton shuts off its analog signal in February.

Until then, both stations are at pre-transition sites. WVIZ-DT's new temporary antenna is somewhat lower than where its permanent antenna will be (121 meters above average terrain, vs. 336 meters)...and as the better-than-expected performance of even WNEO-DT's lower power temporary facility shows, height matters.

And just to further confuse things, with digital PSIP information that rides along with the signal, WKYC will still show up as "Channel 3" on digital tuner boxes, and WVIZ will still show up as "Channel 25"...so those channel numbers (26, 17) will be invisible to the end user, unless they go deep into the menus of their converter boxes or digital tuners.

C'MON CAVS: The early on-court success of the Cleveland Cavaliers has resulted in TV success for Cavs TV rightsholder FOX Sports Ohio.

Though it's been mentioned elsewhere, we first noticed this news Friday in a blog from, of all places, the Los Angeles Times.

The Times passes along word that winning ways and star power (see: "James, LeBron") have fueled TV ratings increases in a number of NBA markets, including right here:

The New Orleans Hornets, coming off of last year's strong showing, are the league leader with a 163% ratings jump. The Cleveland Cavaliers' 109% ratings jump undoubtedly was driven by LeBron James leading the team to an eight-game winning streak.

The numbers come from the folks at Nielsen Media Research, in their primary business of rating television programming. Nielsen's numbers show an average of a 6.2 household rating for the Cavaliers on FSOhio, second among NBA markets nationwide.

(And yes, in something we never got around to posting, it does appear that FOX Sports Net's regional networks have dropped the "Net" in their names - leaving the local outlet as "FOX Sports Ohio". The slimmed down onscreen graphics now identify the team name up at the top right, i.e. "FSCavaliers".)

The L.A. Times blog entry contains the usual dumb comments...the first firing a shot at Northeast Ohio ("what else is there to do in Cleveland?"). Well, apparently, there's so much to do in Los Angeles that people have time to read Internet blogs and make comments about there being nothing to do in Cleveland...

Friday Cleanup

UPDATE 3:15 PM 11/21/08: We added a new item below, about the debut of a new Toledo weekend radio show produced by one of our regular readers. Scroll down for the update...

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Cleaning up some items as we intend to head out the door for the weekend...

WNEO'S DIGITAL: OMW hears from Western Reserve PBS that the station is still technically in testing mode today with its new digital signal for Youngstown market WNEO/45 Alliance, which lit up for the first time on Thursday evening.

For now, WNEO has been operating at one-quarter its licensed power (which is 44KW), and the signal will continue to occasionally go off, then on again today as the testing continues. At some point later today, Western Reserve PBS hopes to light it up at full power, permanently.

Even that 1/4-power signal is getting out, as we've heard folks picking it up as far afield as Cuyahoga Falls and North Canton....giving the station better performance to the west than the current configuration of Parkin Broadcasting ABC affiliate WYTV/33, which is at 50KW until it maximizes its power after the February digital transition.

And no wonder - WNEO-DT's antenna, the former analog 45 antenna, is over twice as high as WYTV-DT's antenna.

The signal being seen at reduced power today is a good sign for the new digital 45, as it will eventually maximize to 500KW at the very same antenna height...

JUKEBOXING IT: As the folks at "Sunday Oldies Jukebox" prepare for their second week back on the air via the facilities of Streetsboro City Schools-owned WSTB/88.9, there's another small piece of news.

The invitation to "SOJ" staffers to appear on John Carroll University's WJCU/88.7 University Heights has been extended, and the northern version of the Jukebox will air once again on WJCU's "Retro Radio" Saturday (4:30-6:30 PM).

OMW hears that the arrangement to substitute in one of Joe Madigan's two time slots is expected to continue at least through mid-December. Though the Cleveland market WJCU is not really a presence on the Akron radio dial, listeners can still check out the "SOJ" Saturday appearances via WJCU's Internet stream.

As far as "SOJ"'s original home base Sundays on WSTB, things are just a little different since it came back, with changed phone numbers and the like. Some interactive features are still missing, and the station may have to automate very early morning hours for a while. But the 50s and 60s music, the important part, keeps rolling.

All listeners need to know can be find on the SOJ website...

AT THE HOP: Speaking of oldies music, we neglected to give a plug to long-time OMW reader Chuck Matthews for a new project that starts this weekend.

"At The Hop with Allan Brady" starts Sunday evening on the station Matthews is consulting, Matrix talk WNWT/1520 in the Toledo market. It'll air every Sunday 9 PM-11 PM when there is no sports conflict.

Chuck tells us about it:

"ATH focuses on the 50s/early to mid 60s...playing doo wop, rockabilly, soul and hit parade. Essentially, the music that present 'oldies' and 'classic hits' stations have abandoned due to demos."

Matthews produces the show, and hosted it in an earlier version when he worked at Clear Channel's oldies outlet in the Raleigh NC market, WTRG. Brady later took over hosting duties on that show from Matthews, and is still in the Research Triangle of North Carolina at WWMY "Y102-9".

Chuck tells us he could have voiced the new "At The Hop" show for WNWT, but his imaging voice is already heard all over the station...

BEST WISHES: We won't cover this in detail, since our new friends over at Tri-State Media Watch have done so already.

But our best wishes to Cincinnati sports talk radio mainstay Lance McAllister, who's in the hospital recovering from a health-related incident this week.

After feeling discomfort in his chest for 36 hours, the WCKY/1530 "Homer" afternoon driver went to the hospital (spurred by a newspaper column on the topic), fainted, and actually flatlined - his heart stopped for a full 60 seconds.

One pacemaker later (it's being installed today), Lance says he hopes to be out of the hospital by Sunday to take his daughter to a concert. The station's Nick Brunker and Mo Egger have been filling in for him back at "Homer", though there's no word if Lance hopes to return to the airwaves Monday.

And he's bored, or so he says on his "Lot D" blog in an item posted Thursday night. McAllister updated it from the hospital:

I feel fine....no pain or discomfort. I'm a little bored....I have to sit around Thursday and do nothing. The burger Kelly brought me beat the mystery meat served for dinner. A nurse did come room to room with ice cream Wednesday night!

I have cable, (I watched UK-UNC and will watch the Bengals) and my laptop.

And hey, nothing beats being alive.

Here's hoping for a speedy recovery, Lance. And we're wondering if we'd be updating the Mighty Blog after flatlining for a full minute. Still, our own advice to him is - take it easy!...