Quick Hits For May

Some quick hits before we focus on Cleveland’s media obsession this past week…which will be in a separate item as soon as we get a Round Tuit(tm)…

SUNNY FORECAST: Congratulations to former Scripps ABC affiliate WEWS/5 “NewsChannel 5″ morning weather forecaster Christine Ferreira.

As predicted, she’s landed at a TV station in her new/returned to hometown area of Central Pennsylvania, Hearst NBC affiliate WGAL/8 in Lancaster PA…where she’s that station’s midday and weekend forecaster…

FRIENDLY GHOST – IN NORTHEAST OHIO, AT LEAST: OMW reader Kasper has returned to the Northeast Ohio airwaves, via the magic of Clear Channel’s voicetracking.

He’s now heard in afternoon drive at the company’s Akron market now-CHR WKDD/98.1…and three hours after his show ends, the other radio member of his household, wife Krissy Taylor, does a nighttime show for the station.

Kasper always went first-name-less before, but has adopted the name “Adam” at his new home base, Clear Channel top 40 powerhouse WRVQ “Q94″ in Richmond VA.

He told Twitter followers that “Adam” is actually his middle name, and tells us that he made the switch just to change things up at this point in his career.

Back in Northeast Ohio, on a signal that doesn’t do a bad job at all of reaching his hometown of Youngstown, or much of former home base WAKS/96.5 “Kiss FM”‘s territory, he’s just Kasper, as per usual…

MOVE MADE: OMW hears that Cleveland’s Radio One cluster is in new digs at 6555 Carnegie Avenue.

Urban AC WZAK/93.1, hip hop WENZ/107.9 “Z107.9″, gospel WJMO/1300 “Praise 1300″ and brokered/talk WERE/1490 “NewsTalk 1490″ had long been based at 2510 St. Clair Avenue.

The CBS Radio cluster nearby had already left, with AC WDOK/102.1 “New 102″ and hot AC WQAL/104.1 “Q104″ exiting “One Radio Lane” a couple of blocks away…and camping out with clustermates sports WKRK/92.3 “The Fan” and classic rock WNCX/98.5 in cramped space at the Halle Building…

EGG AND FORMAT FLIPS: A pair of Youngstown market stations that are no stranger to format flips have done so again.

Apparently no longer headed for former Cleveland City Council member and WHWN/88.3 Painesville principal Nelson Cintron’s ownership, WYCL/1540 Niles is once again classic country “The Farm”, and WHTX/1570 Warren has returned to standards as “The Fabulous 1570″.

Cintron’s Sagittarius Communications had planned to buy the stations last fall from OMW reader Chris Lash’s Whiplash Radio, and the formats had already changed – Spanish-language “La Nueva Mia” on 1540, and urban AC using Cumulus’ “The Touch” 24/7 satellite format on 1570.

More on this one as we hear how things unraveled and returned to the past…and the composition of the “Group Radio LLC” company listed on the stations’ websites, but not in FCC records (at least that we can find)…

Bleeping Bleep, You’re Fired

An administrative note, first: Ohio Media Watch is on “deep hiatus”. Things Offline(tm) have conspired to reduce our available free time to almost zero.

We’ll try to continue getting the Big News up here as soon as possible…items like the last few ones, for example.

Any other items will be posted as soon as possible to our growing social media presence.

You don’t need to be signed up at Facebook or Twitter to read our items… just click here or read the feed at the right of this page.

If the current situation continues, we may just redirect this page to our Twitter page. Again, you don’t need to have a Twitter or Facebook account to just read the page…it’s a regular web page, no login required.

At least one regular OMW reader actually asked if your Primary Editorial Voice(tm) is still alive…yes. And despite musings from a certain sports talk radio host, we’re not having a nervous breakdown.

Now, on we go to our own “musings”.

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George Carlin’s “Seven Dirty Words” have been on over-air broadcasting’s no list for decades, though some have less “power” than others these days.

The two words uttered by a rookie North Dakota TV news anchor Sunday night are still very much verboten…and that impromptu “bleep bomb” got West Virginia University grad A.J. Clemente the title of “former” anchor/reporter for KFYR-TV in Bismarck, North Dakota…ending a one-show stint as weekend co-anchor for “NBC North Dakota News”.

The same co-anchor who introduced him to the audience in the early news sat on the set alone during the newscast’s late report, apologizing for her now-former co-anchor’s behavior hours earlier.

As long-time OMW reader Ed Esposito, VP/information media for Akron’s Rubber City Radio Group, points out…young Mr. Clemente is far from the first broadcaster to inadvertently drop salty language on the air.

Here’s the take from the Radio-Television Digital News Association’s secretary-treasurer, in an item on the RTDNA.org website…“Memo to AJ: Learn, don’t burn”:

I was working at Bluefield, West Virginia at the then-combo of WHIS-TV/AM/FM when an offhand remark through the cue channel using the newsbooth mic somehow wound up bleeding into the West Virginia University-Virginia Tech game. Most people weren’t prepared to hear another voice joining Jack Fleming and Woody O’Hara in the booth, much less one using one of George Carlin’s seven words.

That was Saturday. On Monday, I was toast. I still recall the discomfort General Manager John Shott had in firing me; he honestly regretted having to do so but it was a no-brainer. Just as it was a no-brainer for KFYR-TV General Manager Dick Heidt to do the same thing. Only difference: these days the FCC has the axe waiting overhead for stations running afoul of their profanity regulations, and the axe swings up to $375,000.

Since A.J. Went Viral, we’ve heard stories privately from readers… one tells us at his own very first radio gig, he dropped the “S-bomb” when he was nervous…then startled by a co-worker tapping his shoulder during a short commercial break where he left the microphone on.

Since Bismarck is a very, very small TV market, perhaps a very small audience heard A.J.’s Mistake when it happened.

But the following week, A.J. Clemente was back on “NBC North Dakota”…not as an employee doing news, but as a guest on the entire network’s “Today” show.

Add to that appearances on CBS’ “Late Show with David Letterman”, on MSNBC, and the syndicated “Kelly and Michael” morning talk fest, and his audience numbers easily dwarfed his Sunday night viewership numbers.

And in today’s online world, just ONE clip of Clemente’s slip on YouTube has over 1.3 million views at this writing…with numerous other clips with hundreds of thousands of views.

We aren’t linking or embedding the clip here – in part because of the language (we’ve been filtered by web filters doing that before), but also because just typing the name “A.J. Clemente” into YouTube’s search engine provides a wide range of options, including clips of Clemente on the above mentioned shows.

Will dropping the two most feared words on live TV in North Dakota turn into a career booster for A.J. Clemente?

As Ed Esposito points out in his RTNDA.org item:

You are in journalism and television because it is a calling. It’ll be harder finding your next opportunity, but somewhere there’s a television GM and news director (or a radio manager, or a web manager) willing to bet that which didn’t kill you will make you stronger. You won’t take such guidance as “always treat a mic as live” lightly anymore.

Ed notes that things that could have been “career killers” in the past have happened in this very market, including female anchors disrobing on camera (shout out to St. Louis!).

Oddly enough, former Raycom Media CBS affiliate WOIO/19 “19 Action News” anchor Sharon Reed has something in common with A.J. Clemente…she also appeared on the Letterman show after her “Body of Art” series gained nationwide notoriety…

Browns Radio Rights: Throwing The Long Ball

In what’s been perhaps the worst kept local radio secret since a certain Cleveland station switched to a sports format, that station is about to get into the big leagues when it comes to play-by-play rights.

Did we mention the games will also air on their biggest rival station?

In what has to be a unique situation, the NFL’s Cleveland Browns are expected to announce Thursday morning what everyone already knows…that the team is leaving a multi-decade relationship with Clear Channel, which has aired the games most recently on rock WMMS/100.7 and talk WTAM/1100 (give or take a few, more on that later).

Starting the parade was the first to report this news, the News-Herald’s Bob Finnan:

The Browns will be broadcast on CBS Sports Radio’s WKRK-FM 92.3 The Fan on the FM side, and ESPN WKNR-AM 850, two industry sources confirmed.

Mr. Finnan didn’t say “or” there between the two stations. He said “and”.

If all the reports are correct, and at this point, we’re only beating the Kimpton Middle School newsletter on this (bonus points if you get the joke), the two fierce sports talk competitors will BOTH be broadcasting Browns games.

Both have “major announcements” planned for 9 AM Thursday, and it’s not likely they’ll be announcing a charity golf tournament.

Since Finnan’s article, it’s also come out that CBS will contribute two FM signals to the party…also adding Browns games to WKRK “brother” station classic rock WNCX/98.5. (Hat tip to the Plain Dealer’s Tom Reed for that article.)

The area’s NFL team is certainly compatible with WNCX weekend programming…and 98.5′s full market signal being in the mix ends potential complaints about “The Fan’s” signal.

What happened?

Finnan dips into it a bit:

As many as eight of the Browns’ preseason and regular-season games butted heads with Indians’ broadcasts, which bumped them off WTAM. They’ll no longer have to play second fiddle to the Tribe.

Clear Channel recently “doubled down” on its commitment to Cleveland’s Major League Baseball team, adding all but a handful of regular season games to the WMMS schedule, most in tandem with WTAM.

And though many chuckled when Good Karma Broadcasting-owned WKNR gave an hour of late afternoon drive airtime to the team infomercial “Cleveland Browns Daily”, that show apparently helped seal its part of the deal.

A sidebar: The Akron Beacon Journal’s Nate Ulrich posted on Ohio.com that “Cleveland Browns Daily” would move from its current time slot on WKNR of 6-7 PM weekdays…to 1-3 PM weekdays.

Could this mean the official end of the Jim Rome Era on AM 850?

Unless the station delays him to the former “Cleveland Browns Daily” evening slot, or banishes Rome to Sports Radio Siberia…where the first hour is already heard on WWGK/1540, the one-lung daytimer we call “Puny 1540 KNR2″…Rome’s now-CBS Sports Radio syndicated show could disappear from the Galleria studios entirely.

(No, we’re not ready to tackle the question about CBS finding room for Rome on its own station, “The Fan”. Rome is actually already heard in snippets on 92.3, doing short CBS Sports Radio commentaries.)

Who’da thought that Vic Carucci would be the man bumping Jim Rome off his long-time Cleveland market radio home, anyway?

Those of you worried about losing Browns radio voice Jim Donovan and analyst Doug Dieken should be heartened by all the reporting that the team isn’t breaking up its radio announcer team.

We’re making the assumption that the composition of the Browns Radio Network won’t change outside Cleveland. Those deals are usually signed separately from the flagship pact…and from each other, to boot…

Wilma’s Exit

It’s no surprise that “Fox 8 News” anchor Wilma Smith would retire sometime soon…it’s just not been known when.

That changed on Monday, when the long-time WJW/8 anchor (with a total time in Cleveland TV news of some 35 years) announced to viewers that she was calling it a career at the end of May.

A lengthy, steady career it’s been for the former Wilma Pokorny.

Wilma is one of the last remaining members of a class that dominated the local TV landscape in Cleveland for decades.

She spent a lot of her nearly 20 years at WJW, now Local TV’s Fox affiliate – after a decade-and-a-half plus run at Scripps ABC affiliate WEWS/5 – with co-anchor Tim Taylor, another member of that group.

Since 2005, she’s been co-anchoring the 6 PM edition of “Fox 8 News”…first with Taylor, then with current partner Lou Maglio.

But many of us remember her many years at “TV5 Eyewitness News” with another bedrock of local TV news, Ted Henry.

Both Taylor and Henry are retired, and Wilma Smith now joins that illustrious list.

The “Fox 8 News” website article on her departure has a quote or two:

“It’s a lovely gift to be able to leave on your own terms,” says Wilma. “You may not see me in your living room anymore, but I hope to see you out and about in the community. It’s been a wonderful career and my heart will always be with you.”

WJW president/general manager Greg Easterly tells the Plain Dealer’s Mark Dawidziak that it’s “a bittersweet moment”, and one the station knew was coming:

“She’s been talking to us about this for a while. This is the transition moment for her career and her life, and this about where she wants her life to be. She loves the viewers and she loves her co-workers, but she loves her husband more, which is understandable.”

Despite the presence of some significant local anchors with deep roots in the market – Romona Robinson at Raycom Media CBS affiliate WOIO/19′s “19 Action News” comes to mind – it’s hard not to go to the “the end of the big anchor” card.

And over at 13th and Lakeside, Gannett NBC affiliate WKYC/3 has made a big anchor bet on former CBS anchor Russ Mitchell and co-anchor Kris Pickel, not to mention the employment of another of the Big 80s anchor class – 7 PM co-anchor Robin Swoboda.

For that matter, names like “Fox 8 News”‘ own Bill Martin could make their own case for anchor importance.

But one by one, the anchor class Northeast Ohio grew up with, and later grew old with, is dwindling.

Do we start the Dick Goddard Retirement Watch yet? Does “NewsChannel 5″ noon anchor Leon Bibb fit in this conversation?

Our sincere best wishes to Wilma Smith as she moves on from the TV news game in a couple of months and change…

The Matlock Incident

Cleveland market TV viewers are no stranger to Ben Matlock in rerun form, or the propensity of local stations to run “Matlock” in prime time occasionally.

But this time, Gannett NBC affiliate WKYC/3′s decision to bump NBC’s Thursday night lineup out of prime time for a 2-hour 1992 TV movie featuring the genial southern lawyer played by Andy Griffith…well, went viral.

Almost as soon as ol’ Ben started TV lawyering, our own social media presence was swamped.

The clamor went nationwide, and even big time media watchers like the website of “Entertainment Weekly” picked up the baton, telling the nation that our local NBC affiliate preempted (actually moved to late night): a repeat of “The Office”, a new episode of “1600 Penn” (a White House-set sitcom), and a repeat of “Law and Order: SVU”. The Matlock Move also made The Hollywood Reporter and Huffington Post websites.

When you run the numbers, “EW”‘s James Hibbard says WKYC came out pretty well for the most part:

The metered-market ratings show Matlock actually outperformed 1600 Penn‘s recent delivery in the Cleveland market, and was about on par with The Office repeat’s national performance. During the 10 p.m. hour, however, the SVU repeat was clearly more popular.

ShowBuzz Daily has actual numbers, and Ben Matlock and his crew in Georgia courtrooms airing on WKYC actually edged out “1600 Penn”‘s average on 55 other NBC affiliates.

WKYC VP/GM Brooke Spectorsky comes up with a pretty good “reason” for jettisoning his network for a “Matlock” movie on Thursday, telling “EW” that the choice was made because Griffith “was controversially left out of the Oscars ‘In Memorium’ segment on Sunday.”

Nice gesture, but the real reason immediately follows in Spectorsky’s EW quote: “…and to catch-up on airing some local ad inventory.”

Simply put, the WKYC head honcho tells “EW” that they had the movie, and that the Oscars flap was a good reason to run it as one of the times the station runs local movies.

The math is simple: with even comparable ratings to the NBC prime time preempted shows, WKYC has all the local ad avails in the two-hour “Matlock” movie, and makes all the money.

But a rather simple local TV story caught fire nationwide for one reason: in the most recent national “sweeps” ratings last month, NBC actually finished FIFTH…behind the Univision Spanish-language network.

“Deadline:Hollywood” reports that Univision touted its success in an English-language ad… and of course, with its fourth-place finish among all networks, the owner of Cleveland’s WQHS/61 also beat…yes, Telemundo, a Spanish-language network owned by NBC Universal.

Though NBC actually won last November’s sweeps, the current performance reminds one of the Peacock Network’s ill-fated move of Jay Leno to prime-time.

As noted, Ben Matlock is no stranger to a prime-time role on Cleveland TV…as Scripps ABC affiliate WEWS/5 has turned to “Matlock” reruns to make more local cash in the past.

But WKYC’s Spectorsky tells “EW” that he did learn one thing with the preemption:

“The big lesson we learned was don’t pre-empt The Office. We’ve run into a lot of feedback.”

To that end, the AVClub website reports that they’ve gotten word from WKYC programmer Terry Moir that the Golden Matlock Train may be ending its ride with this week’s run:

in a possibly related move, director of programming and sales marketing Terry Moir told The A.V. Club that WKYC no longer plans to air Matlock: The Heist.

For its part, WKYC’s own website is having a lot of fun with the whole thing, noting that the decades-old TV movie beat ABC programming including a Jimmy Kimmel Oscars special in adult male demographics:

(“Matlock”) even tied Kimmel in the overall demographic of people 18 -34 years old, which is remarkable considering a good portion of that audience hadn’t been born or was still in diapers when the show premiered.

Our Funny Little Valentine (Stories)

We have a backlog of stuff that we’re never going to get to, and what do you know, Life Intervenes(tm) with a vengeance.

But we had to share these stories. We’ll put up a “Quick Hits” item to clear out the list later…

REUNITED, WILL IT SOUND SO GOOD?: CBS Radio AC WDOK/102.1 “New 102″ has found the man who will replace “Trapper Jack” Elliot, the 17-year morning drive fixture who was shown the We’re Not Renewing Your Contract Door along with 18-year “Infoman” Jim McIntyre last December.

And like the co-host he’ll join, “New 102″ didn’t have to go far to find him.

Like Jen Toohey before him, Tim Richards has been a personality (middays) on sister hot AC WQAL/104.1 “Q104″. WDOK and WQAL used to share digs at One Radio Lane (RIP), but are now squeezed in with “brother” stations sports WKRK/92.3 “The Fan” and classic rock WNCX/98.5 at the Halle Building.

And now, Toohey and Richards will be in the same studio at “New 102″ as “Jen and Tim in the Morning”.

The station publicity notes it’s a reunion for the pair, but it’s not just a radio reunion.

We don’t know if it was because the announcement was made on Valentine’s Day, but CBS Radio actually made a point of noting one personal fact about the new “New 102″ morning duo:

Jen and Tim dated 7 years ago and are now back together as co hosts. “Tim and I have a past – and now we have a future,” states Toohey. “We’ve worked together for many years and have a mutual respect for each other’s broadcasting skills. I’m excited – this is going to be fun.”

As far as we know, that “future” will be strictly professional for “Jen and Tim”, and as far as we know, Toohey is still very much married to Nate Lyons, and has been since November 2010.

It’ll be interesting to hear the duo’s chemistry…on air chemistry, that is. We’ve heard Tim filling in on the show that he’s now officially co-hosting…

AND OFF-AIR CHEMISTRY: They don’t host a show together, but two Rubber City Radio Group programmers are going to share a life together.

That’s because on Valentine’s Day at the Akron Radio Center, Sue Wilson, country WQMX/94.9′s program director/morning show co-host, got an on-air marriage proposal from a man named Tim… rock WONE/97.5 program director Tim Daugherty.

Daugherty called into “Wynn and Wilson” as just a “first time caller, long-time listener” who wanted to ask a woman named Sue to be his valentine.

Wilson realized it was her boyfriend Tim on the phone, said yes to that question, and then…Daugherty popped an Even Bigger Question while walking into the WQMX studio, ring in hand…asking Sue to be his “next wife”.

She accepted, live on the air, which will put the programming reins of two of the four Rubber City Radio stations in the same family.

About that “next wife” line: As the company’s AkronNewsNow website reports, both Wilson and Daugherty are widowed.

As long-time OMW readers already know, Sue Wilson was married to former country WSLR/1350 afternoon drive host Phil Cordle, until he passed away after a battle with cancer.

We didn’t note it here when it happened, but Daugherty’s wife passed away as well from the same disease.

Sue Wilson’s “Voiceover” blog has a touching story about the pair walking for “Stewart’s Caring Place”, a support organization for individuals and families dealing with cancer, in 2011…in honor of Phil Cordle and Donna Daugherty.

Tim and Sue’s story is a love story you don’t even see in the movies, because it’s just too “perfect”…after all they’ve been through, Sue Wilson and Tim Daugherty found each other not just as colleagues, but as life partners…and we wish them a happy life together…

Jeff Kinzbach’s Radio Return

We have a whole stack of items we don’t have time – yet – to cover. Look for them in the next few days…we hope.

But for now, we can’t ignore the Radio Topic Elephant In The Room.

Jeff Kinzbach, with partner Ed “Flash” Ferenc, dominated Cleveland morning drive radio as “Jeff and Flash”, morning drive ringmasters as the “Buzzard Morning Zoo” on iconic rocker WMMS/100.7…until Howard Stern showed up in 1992 and took over top ratings from “Jeff and Flash” not long after.

Now, Kinzbach will try to compete for top ratings in morning drive radio again, but this time from an Akron perch.

Kinzbach is taking over the morning drive slot at Rubber City Radio Group Akron rocker WONE/97.5, starting on Monday.

The station already has a page for Kinzbach, quoting the host and his new immediate boss:

Jeff is very excited about joining WONE stating: “WONE is a great radio station. I’m excited to join the excellent staff and play the outstanding music that we all grew up with.”

Program Director Tim Daugherty is also excited to welcome Jeff to the staff. “I cut my teeth listening to him and I’m looking forward to the knowledge and energy this radio icon is bringing to WONE.”

And as noted, though Daugherty leaves his morning drive perch, he stays in his off-air management role…and will be heard on-air soon from 7 PM to midnight weeknights. The changes mean that former “Tim and Christi” morning drive co-host Christi Nichols and evening host Steve Hammond are out.

Kinzbach was heard on the air with Daugherty on Friday morning, and starts his own WONE morning drive show officially on Monday.

The Plain Dealer’s John Petkovic says Kinzbach came back to town seven years after leaving Cleveland, eight years after the end of “Jeff and Flash”:

Kinzbach left the station in 1994. He left Cleveland for Dallas in 2002.

“I bought an old ranch and fixed it up,” says Kinzbach. “I raised cattle, harvested and grew hay, the works.”

He moved back in 2009.

“My wife Patti and I were back for a trip and we just missed the area,” he says. “Sometimes you have to leave to appreciate the Midwest.”

Kinzbach has been out of full-time radio since coming back to Northeast Ohio, though he has been doing recent part-time fill-in work at CBS Radio classic rock WNCX/98.5.

Regular readers know that it’s not the first time the former Buzzard Morning Zoo-master has tried for a return to full-time radio in recent months, and not even his first try in the Akron market.

It didn’t at all go well the last time, when Kinzbach threw his hat into the ring for the Howie Chizek Replacement Sweepstakes.

Jeff was one of the auditioners for the Media-Com talk WNIR/100.1 “The Talk of Akron” midday opening…rather unfortunately a hole left behind by the death of 40 year station and talk radio icon Chizek.

Let’s go back to the thrilling days of, uh, mid-August of last year…where a certain media blog covered what did, and did not happen, at “The Talk of Akron”:

Judging from a Facebook status update later pulled by Kinzbach, the relationship between the radio station and the former WMMS host fell apart, and fast.

Kinzbach posted that he’d heard a station promo for his week-long audition stint had been pulled, and that “someone had been hired”.

After not hearing from WNIR officials, and playing some phone tag with the station, Kinzbach posted that he was eventually told that was indeed the case, and that he was told that “they have hired a guy who was a frequent caller to the station.”

That caller, of course, is the man now known as John “Couch Burner” Denning, the 20-plus year regular Chizek caller who took over the time slot once occupied by his favorite host, and who continues in the WNIR midday slot into 2013.

There’s not even a microscopic chance at West Market Street that a regular WONE caller/listener will show up between now and Monday to displace him, so it’s a much better situation for Kinzbach…in that, and many other ways.

For one, he’s not replacing a legend…as good as Daugherty is, it’s not he’s like taking over for the late Howie Chizek (and all the expectations that come with that). And of course, Daugherty stays at WONE both on the air and off, and is Kinzbach’s new immediate boss.

For another, WONE is a rock station, the format with which Kinzbach is most associated. And, WONE’s audience is not nearly as older skewing as the WNIR talk audience.

Finally, WONE’s signal is better than WNIR’s.

We’re not talking Cleveland ratings here (yet), but there are plenty of Summit County and Portage County folks who remember “Jeff and Flash” and still should be in WONE’s target demo range.

Though it’s not where WONE competes, we’ll be watching if the station gets a bump in the Cleveland ratings…the WONE signal is certainly good enough to reach a large chunk of the Cleveland market, though Rubber City Radio will certainly focus on the “home turf” in its efforts to market and promote the show.

WONE notes the hometown connection, reminding listeners that Kinzbach lives in the Akron area, and his wife Patti is “a native Akronite”…