Closure Is Coming

Closure is coming about a number of items we’ve talked about in the past few days… with new information and updates on nearly all of them…

LBJ’S BIG NIGHT: The sports world and pretty much all of Northeast Ohio will be glued to ESPN in about 24 hours, as NBA superstar and Bath Township resident LeBron James announces if he’s staying with the Cleveland Cavaliers, or headed to New York, New Jersey, Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles, Shanghai or London. (Well, we guess those last two would be possibilities if they had NBA teams. Even without teams, they may have a better shot at LeBron than the Woeful Clippers.)

As far as we can determine, the live TV and radio rights belong exclusively to ESPN – and local ESPN Radio affiliate Good Karma sports WKNR/850 “ESPN 850” has already mentioned more than once on air that they’re carrying the broadcast, presumably surrounding it with the station’s “ESPN Cleveland Gamenight” evening show.

UPDATE 9:59 PM 7/7/10: From an @ESPNCleveland tweet:

Tomorrow night we will carry “The Decision” then get your reaction with Hammer, Reg, Roda, Brinda, Fedor, Munch and Ruiter till 6am.

We don’t think the TV rights extend to the over-air ABC network, sister to ESPN, or we’ve sure Scripps ABC affiliate WEWS/5 would be promoting it to the heavens.

But you can bet that local TV and radio news and sports stations, regardless of their rights regarding ESPN, will be covering the news like a blanket (even with existing commitments to such things as the Cleveland Indians’ contest with the Toronto Blue Jays on Thursday night)…but what color will that blanket be?

We can’t even guess at this point, as we’ve heard national and local media reports and supposed experts saying LeBron will end up in any one of the potential landing cities. Right now, about the only thing we can confirm is that LeBron hasn’t signed a deal with OMW. (Our salary cap is the collection of pennies on our kitchen table.)

Among those getting into the LeBron Action on Thursday is Time Warner Cable sports talk host Les Levine, who will host a two hour live special “More Sports and Les Levine” Thursday from 10 PM to midnight, immediately following the hour-long ESPN announcement, on TWC’s “Northeast Ohio Network” (NEON) local channel (cable position 23 in most TWC areas).

We saw Levine’s show Wednesday, and the host said he’d also do his regular 6-7 PM live program that night as well…

MEMO TO THE GALLERIA: Two days after the premiere of the new Michael Reghi-Kenny Roda pairing on WKNR, the folks at the Galleria still need to excise various liners and spot billboards referring to the afternoon show’s old name, “Bring It Strong with Michael Reghi”…

IT’S BILL: OMW hears from numerous sources that Local TV Fox affiliate WJW/8 is going with a solo anchor for its new 7 PM edition of “Fox 8 News”.

It’ll be 5 PM co-anchor Bill Martin coming back for the additional half-hour.

That is a contrast to the established competition at 7 PM. Gannett NBC affiliate WKYC/3 fronts its only evening two person anchor team for “Channel 3 News at 7”, with anchors Eric Mansfield and Monica Robins.

Mansfield hasn’t shied away from his reporting duties as well.

Wednesday, he uncovered a corporate address change for LeBron James’ Summit County property taxes from Cleveland to Chicago, though Mansfield noted frequently on social media sites that the change does not necessarily mean that James is heading for the Bulls…

IT’S BILL PART TWO: OMW hears that “Uncle Bill” Weisinger, local broadcast engineer and volunteer program director of WSTB/88.9 Streetsboro’s “Sunday Oldies Jukebox”, continues to recover as he battles back from cancer.

For now, Bill is still out from his duties at 88.9 and his engineering duties for the station and other broadcasters, but he’s made the move to post-hospital care at a care center not far from his home.

It sounds like there’s a lot of chemotherapy in Bill’s future, but he’s still keeping in touch with station staffers, local broadcasters and even your Mighty Blog of Fun(tm)…where we’re most definitely pulling for a full recovery.

In a recent update to friends, Bill says he “hates being sidelined” in regards to recent problems at WSTB, but says “it’s uplifting to see all rise to the challenges…”

FILL-IN PART ONE: We now have a date for the next Cincinnati fill-in for a Northeast Ohio radio talk show host.

Clear Channel talk WTAM/1100 Cleveland weekender and former WKDD/98.1-WHLO/640 Akron voice Matt Patrick will make his second appearance on Clear Channel’s original “Big One”, WLW/700 Cincinnati, on Saturday, July 17th from 12 noon-3 PM.

He had been scheduled to appear on WLW this coming Saturday, but instead, will be heard in his normal WTAM time slot (1-4 PM). And speaking of that time slot, and its former occupant…

HE’S GONE: Unless he wins an appeal, former Mahoning Valley congressman-turned-ex-con-turned-WTAM weekend host Jim Traficant will not be in the running for his old job as an independent.

But Jimbo isn’t going down without a fight…like that’s a surprise.

The Youngstown Vindicator reports that Traficant’s petition effort fell short in his old 17th Congressional District:

Traficant submitted petitions with 3,138 signatures from the district’s four counties—Trumbull, Mahoning, Portage and Summit—for his bid for an independent run but boards of election in each county found many to be invalid.
—
The total number of disqualified signatures in the four counties was 1,046 or 33 percent of all the names turned in by the Traficant campaign.

Traficant supporters will appeal, saying, in the words of campaign aide Linda Kovachik in the Vindicator, “it’s not over”.

Is Traficant’s radio career over?

We’re wondering, if his appeal to make it on the ballot is not successful, if he returns to WTAM…or to talk radio in general.

We don’t know that answer right now, and suspect he’s going to concentrate on the ballot appeal for now. We also don’t know if the folks at Oak Tree are interested in a Jimbo return…

FILL-IN PART TWO: We’ve mentioned him twice before as far as broadcast media is concerned, and here’s our third notation of Canton Repository sportswriter/columnist Todd Porter.

We hear Porter is filling in for vacationing NextMedia talk WHBC/1480 Canton afternoon drive host Sam Bourquin this week.

When Bourquin returns, Porter will head for the morning drive chair normally occupied by Fred Chenevey for fill-in on Monday and Tuesday…

AND THANKS: You may have noticed that our banner up top has been cleaned up, and spruced up.

When we first made the move from Blogger to WordPress, we took the OMW logo originally designed for our Twitter account and stretched it – a lot.

The designer of that logo, Stacy at Casual Images Graphic Design, offered to fix up the logo for our new blog’s header…and that’s what you see up top now.

We appreciate it, and highly suggest you contact Stacy if you have graphic design needs: 216-771-0885 or stacy@casual-images.com will reach her.

But don’t call or E-mail her about content on the blog. She’s just the designer, and isn’t at all responsible not only for our writing, but for any content within.

In other words, if you’re unhappy that your station changed format, Stacy is not responsible…and for that matter, neither is your Primary Editorial Voice(tm)…