Two More Columbus Items

Just a couple of quick ones:

LIBERAL TALK RADIO BACK IN COLUMBUS: It had been rumored around liberal/progressive political circles and the blogosphere for a day or two, but it’s now official – liberal talk radio is making a comeback in Columbus.

Columbus Dispatch radio/TV writer Tim Feran confirms that Bernard Radio’s WVKO/1580, which recently returned to the air after being silent, will pick up the format on Monday. It’ll feature a similar lineup to the market’s former liberal talk outlet – Clear Channel now-general market talk WYTS/1230.

WVKO general manager Gary Richards, a long-time local sales executive in the market, says the new station will not only feature all three Jones Radio liberal syndicated talk shows – Bill Press in morning drive, Stephanie Miller in middays and Ed Schultz in early afternoon – but will likely also run Air America’s Randi Rhodes and Rachel Maddow.

Such a schedule would basically make WVKO’s lineup nearly identical to the lineup employed by the former WTPG/1230, now a general talker dubbed “Your Talk Station”.

Richards also promises “local news and talk”, and says the upcoming election season should provide fuel for the station’s fortunes.

The format debut/return is Monday, barring possible “technical glitches”, says Richards.

WVKO has been running a Spanish-language format, since its return to the airwaves from a new Morse Road tower site…

TV TUNES: TV show theme songs are what new Columbus market move-in WMRN-FM/106.7 Dublin is offering listeners, as the station stunts into its eventual permanent format.

OMW hears that the TV Tunes will be heard on the new station until mid-December.

And we’ve had at least one listener tell us that he believes the translator station that occupied that frequency, relaying Ohio State University’s WOSU-FM (or perhaps technically, WOSB-FM Marion), may not have signed off yet. If it hasn’t, it’s obviously getting clobbered by the new station.

The WMRN-FM calls, of course, will eventually migrate back to Marion, where the former 106.9 “Buckeye Country” format has moved to former AC outlet WDIF/94.3…

Employee Bomb About To Drop In Youngstown

In what’s no surprise to anyone not in denial, the coming days will bring news of employment status to workers at two Youngstown TV stations.

The Youngstown Business Journal reports that employees of Parkin Broadcasting ABC affiliate WYTV/33 will find out – in their pay envelopes – Friday whether they’ll still have jobs after December 9th. And workers at New Vision Television CBS/FOX combo WKBN/27-WYFX/17-62 will get similar notices December 7th.

As expected, WYTV’s news and on-air operations will be moved to the facilities of WKBN and “FOX 17/62” on December 10th as a part of a “shared services agreement” between the two broadcasting companies. Left behind at WYTV’s long-time Shady Run Road facility, says the Business Journal’s Andrea Wood, will be roughly 10 sales and management employees.

And though this story has also appeared in on the Youngstown Vindicator’s website, Wood reports that WYTV anchor team Vince Bevacqua and Gina Marinelli will be out in the job upheaval. Wood reports that Angee Shaker will be the sole weekday WYTV anchor.

The link here, of course, is that agreement first uncovered in Parkin’s FCC filings to buy WYTV, which gives New Vision’s WKBN/WYFX the opening to produce newscasts for the ABC affiliate. But Wood also notes that New Vision itself guaranteed the 15-million dollar financing Parkin needed to buy WYTV.

One item we missed – WYTV has cancelled a large chunk of its local programming on sister digital/cable outlet “MyYTV”, including the station’s 10 PM newscast, and the two hour afternoon public affairs program “For The People”, which was simulcast on Cumulus standards WSOM/600 Salem.

The job cuts for union employees come in two steps – those who aren’t let go from WYTV with the Friday notice have a few days to decide if they’re going to stay or leave. After that, the other shoe drops at WKBN/WYFX, as employees there will learn their own status December 7th.

We hate to say “we told you so”, but…we (and others, like Andrea Wood) told you so.

The numbers are just what they are.

It’d have been an absolute fantasy to believe that a lightly capitalized, small company would be able to come in, buy a TV station and keep paying for a third full, separate newsroom staff in a market the size of Youngstown – a market that is literally shrinking by the day, with a very soft economy that only gets softer every year.

We feel for the WKBN/WYFX/WYTV employees. The key here is certainly “saving money”, frankly, and we tried to sound that warning as early as possible.

When we talked about this before, and quipped about “life boats”, we got some heat for suggesting that talent like WKBN anchor Robb Schmidt had seen the financial handwriting on the wall.

“You don’t know”, we were told, that Schmidt was leaving solely because he got an excellent opportunity (and that he did) in the Youngstown State University athletics department, a perfect fit for the long-time former sports anchor.

But…we feel we’d be insulting Mr. Schmidt if we didn’t think he had any idea what was about to happen at his now-former station.

So, yes, he went for a nice new career opportunity.

But by the time he left WKBN/WYFX, Robb Schmidt surely had to know that much leaner times were ahead at his station. We are happy he made such a soft landing, as it were…and we hope the same for employees of both stations.

But, as expected and long predicted by this corner and others…it’s not about making a better newscast for Parkin and New Vision. It’s about being more “efficient”, and lining up numbers on a spreadsheet that translate to less money going out of the companies’ bank accounts.

We understand the economic reality here. As mentioned, the Youngstown media market is a tight place to compete, and there may not be enough money to go around for three separate local news operations.

But…we’re still saddened by the news…

WMRN About To Move

By the time you read this, former Marion Clear Channel outlet WMRN/106.9 may be broadcasting as the company’s new Columbus-based WMRN at 106.7.

OMW hears that what should be a couple of weeks of stunting starts on the latter frequency on Thursday afternoon at 12 noon.

WMRN’s long-time Marion signal at 106.9 went dark earlier this month, nudging the “Buckeye Country” format to WDIF/94.3, known until the move as AC outlet “Mix 94.3”. Recent Upper Sandusky move-in WYNT/95.9 Caledonia remains as the cluster’s sole AC station, and a quick look at the “Majic 95.9” website shows that it’s running Christmas music – like a stocking-load of other AC stations across the country are doing.

The relocated WMRN-FM in the Columbus market will take new calls at some point, kicking WMRN-FM back to Marion for “Buckeye Country 94.3”.

The lighting up of 106.7 was expected to happen earlier this month, but it took some time for the way to be legally cleared – and the frequency to become clear after an appeal by translator operator Sandyworld, Inc. That translator has been running a relay of Ohio State’s WOSU-FM on 106.7, and Sandyworld was one of two entities trying to block the WMRN COL move.

We’ve sniffed around the Clear Channel Columbus empire, and we’ve not smelled anything that would indicate what a permanent format would be.

Not even a whiff.

But if our experience with the company’s most recent move-in – Dover/New Philadelphia’s WJER-FM 101.7 to the Canton market AC outlet WHOF “My 101.7” – is a guide, expect obfuscation, balls in the air, and all that.

We’ve learned…don’t believe what you hear (or read), even if it comes from a trusted source. We were burned last time, and won’t be burned again.

So, if we hear anything about the future plans of new move-in WMRN-FM, we’ll pass it along, but with a grain of salt large enough to break into a lifetime supply.

We’ve obtained a copy of the company’s press release about the move, and this line from occasional OMW reader and Clear Channel Columbus operations manager John Crenshaw gave us a chuckle (no, we didn’t get it from him):

“Thursday at noon will bring Dublin and Columbus a most unique radio station. If you could just see my tongue pressing firmly against my cheek. And stay tuned for more fun and games in the coming weeks as the 106.7 format is ultimately revealed.”

No, we’re not laughing at the “tongue in cheek” part or the “fun and games” part.

We’re chuckling about the apparent need to identify the station in the release as a “Dublin” station, since that’s the new 106.7 community of license.

Of course, the company had to build up the Columbus suburb of Dublin in the tedious and ponderous FCC process of creating a new allocation to one of many suburbs of the state capital… but we’ll assume it’s safe now not to have to repeat the “service to Dublin” line in a company press release, since the construction permit is already on the books.

At least Dublin has more than a newsletter to parents of middle school children backing it up as a community needing that ridiculous “first service” label…

The full Clear Channel release, which is meant to be spread far and wide, is below…

—————-

November 28, 2007

For Immediate Release

Contact: John Crenshaw

Operations Manager

Clear Channel Radio Columbus to add fifth FM Signal

After several years of filing initial FCC applications, WMRN-FM 106.7 will make its debut Thursday, November 29 at noon. WMRN had been broadcasting to the Marion, Ohio market at the 106.9 frequency. Beginning Thursday, WMRN will be broadcasting from 106.7 and will provide radio service to the City of Dublin and greater Columbus.

CCRC Operations Manager John Crenshaw: “Thursday at noon will bring Dublin and Columbus a most unique radio station. If you could just see my tongue pressing firmly against my cheek. And stay tuned for more fun and games in the coming weeks as the 106.7 format is ultimately revealed.”

CCRC Director of Engineering Greg Savoldi: “The 106.7 signal will emanate from Columbus’ premiere north side tower site, the WOSU-TV tower at Highland Lakes, Westerville. The FCC classes 106.7 as a B1, as it will radiate 7300 watts from over 600 feet in the air, providing primary service coverage to over 1 million Central Ohioans.”

WMRN-FM becomes the seventh station in the Clear Channel Radio Columbus cluster, joining 92.3/WCOL, 93.3/WLZT, 97.9/WNCI, 105.7/WBWR, 610/WTVN and 1230/WYTS. (WMRN-FM’s call letters will change pending FCC approval.)

Mutual Decision

OK, so we’re a bit out of the saddle, but yes, we did actually manage to find the story written by Plain Dealer media columnist Julie Washington over the weekend.

(Though, as always, we appreciate the help…especially when Ms. Washington’s efforts usually require a search party to find if you don’t get the Dead Trees edition of the PD.)

This is hardly news to anyone who has worked in radio or TV, but stations and employees frequently have different takes on what happens when someone no longer works there.

Such appears to be the case with now-former WDOK/102.1 Cleveland morning drive-host Robin Benzle, whose departure from the CBS Radio AC outlet after 12 years we covered at the start of November.

Benzle did indeed “say goodbye”, and then took off for a previously planned out-of-country trip. But she’s back, and she’s apparently wondering why station management called her exit from the morning drive co-host slot a “mutual decision”.

Benzle tells Ms. Washington that her WDOK contract wasn’t renewed:

Benzle insists she didn’t want to leave.

“How can I travel if I don’t have a job?” she asked. She has no definite plans.

We’ve gone through our earlier item, and nowhere in his carefully worded response does WDOK programmer and long-time OMW reader Scott Miller say either that A) her contract wasn’t renewed or B) give any reason at all for the departure.

He did say that Benzle would be a “spokesperson for many key WDOK clients”, though she presumably could continue that on her own without her contract being renewed.

Anyway, the now-former WDOK host says she hopes to return to Cleveland radio, though she tells the PD that doesn’t think it’d be very likely to get an offer that doesn’t cast her as a “giggle queen”, noting the general male-oriented nature of Cleveland drive-time radio.

Oh, and at this point, we’d like to note that your very own Mighty Blog of Fun(tm) did not bring up the “cancer scare” issue. Ms. Benzle successfully fought skin cancer a few years ago, and urged cancer screening, but she’s not dying – despite all the misplaced “get well” wishes.

No matter what he says, one way or the other, about Robin Benzle’s exit, local CBS Radio honcho Chris Maduri does confirm to Ms. Washington that they’re trying out potential replacement co-hosts…

Happy Thanksgiving

As noted in a previous item, OMW will basically “go dark” for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, though we will post any major news involving the local media if we’re able to do so.

But here we are, slipping one under the door at deadline…

FINAL HO-HO-HO UPDATE, AND A FORMAT ADJUSTMENT: It’s Salem CCM WFHM/95.5 “The Fish” in Cleveland as the latest holiday convert, with a planned switch to Christmas music…at least according to their website, at any rate…at midnight tonight/Thanksgiving morning.

(And a further update as we create this item: the WFHM Christmas music switch happened with the first song past midnight, at 12:02 AM Thanksgiving Day…Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime”.)

Any further updates won’t be provided. For one, we’re “goin’ fishin'” after this, and for another, what’s newsworthy about a station flipping to holiday music on Thanksgiving or after? Hmm?

Thanks to Rubber City Radio operations manager and oldies WAKR/1590 Akron program director Chuck Collins for checking in with OMW on his own station’s holiday flip. He tells us:

We switched Monday at 9am and the calls have run three-to-one in favor. Of course the ones who hate it say they love the station (Oldies) and will be back after the holidays.

Speaking of liners, just wait ’til you hear the oldies T: “We have more Beatles than a Florida double-wide! 1590 WAKR…News! Sports! Oldies!”

Heh. We bring this comment “up front” for one reason…we’re officially taking the “standards” off of our regular format description for WAKR.

Music on the Akron station has been migrating into the oldies (er…classic hits?) category slowly for the last few months, and it’s been a while since we’ve heard any titles that wouldn’t be comfortably found on a traditional 50’s/60’s AM oldies outlet.

Which really, is how it should be.

FM oldies stations, like Cleveland giant WMJI/105.7 “Majic 105.7”, have nudged their own playlists into the 1970’s and even the 1980’s, as they struggle to keep a hold on listeners that are still, umm, demographically desirable.

But there are still plenty of older in-demo (i.e. 25-54, or up to 64 on the AM side of things) listeners who enjoy the older rock-era/pop titles.

Of course, like John Lanigan, Jimmy Malone and company on WMJI are the rock of “Majic”, and WMJI could well change formats to anything short of polka music if Lanigan decides to retire anytime soon, WAKR’s driving force is its “News Authority” image and extensive local news and information coverage.

In our view, lowering what we’d have to presume would be very aged demographics to keep the still mature – but more saleable – news listener between newscasts is a smart move for the folks at 1590.

We’ve found ourselves actually listening to WAKR more, since it’s moved into oldies music…

DAILY TALK: Time Warner Cable’s “Northeast Ohio Network” has quietly added a companion sports talk show to Les Levine’s long-running effort.

“The Daily Dose” is hosted by Patrick Pierson, and airs weeknights at 7 PM – immediately following “More Sports and Les Levine”.

Pierson has a very short commute to get to the set of his own new show, as he’s the producer of Les’ show – and we assume the “Daily Dose” set is next to Levine’s own set at Time Warner Cable’s Cleveland studios on Lakeside Avenue.

Like that program, “The Daily Dose” usually features a knowledgeable local sports media figure. The times we’ve tuned in, we’ve seen some WKNR staffers dropping in.

But Pierson is, of course, somewhat younger than his TV sports talk mentor. So, we’re resisting the temptation to call Patrick’s show “More Sports: The Next Generation”…

AND A LEGEND PASSES: We got a note recently wondering why we haven’t mentioned the passing of legendary Cincinnati sports broadcaster Joe Nuxhall.

He certainly deserves the note.

We don’t really know much about the long-time Cincinnati Reds radio voice, who started in that role in 1967 (!!!) and has been heard even in recent years on the team’s radio network, based at 50,000 watt flamethrower Clear Channel talk WLW/700.

He’s certainly an iconic name in broadcasting in the Cincinnati area, and hugely popular.

But we’re up here in Northeast Ohio, so our experience and exposure to Nuxhall and his broadcasting career have been limited.

We’ll turn the electronic stage over to others.

First, there’s Cincinnati Enquirer radio/TV guru John Kiesewetter’s own farewell to Nuxhall on his blog. It’s a little more personal than a newspaper story.

Kiese quotes Reds broadcast partner Marty Brennaman, who should certainly know, from earlier this year:

“With all due respect to Pete Rose, there is no bigger figure in City of Cincinnati than Joe Nuxhall. In all the years we’ve been together, going back to ’74, I have never heard one person ever ever utter a negative comment about him. That’s almost unbelievable! You can’t expect that of anybody!”

And we’d like to share another personal story, from a freelance TV technical producer who first wrote us about a past experience with Nuxhall:

“It’s 1982, and I am a senior at the (University of Akron) working at the college radio station (now WZIP) doing afternoon sports. I had a chance to go down to Florida for spring break, and since we always did a preseason baseball special, I applied for credentials from the myriad of teams that trained in the Tampa/St. Pete area to get some original content.

To make a long story short, for the most part I was blown off by just about everybody… with one notable exception – the Ol’ Lefthander took pity on the poor college kid, and sat down in the visitor’s dugout with him at old Al Lang Field and chatted about the Reds and the state of the National League for a good ten minutes. That was Joe’s way.

If you read the papers and the blogs, you can’t find anyone who didn’t have an experience comparable to mine.

Twenty-five years in television production later, I have met and worked with a lot of so-called professional talent, and very few have lived up to Joe’s standard.”

RIP, Mr. Nuxhall. We weren’t from the “Tri-State” and heard you maybe for 10 minutes via WLW’s giant signal, but it sounds like you were a giant yourself…

AND ONE MORE DEATH-RELATED NOTE: OMW recently passed along the passing of former Cleveland talk radio host John Dayl, who ended up living and working in Arizona.

We noted that a reader called Dayl “a Gary Dee wannabe” and didn’t have much nice to say about Dayl in his time here.

Well, another local broadcast pro has better memories:

“He also worked at WERE in the 80’s, and was truly a nice guy and a true professional. One day, he decided to make chili for us at the station. To this day, and apologies to my wife because she makes GREAT chili, it was the best chili I’ve ever tasted.”

The note comes to us directly from long-time WKNR talk host Greg Brinda…which proves one thing.

People say a lot about other people in the business, and many of it is based on their own personal experience or take on what happened while they were around that person.

Someone’s “untalented jerk” may be someone else’s “great guy who was nice and made the best chili”.

Have a great Thanksgiving Day weekend, everyone. We’ll see you back here next week…

And Still Another Ho-Ho-Ho Destination

Rubber City Radio standards/oldies WAKR/1590 Akron has become the latest participant in the Northeast Ohio Holiday Music Radio Sweepstakes, flipping sometime today.

We particularly like one of the liners we heard today:

“The one time a year you let a fat man down the chimney, and don’t call 911. News, sports and holiday music…1590/WAKR!”

WAKR is no stranger to running traditional Christmas and holiday music. But this year, that sleigh is being driven (sorry, couldn’t help it) by the station itself.

This is the first holiday season that WAKR is programming its own music, and not taking the satellite feed from the folks at Dial Global/Westwood One. When the satellite feeds change, that basically changes formats for the station, and usually it happens right around Thanksgiving itself – so until this year, WAKR adopted holiday music whenever their satellite provider changed.

Anyway, this year, that means local staffers like WAKR program director/Rubber City Radio operations manager Chuck Collins, Bob Allen, Tim Daugherty and Debbie Golden will provide the wraparound to the holiday tunes – either live or via the magic of computer voicetracking…

Another One Rides The Sleigh

To almost no one’s surprise, CBS Radio AC WDOK/102.1 “SoftRock 102.1” has become the first Cleveland market station to flip to holiday music.

OMW hears that it was WDOK program director and OMW reader Scott Miller who launched the Christmas tunes parade at 9 AM today.

We didn’t hear it directly from Scott, but really, it was not a surprise that today was the day for the flip. WDOK has usually been the first Cleveland market station to adopt the usually popular and profitable Christmas music run – which many AC stations see as a boost to their year-end fortunes.

The move comes after not one, but both, Canton market AC stations went to holiday tunes – Clear Channel’s WHOF/101.7 “My 101.7”, and NextMedia’s WHBC-FM/94.1 “Mix 94.1″…

Turkey Week Starts

And more housekeeping: Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, OMW will likely be very thin this week. At the moment, we plan to not publish at all from Wednesday through next Monday.

Part of this is because there generally isn’t any major radio/TV (or indeed, other) news over the holiday weekend…but part is because we’re “resetting” and taking some personal time to spend with friends and family.

We may be able to post *major* breaking media news, including such things as radio station format changes, major radio and TV personality changes and the like. But there’ll be everything but a “Gone Fishin'” sign up here through most of the holiday period.

Consider this: at least we’re not changing format to Christmas Media News…

WE FOUND JULIE! WE FOUND JULIE!: In its continuing attempt to confuse online readers of Cleveland.com, the Cleveland Plain Dealer has turned the discovery of media columnist Julie Washington’s regular weekend effort into a game of sorts – with the column usually missing even from her own place in the paper’s “Columnists” section.

Our difficulty rate of Finding Julie this Sunday? 7.0

(We think the Russian judge skewed the numbers. “Finding Julie”, by the way, would be a great title for a romantic movie.)

The good news? Ms. Washington’s column is actually online. That’s one step better than last week.

But it does not appear in that “Columnists” list *again*. You know, the one you get to by clicking “Location: Cleveland with Julie Washington”, a nod to her other role on Sundays – covering local involvement in the film industry.

As it turns out, it should be there, since the largest part of the “Local Media” column deals with a Northeast Ohio native involved in design for the popular movie “Bee Movie”. It wasn’t tough for Ms. Washington to find former Brunswick resident Jeff Wagner, now working for moviemaker DreamWorks – he’s the son of a Plain Dealer reporter.

The PD did helpfully include the “LOCAL MEDIA” header, which actually made its way into the story list in Sunday’s Entertainment section on Cleveland.com.

Anyway, there are some radio/TV items in the back of the column, though nothing terribly earthshaking (it’s been a slow week even for us). We’ve helpful that way – only linking the portion of the article with local media news.

Julie touches on the recent debut of “Simon Rendez-vous”, the new 1-3 PM Saturday local talk show on Clear Channel talk WTAM/1100.

We’ve known about this show.

We’ve listened the past two weeks, and believe it or not, someone who’s apparently the host’s publicist (!) has contacted us about doing an item on the show hosted by French advertising executive Simon Badinter, who may be the only man in the history of either country to actually move from Paris to Cleveland.

But we’ve been holding off. For one, we don’t normally do reviews here.

We wrote a lengthy one for this very entry, but just deleted it. We’ll defer, for now, as we’re in a charitable holiday mood…

ONE MORE FROM JULIE: Julie also has some programming moves… among them, a new weekly show based at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music on classical WCLV/104.9 (Lorain/)Cleveland, and the expansion of National Public Radio staple “All Things Considered” to seven days a week on affilate WKSU/89.7 Kent with a new 6-7 PM Sunday airing…

WHILE WE’RE TALKING WTAM: Monday will be a big “Turkey Day” at the aforementioned WTAM, and no, we’re not talking about the station’s afternoon drive host. (Sorry, Jeff, we couldn’t resist at least one.)

It’s actually a charitable event, designed to pump up the station’s long-time “Coats for Kids” campaign.

WTAM’s Mike Trivisonno Show will broadcast live from outside Cleveland Browns Stadium on Monday, and plans to give away 3,000 turkeys in exchange for coats for the kids’ charity program.

Those who are not in need of turkeys will still be able to donate coats, and the turkey that would have gone to them will go the Hunger Network of Greater Cleveland…to add to the 500 the charity will already get.

You can also donate cash ($10) in lieu of an actual coat, should you not have one you’re able to give up for the cause…

Out The Weekend Door

Here are some items that were piled up as we prepare to shut down for the weekend…

RUBBER CITY RADIO STAFFER’S NEW JOB: You could say that Rubber City Radio afternoon traffic voice Toni Cicone has a new “stack” of work.

Well, OK, that was a pun you never saw coming, as the folks on West Market Street tell us that Cicone, who has been afternoon editor for the company’s extensive AkronNewsNow website, has left Akron’s WAKR/1590-WQMX/94.9-WONE/97.5 for a new non-radio job.

It’s for a magazine called STACK, which is not about old-fashioned 45 RPM records. It’s, we’re told, a magazine that highlights “workouts and physical training and targets high school athletes, coaches and trainers”.

Rubber City Radio VP/Information Media Ed Esposito tells OMW that Toni’s replacement in the company’s “converged digital newsroom” won’t necessarily be tied to her afternoon shift. Look for the official job posting here soon.

He also reminds us that Toni had done quite a bit of field reporting as of late, spending a lot of her time as the cluster’s lead reporter on the Jessie Davis case…

JUST A BRIEF NOTE: Since we didn’t mention the absence of Good Karma sports WKNR/850 “ESPN 850” mid-morning host Tony Rizzo, we’ll do it now.

Rizzo was off “The Really Big Show” Monday through Thursday for health reasons.

We thought we’d heard producer/co-host/newly-minted WKNR assistant program director Aaron Goldhammer mention during the week that the surgery Rizz underwent Tuesday was on his throat (!!!).

Presumably, bee pollen does nothing for what he had, though Tony mentioned Friday that the stuff he hawks on the show did help his overall feeling. (No, we won’t give ’em a plug until they start sponsoring OMW.)

Rizzo, presumably also absent from his “day/night job” as WJW/8 “FOX 8″‘s primary sports anchor, finally turned on the echoing radio microphones at WKNR’s Galleria studios on Friday…with his usual battle cry of “It’s good to be alive!” (clap…echo clap…clap…echo clap…repeat)

(We’re still not sure, by the way, if the echo chamber next to WKNR’s new main studio was built on purpose.)

Whatever the doctor did to his throat, it didn’t come out over the air, so we’ll presume Tony’s in good health and able to talk full time again on radio and TV.

WKNR’s post-game hosts did the honors filling in for “Rizzo on the Radio” – Cavaliers post-game host Michael Reghi, and Indians post-game host (and former time slot occupant) Greg Brinda doing the last few days.

And we may have been hallucinating, but we think Les Levine was on there one day as well.

Oh, to correct a long ago WKNR item with help from a birdie at the Galleria: 30-year sports radio veteran Brinda has done morning drive “at least a half-dozen times” in his career.

We’d questioned that back when WKNR’s lineup was in flux, in the wake of the station’s purchase from Salem by the Good Karma folks…

HERE’S A WEIRD SIMULCAST: OMW checked tonight, and at least in our part of the Time Warner Cable Northeast Ohio Network, local programming channel 15 is up and running again.

As we hinted earlier, in parts of the region – we’ll take a wild guess here and say it was in the former Adelphia areas that are also linked into the company’s Akron/Canton hub for such things as WKYC’s “Akron/Canton News” – a frozen picture of a woman walking down a hallway at NASA took over programming for the better part of a day or two.

A reader pointed out, and we verified tonight, that WKYC seems to have backed off of the “full Channel 3 treatment” of “Akron/Canton News”, which was first introduced Monday.

The newscast is still billboarded as “WKYC’s Akron/Canton News, brought to you by Time Warner Cable”, and those billboards still have the WKYC logo.

But the in-newscast graphics are no longer sporting the “HD 3” logo, or the parent station’s color scheme…it’s back to blue and white, even in those aforementioned billboards. We did see the Channel 3 colors during the sports segment.

We’ve had the channel on for a while…moving from the 10 PM newscast, through the last half hour of the 10 PM Friday repeat of “More Sports and Les Levine”, to high school football at 11 PM.

But not just any game.

In the Akron-area parts of former Adelphia system, Time Warner Cable seems to be able to feature games that aren’t being sent to Cleveland. And tonight’s playoff “game of the week” features Canal Fulton’s Northwest vs. Newark’s Licking Valley.

But in this case, Time Warner is a simulcaster.

The game is the “Stark County Game of the Week” for NextMedia talk WHBC/1480 Canton, and is produced and televised (on delay) by Image Video’s low-power combo WIVM-LP/52 Canton – WIVN-LP/29 Newcomerstown/(New Philadelphia/Cambridge).

Time Warner Cable does sponsor some elements, but the TV version carries WIVM/WIVN’s IDs, and WHBC’s branding.

It wouldn’t be the only programming to hit both the Image Video-owned LPTVers and Akron/Canton’s Time Warner systems – the local music performance/interview show Random Acts of Music is also seen on TWC throughout Northeast Ohio, as well as WIVM/WIVN.

While we’re talking TWC, the “Northeast Ohio Network” (NEON) channel seems to be filling out its schedule. We caught the local show “Made Here” – we’re not sure what it’s about, but tonight’s show showed a woman doing welding – followed by “3 Squares”, what we assume is a new restaurant show hosted by Al Pawlowski.

Yes, it’s the same Al Pawlowski known for his Indians studio work on SportsTime Ohio, and as the radio voice of Cleveland State University Viking Basketball…

AND HO HO HO AGAIN: We’re not maintaining an official list, but this just a note to put in the archive here.

Following crosstown AC competitor WHOF/101.7 “My 101.7”, NextMedia Canton AC WHBC-FM/94.1 “Mix 94.1” turned on their own sleigh bells and holiday music cheer Thursday morning.

With two Christmas music outlets, it appears Canton blinked first compared to stations in Northeast Ohio’s largest market of Cleveland, which have yet to call up St. Nick and ask for ho-ho-ho-tunes.

The smart money would be on CBS Radio AC WDOK/102.1, which is usually the first to flip to holiday music in the market, to do so sometime next week…

Addendum To Our Last Item

Our apologies to Cleveland Plain Dealer media columnist Julie Washington for the first item below.

And for that matter, to ourselves, for looking so out of touch in front of all of you.

Ms. Washington’s Sunday column apparently covered Mr. Duncan’s departure from WERE/1490.

We say “apparently”, because the online version at Cleveland.com has a glitch that doesn’t allow one to go past the story on NBC’s Brian Williams doing his broadcast from Cleveland this week. Scroll to the bottom, and tell us if we’re missing the “Page 2” link. Or, maybe she has a column under another heading that has the Ronnie Duncan story…we can’t find it.

Unless we manage to get our mitts on Sunday’s Dead Trees edition of PD (we’re not a subscriber), we won’t be able to read the story.

This is an ongoing problem with us and the PD content found on Cleveland.com.

Ms. Washington has a columnist “page” (currently labeled “Location: Cleveland” for her articles related to filmmaking efforts in Cleveland).

The media-related columns OCCASIONALLY end up there, but Sunday’s effort has not…though the “180 day archive” lists her November 4th piece talking to local radio consultant and former WMMS/100.7 programmer John Gorman about his “Buzzard” book. And not much else until an October column.

Is this any way to run a newspaper’s website?

Oh, and aside to Roger Brown, if that’s really you in the comments in our last item – welcome. “Word is” that people did mostly enjoy your column when it was in the PD. You were certainly well-read.

But as far as our own “breathless” accounting of breaking news and scoops…does the phrase “tongue in cheek” mean anything to you?

You’re a print journalist. You were employed by a major metropolitan newspaper, and as far as we know, still are employed by a pair of suburban papers.

You get paid to do your job. The Plain Dealer used to write paychecks to you, and we assume you’re not doing stuff for the Lake County News-Herald and the Lorain Morning Journal for free.

We’re basically a “one-man band” (“Your Primary Editorial Voice(tm)”) and do this on our own time, for free, and at our own leisure. Maybe we ought to start having fun with our little “THIS JUST IN” and “BREAKING NEWS” headers, to make our sense of humor clearer.

We’re often *surprised* when we “break” local media stories here.

They mostly just fall into our lap from regular readers, or from readers we didn’t know we had with extensive connections (and even titles like “Vice President” or “General Manager”). One of the biggest surprises we ever got was when a well-known local cluster programmer somewhere outside our regular coverage area told us he enjoyed our work, unsolicited.

Roger…admit it, you have a “schtick”, as do we. Your shout outs to Ronnie Duncan, Chris Rose, and the like are legendary.

(We have “friends of OMW”, too, ya know. There may be drinking games based on our frequent mentions of “long-time friend and colleague Scott Fybush”.)

Your apparent interest in real estate values of local sports-related personalities is also legendary, as is your use of the phrase “Word is”. Some find it humorous.

You know? Some do that with us, too.

We have our own lingo and expressions, and some of it causes people to roll their eyes. We have our own regular rotation of topics – you should see the E-Mail when we post articles about Youngstown/Warren-market based small radio group operator Beacon Broadcasting (WANR/WRTK/WLOA/WGRP/WEXC).

It comes with the territory.

Oh, and these comments, moved from the previous item’s comment section and edited slightly for context, are from us:

————-

1) We rarely post in the comments. We’d actually like them to go away.

2) We don’t see (the comments) section as “having the last word”. We generally only close off the comments these days if there are out-of-hand comments against subjects we address. We’ve even had to do it once or twice with very unkind/serious comments people made against you!

3) You confuse the people in (the comments section) with this blog’s author. All of our comments have the convenient “Ohio Media Watch” Blogger login link above them, like this one.

4) If you are indeed still writing a media-related column for a Northeast Ohio newspaper(s), your writing is fair for us to read, digest and comment upon. If you’re “out of the media business”, tell us, and the name Roger Brown will no longer come off of our keyboard.

5) And most important – (this update) shows that we don’t run from our goofs. We point them out, we highlight them, we shine a spotlight on them, we apologize.

(Though this one is not ENTIRELY our fault, since we couldn’t actually READ the column without the “on paper” version – and the online version not being available. If we’re missing that, we’ll apologize again.)

If you are still writing media columns, feel free to tell us an easy, “don’t have to use the search option” method to find your columns on the websites of either suburban paper, and we’ll be happy to direct people there again.

Basically, though? Lighten up, my friend…

–Your Primary Editorial Voice(tm)