TWC: OSU Big Ten Network Saturday Game In HD

Time Warner Cable’s Northeast Ohio division has announced that this weekend’s Ohio State Buckeyes game on Big Ten Network will indeed air locally in high-definition.

The contest between the Buckeyes and the Youngstown State University Penguins will air Saturday at noon on HD digital channel 433.

A TWC Northeast Ohio press release on the subject is reprinted below:

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Time Warner Cable To Offer OSU Game
In High-Definition on Channel 433

Akron, OH (AUGUST 2008) – Time Warner Cable customers will be able to watch this Saturday’s Ohio State University football game in high-definition on channel 433. This announcement follows yesterday’s news that Time Warner Cable will carry the Big Ten Network in standard-definition on channel 77 and 333.

Time Warner Cable will also offer customers an additional Big Ten Network channel that will air out-of-market games when an in-market game is on at the same time. That channel will be located at 334. This Saturday, the out-of-market game will be the University of Akron versus the University of Wisconsin, at 12 noon, the same time as the Ohio State game.

More information on channel lineups can be found at http://www.twcguide.com or through the on-screen guide.

In addition to this weekend’s Ohio State University game versus Youngstown State, Big Ten Network is also scheduled to broadcast the September 20th Buckeyes game against Troy University.

For more information about Time Warner Cable, please visit http://www.twcneo.com.

Radio One Cuts Hit Ohio, Other Markets

The down economy, and the media’s troubles, are just part of the story at Radio One – which reportedly made a wide variety of job cuts in a number of markets Thursday, including at all of its Ohio clusters.

We don’t have any details directly about the company’s Cleveland stations, but Radio-Info.com columnist Tom Taylor includes this line in his story about the Radio One job cuts:

In Cleveland, production talent, parttime air talent and producers gone and some fulltime vacancies not filled, for a total of perhaps 12 bodies.

The number seems a bit high, and we haven’t confirmed it from within Radio One’s Cleveland cluster, which includes urban AC WZAK/93.1, hip-hop WENZ/107.9, gospel WJMO/1300 and urban talk/brokered WERE/1490.

But there are reports of eight job cuts at Radio One’s hometown Washington DC cluster, and as many as 20 are said to be out of work at the company’s Atlanta operation.

Taylor also reports word of two staffers being let go, each, at Radio One’s Cincinnati cluster – urban AC WMOJ/100.3 “Mojo” program director Phillip March and an unnamed host at urban talk WDBZ/1230 – and in Columbus, where Taylor names WCKX/107.5 afternoon driver “B. Slim” and production director Ed Dozier as job casualties.

Radio One no longer owns stations in one Ohio market, Dayton, due to a recent sale to Main Line Broadcasting.

The cuts seem extensive.

But Radio One’s problems are deeper than those of most broadcast companies, with its stock tumbling to low levels. And the company hasn’t been in the best financial shape even when you set aside the economic downturn…

Akron/Canton News Returns – Sort Of – And People Meters

We’re actually surprised this didn’t happen earlier this year, when the WKYC/3-produced “Akron/Canton News” ended its run on Time Warner Cable’s “NEON” local programming channel….after a previous run over-air on ION-owned WVPX/23.

WKYC Akron bureau chief Eric Mansfield has started what we guess could be called “Akron/Canton News 2.0” via a new video player on his WKYC “Have I Got News For You!” blog. The video player aggregates all of Mansfield’s (and WKYC’s) recent Akron/Canton-based stories in one online place.

But we actually first found out about this on our own, early this morning, when we stumbled onto something that Mansfield had talked about in vague terms in his most recent item:

…and my hope is to add a few copy stories that I’ll read from our Akron newsroom to kind of round-it-all out.

Sure enough, Eric got a Round Tuit and did just that on Thursday night, in a short video that’s labeled the “Akron/Canton Webcast”, complete with use of the green screen at WKYC’s Akron bureau to resurrect the old “ACN” virtual set.

Eric credits one of the more capable digital hands at 13th and Lakeside, WKYC senior director and “Director’s Cut” blogger Frank Macek, for helping him launch the online version of “Akron/Canton News”.

It’s not quite a full over-air (or even cable) newscast, but it makes a lot of sense for WKYC to use its extensive existing online presence and video to at least try to reach those who really don’t pay much attention to news north of the Ohio Turnpike.

Speaking of Frank Macek and his blog, he alerts readers that the Cleveland/Akron (Canton) TV market has indeed entered the Nielsen “Local People Meter” era, with the controversial ratings measuring devices deployed in this region starting Thursday. Quoting:

What does this mean for Cleveland TV stations?

First, it will mean a 12 – one month survey periods. Every month becomes a new sweeps time…putting TV stations in continuous, competitive situation. Will this mean you will seen the hype stories all the time. Not likely. But it will mean stations have to become smarter and wiser as to the news content they offer all year round.

Macek notes that Cuyahoga County viewers make up 35 percent of the 17 county Cleveland market viewing area, and as such, the Nielsen folks will also subdivide Cuyahoga County into five census-based zones, including the area’s traditional west side/east side divide…

Zips Add FM Voice

The University of Akron Zips football team will not only be on TV this weekend.

In their last season at the Rubber Bowl, the Zips gain a regular FM radio home.

The university and Clear Channel Akron/Canton announced today that in addition to carriage on sports WARF/1350 Akron, the team’s games will also air on Clear Channel rock WRQK/106.9 Canton, starting with this weekend’s Zips contest with Wisconsin.

Though “Rock 106.9” has long been a Canton station, it has made efforts to expand its reach and influence into Akron under Clear Channel’s direction.

More details later…

A Newsy Thursday

Items are popping up all over…

CC CLEVELAND’S NEW OM: Clear Channel’s Cleveland cluster has found a new operations manager.

He’s Keith Abrams, who comes to Oak Tree from the VP/Programming slot at CBS Radio’s Denver cluster. Though the title is slightly different, he’ll replace former cluster programming fixture Kevin Metheny…who parted ways with Clear Channel late last month.

Abrams also has Salt Lake City, Seattle, Charlotte, Memphis and Pittsburgh on his programming resume. We hear that he and his wife are from Pittsburgh and are “big Steelers fans”, so we hope he has the good sense to lay low when the Browns and Steelers tangle later this season.

A station memo that floated into the OMW World Headquarters says Abrams will be “driving in” from Denver, and taking the operations manager reins on September 5th…

SIGN HIM UP: Crowing about his ratings successes, D.A. Peterson top 40 WDJQ/92.5 Alliance “Q92” has signed an extension with morning host DeLuca.

A station press release that floated in right before the CC memo says DeLuca is now under contract with the Canton market top 40 station through the year 2012. Quoting the release:

“Over the past two-and-a-half years, DeLuca has taken Q92 from mediocre morning numbers to the top of the Canton area Morning Drive ratings. Since coming to Morning Drive from evenings, he has always been popular with the younger segment of the radio listening audience. But DeLuca has an uncanny way of appealing to a mature audience as well.”

It’s not often that when talking about a new personality’s success, you see a station admitting that its previous numbers were “mediocre”…

BIG TEN’ING IT: Time Warner Cable has released channel numbers where Big Ten Network games will be seen starting this weekend.

As we expected, but never wrote here, BTN’s primary feed will show up on the TWC expanded basic lineup on Channel 77, where viewers will watch THE Ohio State University Buckeyes play the (lower case) Youngstown State University Penguins in the season opener.

The 77 placement makes sense, since it’s right next to the analog home for SportsTime Ohio (76).

The BTN primary feed will also be aired on digital cable channel 333, and a BTN alternate feed will be available on digital cable channel 334.

The Akron Beacon Journal’s George M. Thomas reports that the alternate feed will provide a bonus for Akron area sports fans this Saturday, as it’ll carry the University of Akron Zips game against Big Ten school Wisconsin.

The TWC/BTN deal does include HDTV feeds and on demand services, but don’t expect them to light up this weekend, says the TWC page on the deal:

Standard definition channels on our Expanded Basic and Digital Cable service levels will launch in time for the Saturday, August 30 game. High definition and Video On Demand services will be added at a later time.

As we write this on Thursday morning, even analog channel 77 doesn’t seem to be “awake” on TWC’s Cleveland-based (former Adelphia) system. We suspect it’ll go live by the close of business Friday, but that’s just a guess.

And for those on the far eastern end of the Time Warner Cable Northeast Ohio empire, the TWC page has news for you, too:

Customers in the Franklin, PA area will see Big Ten on channel 28, and portions of the Erie, PA area will see the channel on position 31.

Here at your Mighty Blog, we don’t know what “portions of the Erie, PA area” means, but the TWC system there is basically in two parts – the legacy TWC part of the system, which covers the city of Erie, and the former Adelphia system, which covers the county outside Erie itself…

Big Ten Network, Time Warner Finally Reach Deal

The Big Ten Network and Time Warner Cable have reached “an agreement-in-principle” to clear the network on TWC’s expanded basic tier, along with providing high definition and video-on-demand Big Ten Network offerings.

A joint statement between the two entities was released late Monday. Time Warner is the dominant cable provider in Ohio, serving over 2 million customers and nearly all of the state’s major metropolitan areas.

The “pending” pact means TWC will be able to carry this coming weekend’s Big Ten openers, including the game between THE Ohio State University football Buckeyes and the Youngstown State University Penguins…

UPDATE: WKNR "Little Brother" Growing

Good Karma Broadcasting now has the FCC go-ahead to upgrade sports WWGK/1540 “KNR2”, the company’s first Cleveland market acquisition, with the approval earlier this month of an upgraded signal construction permit.

OMW reported in April that WWGK filed to more than triple its daytime power – from 1000 to 3500 watts – and to move its transmitter site to co-locate at the WKNR site in North Royalton. WWGK’s current transmitter site is at 1540’s long-time former home, on Euclid Avenue on Cleveland’s East Side.

The station will reduce to 1500 watts in the “critical hours” time period, defined as two hours after sunrise and two hours before sunset.

But the upgrade does not give WWGK any nighttime signal – which would presumably be nearly impossible considering all the full-power stations on the 1540 frequency…among them, Waterloo IA’s KXEL and Toronto’s CHIN.

The directional signal – depicted here in a Radio-Locator “for entertainment only” signal map – aims most of WWGK’s juice north from North Royalton towards the bulk of the Cleveland area. But if the map is any guide, WWGK may actually lose some signal in some northeastern Cleveland suburbs…though it certainly improves in much of central and western Cuyahoga County.

As Good Karma’s “backup” sports station, on a difficult frequency, WWGK basically gets whatever it can squeeze out of 1540.

Good Karma, owned by Craig Karmazin, bought the former WABQ/1540 as his first Cleveland station – before eventually buying what’s now “ESPN 850 WKNR” from Salem a few months later…

Monday Changes

UPDATE 8/25/08 6:28 PM: Toledo NBC affiliate WNWO/24 reports that it has granted another extension to Buckeye Cablevision, which will keep the station on cable through September 10th as negotiations continue…

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If you look closely, you’ll notice a very slight change in our appearance.

We’ve been putting it off here at the Mighty Blog of Fun(tm), but we finally decided to drag our old template into the new Blogger layout system. We’re still tweaking some things, but this will allow us to more quickly, and easily, change things in the future.

There isn’t much to talk about this Monday morning, but we’re here…

RUMBLINGS: We’re hearing rumblings that there could be on-air changes at a Northeast Ohio FM station “as soon as today”, but don’t know much more than that right now. We’ll update this item when we receive more information…

BOB AND TOM AND JACOR: This doesn’t directly affect Northeast Ohio radio, but it involves a show that still airs at least on at least a couple of area stations.

Tribune’s WGN America, the cable/satellite home of Chicago sports and “Retro” TV nights, forges yet another link with radio, when Premiere syndicated morning drive team “Bob and Tom” debut a televised version of their radio show – distilled down into an hour – from midnight to 1 AM weeknights.

The TV side of the show starts November 3rd. The show crows about it in a WGN press release here (PDF format).

“Bob and Tom” exited Clear Channel rock WMMS/100.7’s morning drive slot when Cleveland-based Shane “Rover” French and his “Morning Glory” showed up – and eventually exited WMMS entirely.

The show still airs on the company’s Canton rocker WRQK/106.9 and its Youngstown sister (brother?) station WNCD/93.3 “The Wolf”, and on former Clear Channel-now-Media One classic rocker WFXJ/107.5 “The Fox” in the Ashtabula market, along with other Ohio stations.

A key figure in this move is Tribune’s Sean Compton, the former Premiere Radio head who cut his big market radio teeth at Cincinnati’s own WLW/700.

And since Tribune is being run top to bottom by a whole host of former Jacor radio executives, including suburban Cincinnati’s Randy Michaels (speaking of WLW) and new Tribune owner Sam Zell, we’re wondering when they’ll change the company’s name to “Jacor”.

Tribune recently put out a press release crowing about the Tribune-to-Jacor connection, and the former SuperStation WGN still uses their version of the old Jacor slogan, “TV You Can’t Ignore”.

Well, as long as they don’t mess too much with CTV’s “Corner Gas” for the rest of its run, we’ll give ’em a break…just put it somewhere where we can run the TiVo, is all we ask…

HERE’S AN ODD MOVE: OMW hears that Cumulus talk WTOD/1560 Toledo “SuperTalk 1560” is displacing an hour of Dial Global’s syndicated Neal Boortz Show weekdays from 12-1 PM.

Supposedly headed for that time slot? The brokered Catholic weekend show “Annunciation Radio”, which airs on WTOD now from 12-2 PM on Sundays. As far as we know, the WSB/Atlanta-based Boortz will continue on the station from 1-3 PM.

We hear one reason behind the move is to clear the Sunday afternoon space on 1560 for radio coverage of the National…Football…League…(fanfare, imagine your best John Facenda voice).

WTOD will pick up Westwood One NFL games that can’t be aired for whatever reason on sister sports WLQR/1470 “The Ticket”, and also will air “Sports USA” coverage of NFL games. That network recently inked former San Diego Chargers quarterback star Dan Fouts as a game analyst…

SPEAKING OF THE NFL IN T-TOWN: OMW hears that this past weekend’s Cleveland Browns/Detroit Lions game did air in Toledo not only on talk WNWT/1520, but on Cornerstone Church/Matrix Media sister station WMNT/48 “My 58”.

We don’t know if the TV side of the Matrix house will carry the Browns’ final pre-season tilt on Thursday…or if anyone will be brave enough to actually watch it…

AND ONE MORE TOLEDO ITEM: And it’s a doozy, though we won’t know the disposition until we hear out of the Glass City later today.

Buckeye Cablevision viewers could find Toledo NBC affiliate WNWO/24 “NBC 24” off of their cable lineup as soon as today, as the Barrington Broadcasting-owned TV station has not reached a new carriage agreement with Buckeye, owned by Toledo-based media empire Block Communications.

The agreement was originally supposed to expire August 1st, but was extended until the end of the Summer Olympics. With the games now over, all bets are off.

An item posted to WNWO’s website alerts viewers to the prospect of the station’s signal going off Buckeye Cablevision “within days”, and urges concerned viewers to use a “cost free” antenna, or move to a satellite dish.

The station’s official response – sent via E-Mail to Buckeye subscribers – is reprinted on the station’s website as well.

And the back and forth reminds us of a political campaign. The WNWO response cites a quote from the general manager of Louisville KY’s WDRB/WMYO on the trade site TV Newsday back in June:

“If we were gone, I don’t think cable could hold their interest very long. We’ve put millions and millions of dollars into programming and we should be compensated if you’re making money from us.”

WNWO wastes no time reminding the reader that the Louisville FOX/MyNetwork TV combo is owned by…you guessed it, Block Communications, which owns Buckeye Cablesystem. (And of course, Block also operates Toledo’s cable-only CW affiliate, “WT05”.)

For its part, Buckeye’s statement is quoted on the WNWO site (if they’ve put it on their own site, we can’t find it):

This demand WNWO is asking for is very unreasonable and exceeds the value for agreements with other Toledo area broadcasters. WNWO is seeking compensation as though it were the top-performing station in Toledo, but in fact it performs at the bottom. That is not fair.

Well, they do have a point there…WNWO is, as far as we know, Toledo’s lowest-rated over-air full-power station. We’re not sure they aren’t heading for a dangerous spot in forcing the issue…”NBC 24″ really needs as many viewers as it can get in the day-to-day battle for viewers…though WNWO also notes that the now-completed Olympics were highly rated, and “on NBC 24”.

But the station compares itself not to other broadcasters like WTOL, WTVG and WUPW…it compares itself in the response to ESPN and other cable networks which get high compensation from Buckeye and other cable operators.

The dispute also affects cable subscribers in Sandusky, served by the Buckeye arm that used to be known as Erie County Cablevision.

Meanwhile, viewers don’t want to go through changing providers or putting up an antenna to get a major network affiliate…they just want to tune to the channel and find NBC programming.

Will it be the last straw for some who were already thinking about switching to satellite, though? Who knows, but no one short of the dish installers would seem to be a winner here…

It’s That Time Of Year

Back in the day, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and cable TV was in its infancy, you had just a handful of places to find a televised high school football game in Northeast Ohio.

The primary carrier of high school football was local PBS affiliate WVIZ/25, which featured its “Game of the Week” on tape delay late Friday nights.

Various other outlets, like cable access channels, carried some assorted games. But that was about it.

Now, televised high school football has popped up all over – with a steady diet of games all over the TV dial.

We’re at the start of that season again, so here’s a brief rundown of Who’s Doing What:

FOX SPORTS NET OHIO: FSN Ohio actually started all this for 2008, beginning their series of Thursday night games this week.

The regional sports network took out a full-page ad in Thursday’s Cleveland Plain Dealer listing the entire series of games, which air at 6 PM each Thursday evening.

Yes, Thursday. At some point, state athletic regulators (OHSAA) approved not only the Thursday night games, but live telecasts of those games by FSN Ohio.

FSN Ohio’s Jeff Phelps and WJW/8 “FOX 8”-WKNR/850 “ESPN 850″‘s Tony Rizzo are involved in the effort…

TIME WARNER CABLE: As the area’s dominant local cable provider relaunches its “NEON” (Northeast Ohio Network) local programming channel, it also unveils its high school football plans for 2008.

The cable outlet says it’ll offer up to three (tape-delayed) “High School Games of the Week”, starting tonight at 11 PM with a broadcast of a Thursday contest between Akron schools Garfield and Hoban.

NEON will offer games regionally, via its various local zones, so we’ll assume a full schedule will send different games to Akron, Canton and Cleveland parts of the TWC empire. (We already saw some of this last year.)

The games, and all of NEON’s programming, will air on cable channel 23 throughout the TWC Northeast Ohio cable empire…

OTHER: We don’t have the information at hand, but we’ll assume other TV outlets will continue with their coverage this year.

We don’t spot any games in the current schedule at SportsTime Ohio, but the sports network’s high school web page proclaims its playoff and championship deal with the OHSAA. It also proclaims the return of the “High School Sports Insider” show on Mondays at 6:30 PM.

Canton-based low-power TV combo WIVM/52-WIVN/29 continues with tape-delayed high school contests this year, with a game between Lake and Green listed tonight at 11 PM in the Canton Repository’s TV-radio sports listings.

AND ON THE RADIO: Good Karma sports WKNR/850 “ESPN 850” returns its “High School Hysteria” to the airwaves this evening for another season.

WKNR assistant program director/midday co-host Aaron Goldhammer is once again driving the “Hysteria” bus (keep those hands on the wheel, Hammer!), with pre-game and scoreboard features surrounding the station’s “game of the week”…the Avon Lake/Maple Heights contest is first up. The scheduled “Hysteria” start is 7 PM.

Outside Cleveland, we’re sure the usual full coverage applies on stalwart stations like Akron’s WAKR/1590 and WHLO/640, Canton’s WHBC/1480, Elyria’s WEOL/930 and Wooster’s WQKT/104.5.

WHLO sister sports outlet WARF/1350 aired a lengthy high school football preview earlier this week. We’ll presume that they’re once again along for the high school football ride following the conclusion of the Eastern League Akron Aeros’ 2008 playoff run.

AND A NON-GAME RELATED RADIO SHOW: It doesn’t involve game coverage itself, but a new weekly radio show hopes to make its mark.

Metro Networks/Cleveland sports reporter Joe Lull tells OMW that he’s fronting a new effort called “High School Frenzy”, a brokered hour-long “high school football scoreboard/recap show” show on Salem talk WHK/1420. It airs Friday nights at 10 PM, starting tonight.

The “Frenzy” press release lists two other well-known local sports personalities joining Lull for the show: former WKNR/FSN Ohio host Neil Bender, and Metro/WKNR morning sports update anchor Jeff Thomas.

Lull is apparently hoping to nab high-school football obsessed listeners when WKNR heads away from “Hysteria” to carry the baseball postgame show “Tenth Inning”…

AND…: If we missed anything, please let us know, either via a comment on this item or via E-Mail…

The (Early) Death of a Congresswoman

Any hardened newsie will tell you that the death of a sitting member of Congress, especially unexpected, is Big Breaking News. But before reporting the death, you probably should make sure that the public official is actually, well, dead.

That’s the problem that was faced by both print and broadcast media in Northeast Ohio on Wednesday, with the death of long-time Cleveland congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones after she suffered a brain aneurism.

About two hours after a noon press conference announcing her grave condition, a number of media outlets both in Ohio and beyond reported the congresswoman’s death – prematurely, as it turned out.

Since print media is no longer “print only”, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported Tubbs Jones to be dead on its Cleveland.com site…at 1:49 Wednesday afternoon.

In its follow-up about the “confusion” over the early death report, an unnamed PD staffer wrote last night on Cleveland.com:

The newspaper based the report on several trusted sources, who described Tubbs Jones as either dead or brain dead. In Ohio, people are considered legally dead when doctors declare them brain dead.

Tubbs Jones’ doctors, however, said at a mid-afternoon news conference that her brain had “very limited brain function” following the bursting of an aneurysm in an inaccessible part of her brain.

The PD story says a number of outlets, including the Associated Press and CNN, also reported Congresswoman Tubbs Jones’ death a full four hours before it actually happened, announced to be 6:12 that same evening.

We weren’t near a TV at the time this all happened. We know ABC affiliate WEWS/5 “NewsChannel 5” passed along the story on their NewsNet5 website, and we also saw the PD’s item on Cleveland.com.

Radio-wise, we did actually hear Clear Channel talk WTAM/1100 interrupt a portion of Rush Limbaugh’s third hour to pass along the death reports.

We heard WTAM news director Darren Toms point out that the information was coming “from a variety of news sources”, including the Associated Press and FOX News…both of which supply news content to the station. Toms did not, as far as we know – we missed the first few seconds – say that WTAM was confirming the reports.

But caution was displayed at least at one local media outlet, Gannett NBC affiliate WKYC/3, as the station’s Frank Macek writes in his “Director’s Cut Blog” item about the station’s 5 PM news special on the story Wednesday evening:

We’ll provide the latest developments on her condition – as it was erraneously reported by every OTHER Cleveland market station and CNN that she had died earlier in the day. WKYC reported the facts, and respected the truth with responsible reporting that indicated she remained in critical condition.

That item was written after the erroneous reports, but before Tubbs Jones’ official death announcement later that day.

And we’re not sure we blame the electronic media outlets that jumped the gun, particularly if their own national news sources (with sources the local stations don’t have in Washington, for example) are reporting the death.

It’s not like they were using information from an anonymously-published blog about local media as the sole source of their story. Not like any small city Northeast Ohio newspaper would ever do that…right, Dover/New Philadelphia folks?

Anyway, it’s just another reminder that in the rush to “be first” in today’s full-time, 24/7 news world, perhaps some more caution should be employed…even by the “print media”.

We do not know if any family, friends or associates of the late Congresswoman read OMW, but if you do…we offer our condolences on her death…