Very Odd Stuff

Just clearing out the inbox, mostly, as we end the week…

AND OPRAH’S REPLACEMENT IS…: Scripps ABC affiliate WEWS/5 in Cleveland is one of many stations that have been grappling with a big question…when talk titan Oprah Winfrey leaves broadcast TV for her own cable network in 2011, what will replace her in the lineup?

Now, we know…and WEWS has stayed in the “Oprah” family in a choice with local ties.

Cleveland-born Dr. Mehmet Oz’s “Dr. Oz” show will slide from 10 AM to the all-important news-lead-in 4 PM slot in the fall of 2011, when Oprah slides over to the Oprah Winfrey Network.

Of course, “Dr. Oz” got his TV start as a frequent guest on Oprah’s show, and her production company helped launch his program.

We learned of the move in this article on TVNewsCheck.com, which also notes that WEWS’ sister ABC affiliate in Detroit, WXYZ/7, is making the same move…though in Detroit, WXYZ will take “Dr. Oz” from its current placement on NBC affiliate WDIV/4.

As far as “Dr. Oz’s” local ties are concerned, we don’t get the idea that his family stayed long in Cleveland, but long enough for him to be born here.

The only other question – will WEWS incessantly promote “Dr. Oz” with on-screen crawls throughout the station’s other programming, much like it does with “Oprah”? Stay tuned…

MANSFIELD/ASHLAND CHANGES: Clear Channel’s two talk stations in mid-Ohio have done some major lineup shuffling.

The biggest move involves afternoon drive at both WMAN/1400 Mansfield and WNCO/1340 Ashland, and affects morning drive at WMAN.

WMAN program director Rusty Cates moves from his own local afternoon show to become anchor of the morning drive program on AM 1400, joining existing players Tommy Barnes and Greg Heindel.

Taking afternoon drive on WMAN is Premiere’s Sean Hannity, a program which slides over from WNCO’s AM side. Replacing Hannity on AM 1340 is TRN talker Laura Ingraham.

WMAN goes all sports in evenings and overnights, with the local “Sports Grille with Aaron Hines” moving to the weekday 6-8 PM time slot. WMAN’s Jeff Swank, who has been heard on that show, continues hosting the station’s Saturday sports talk show.

WMAN also swaps out Westwood One’s Jim Bohannon and Premiere’s “Coast to Coast AM” for Fox Sports Radio…”Coast to Coast” and host George Noory land on WNCO instead, though we’re pretty sure they didn’t make the trip from AM 1400 to AM 1340 in a UFO.

Finally, WMAN has sent the Saturday “Marketplace” swap-shop program packing after over 30 years. No, they aren’t taking telephone bids for it…

40 YEARS?: We can’t confirm this, but a listener tells us that a Mahoning Valley radio personality is celebrating his 40th anniversary at the same station.

The reader tells us that long-time Cumulus top 40 WHOT/101.1 Youngstown “HOT 101” morning co-host A.C. McCullough started at WHOT – presumably then at 1330 AM – in June 1970.

We’d like some verification on that. We know for sure that A.C. and co-host Kelly Stevens (known for most of their long-time pairing as “A.C. and Kelly”) have been occupying the HOT 101 morning drive time slot since at least 1989…which would be 21 years in itself.

A.C.’s bio is not in place on the WHOT “Wake Up Crew” web page, where it says “Profile coming soon”…isn’t 40 years enough time to write a bio? Heh.

Anyway, 21 or 40 years at the same station, that’s still a big milestone…

COOL YOUNG INVENTORS: A Northeast Ohio student could get a $1,000 U.S. Savings Bond in a contest being voted upon via a Time Warner Cable “Local On Demand” offering.

10 area finalists are in the “Coolest Creations” contest. Voting on the youth-created inventions runs through August 31st.

TWC’s Travis Reynolds gives us the voting instructions:

To “vote with your remote,” simply tune to Local On Demand channel 411 and select VOTE WITH REMOTE and then COOLEST CREATIONS.

The 10 area finalists made the competition after being selected at an event in May at the Great Lakes Science Center…

FACEBOOKING IT: And yes, your Mighty Blog of Fun(tm) now has Facebook representation.

We created the account quietly, with no announcement, and already…about a dozen folks have found us.

For the moment, the OMW account is a traditional one, and we haven’t yet figured out how to set it up as a “Fan” page. We have the page, we just can’t figure out – for example – how to use Twitterfeed to populate it with our updates. We’ve done so for the regular page.

We’ve also added the Facebook account to our desktop Twitter client, so anything we post there will go to the Facebook account as well. We think we might be able to do so with at least one mobile client.

We’re not sure what we’re going to do on the Facebook side of things, but felt we had to be there…

Rick Gilmour Dies

Former Cleveland radio talk show host Rick Gilmour has died of cancer, at the age of 48.

The station where “Gilly” spent most of his radio career, Clear Channel talk WTAM/1100, has more.

Gilmour’s death is, unfortunately, no surprise to OMW readers. We wrote about his struggle with cancer in late March, noting that he’d been transferred to hospice care.

Though he hasn’t been on the air regularly for some years now, listeners still remember Gilmour’s unique style and voice.  After a stint at crosstown talker WERE/1300 (now a Radio One talk station at 1490 AM), Gilmour was hired at WTAM to replace Morton Downey, Jr.

Oddly enough, that’s one thing he had in common with Premiere syndicated host Rush Limbaugh, who is heard on “The Big One” weekdays from noon to 3.

Limbaugh was hired by KFBK in Sacramento CA in 1984 as a local talk show host, to replace…you guessed it, Morton Downey, Jr…

Joe Tait Honored

Perhaps the biggest honor for Cleveland Cavaliers iconic radio voice Joe Tait would be being the voice of the NBA Champion Cleveland Cavaliers.  But this one’s pretty good.

The Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame has tapped the veteran Cavs broadcaster as the Hall Of Fame’s broadcast  inductee for 2010, with Tait winning the Curt Gowdy Media Award.

Quoting the press release from the Cavaliers’ website:

Joe Tait, the 2010 Gowdy Award winner representing the Electronic Media, is currently in his 38th season covering NBA basketball as the voice of the Cleveland Cavaliers. He began as Cleveland’s play-by-play announcer eight games into the club’s inaugural season of 1970, and during his first 11 years with the team, Tait earned his reputation as one of the nation’s top sportscasters.

After stints in New Jersey (1981) and Chicago (1982), Tait returned to call the Cavs’ games in 1983 when owners George and Gordon Gund acquired ownership of the team, as one of their first moves was to re-hire the most recognizable and popular voice of the franchise. In 1987, Tait was named Vice President, Broadcasting for the Cavaliers and worked on all aspects of the club’s radio and television broadcasts, calling games on WOIO-TV/19 and the Cavaliers Television Network. For the past 15 seasons, Tait has called Cavaliers’ games on News Radio WTAM 1100 and the team’s radio network that reaches most of Ohio.

The release also note’s Tait’s previous awards and honors:

Tait is an eight-time winner of Sportscaster of the Year in Ohio, spanning from 1974 to 2004. He was inducted into the Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 1992 and was awarded the group’s C.S. Williams Founders Award for his longstanding and meritorious service in broadcasting in 1996. In 2008, Tait received the “Lifetime Achievement Award” from the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission, joining Cleveland sports legends such as Jim Brown and Bob Feller as recipients of the honor. In addition, Tait was inducted to the Cleveland Sports Legends Hall of Fame in 2001 and the Cleveland Press Club Hall of Fame in 2003.

With this, we wonder out loud – what took the Basketball Hall of Fame so long, taking until a year before Tait’s apparent retirement to honor him?

Congratulations, Joe…and here’s hoping LeBron and company do manage to “Win One for Tait”…

Boom To Explode At Noon

WNWV/107.3, destined for AAA “Boom”, is stunting with clock ticking noises this morning.

OMW hears that “107.3 Boom!” debuts today at 12 Noon…

COLUMBUS LISTENERS: We need to confirm that the new 102.5 Columbus market signal is on-air today…let us know if you’re hearing it!

Er…”Highway 102″ that is…it appears both FM signals don’t use the “.5/.7” on air.

More Zanesville: WHIZ’s Littick says relocated 102.5 will continue as country “Highway 102.5” with new Columbus market signal

Zanesville swap: Hot AC “Z92” takes historic WHIZ-FM calls, swaps WCVZ to 102.5 “Highway 102”, http://ping.fm/nvt5U

BREAKING NEWS: Kristy Steeves Exits WJW

OMW hears that veteran Local TV WJW/8 Cleveland “Fox 8 News” reporter Kristy Steeves is leaving South Marginal (and the Summit Mall food court – AKA the location of WJW’s Akron bureau) to concentrate on her photography business.

We hear her last day was today in Akron, and she’ll exit South Marginal tomorrow…and that the departure from “Fox 8 News” was her own decision.

More later…

Radio And Records Closing

UPDATE 6/3/09 5:29 PM: We had no idea how quickly the link to Radio & Records’ announcement of its own demise would go away. The R&R site went down roughly 5 minutes after we posted the below link. We did warn you to “click it as soon as you can”, but we didn’t think the R&R site would go under in minutes!

To read more on R&R’s closure, check out these stories from Inside Radio and Mediaweek…

Our original item is below…

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If you’re a Certain Age in the radio business, the Radio Information Bible for you was “Radio & Records”.

Most broadcasters starting their careers from the mid-1970’s into the mid-1990’s found week-old “R&R” copies sitting on desks in the hallway or jock lounge…after their program director had already read them.

For many radio people, including your Primary Editorial Voice(tm) back in the day, those old R&Rs were their only connection to the world of radio outside where they worked.

No more.

Radio & Records, now owned by Billboard parent Nielsen, announced today that it is shutting down…and click the link as soon as you can, for it’s about to go away:

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The current state of affairs has left The Nielsen Company with no other alternative but to immediately cease all services, products and events related to Radio & Records. The magazine’s final edition is the June 5 issue. Electronic products end today, the Web site will be taken offline soon.

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R&R started up in 1973, according to the timeline on the linked story. When Print Was King, so was R&R.

And then, many years later, this thing called the Internet came along.

R&R followed with its online site, but it always seemed to fall behind other efforts to bring news about the radio and record industries to the online audience.

Most notably, Joel Denver’s AllAccess site basically supplanted R&R as the lead national source for radio industry news, information and gossip, and R&R never recovered. (Mr. Denver, by the way, is a former R&R editor.)

And since the site is free, and everyone has Internet access now, the dynamic as a whole has changed as well.

Of course, the transition from the Print World to the Digital World as far as news about the radio industry goes has played out on other levels.

Local newspapers make a very small effort to cover developments in radio, and at least here, this very blog has basically become a replacement for regular newspaper coverage of radio news…give or take an occasional column by the Plain Dealer’s Julie Washington, or Beacon Journal pop culture writer Rich Heldenfels.

Some of it is the migration to the Internet, some of it is because at times, there isn’t as much to cover that’s of interest to a general audience. (We do far more “inside baseball” coverage of both local radio and TV that wouldn’t really be in the spirit of a newspaper column.)

But back to R&R…even though it seems its most relevant days went away in the 1990’s, we’re sad to see it go…