No, we’re not bragging…it’s just that baseball is on our mind, after Friday’s big Opening Day at Progressive Field.
This update is very TV heavy, though those looking for an important update on an earlier radio story should immediately scroll down to our last item…
DISH AND STO CONNECT: And since these things usually come down to the last minute, the Indians home opener probably nudged SportsTime Ohio and Dish Network into an agreement.
Just hours before the rain-delayed first pitch in the game pitting the hometown Tribe and the Minnesota Twins, the Indians’ TV home and the second-largest satellite provider connected with a home run of their own.
A statement was issued jointly between the two on Friday afternoon:
“DISH and SportsTime Ohio are pleased to announce an agreement that restores the television home of the Cleveland Indians to DISH’s lineup effective immediately.”
The Email from STO hit our inbox at about a half hour after the scheduled start of Indians/Twins…a game which actually began after the rain ended a couple of hours later.
Of course, even without a deal, Dish subscribers would have still been able to watch the Indians’ home opener.
That’s because it was one of a handful of games this year airing on the team’s over-air partner channel, Gannett NBC affiliate WKYC/3.
For that matter, without a pact between Dish and STO, Dish subscribers would also have been able to watch Saturday’s Cleveland-Minnesota contest.
Saturday’s game is the very first Major League Baseball contest to air on new network Fox Sports 1. And thanks to our friends at STO/Fox Sports Ohio, here’s where you’ll find that network on local providers:
Time Warner-Cleveland: 75* / 317 / 1317
DirecTV: 219
Dish: 150
AT&T: 652 / 1652
WOW-Cleveland: 43 / 215
WOW-Columbus: 70 / 234
Cox: 50 / 218
* requires a digital set top box, not available with analog Expanded Basic
Those on smaller systems not on the list can check on the Fox Sports 1 channel finder.
Indians fans who are Dish subscribers may consider themselves fortunate that a deal has been reached with STO.
Los Angeles Dodgers fans with either satellite provider are without their team. The team’s SportsNet LA is being distributed in a deal with Time Warner Cable, and has yet to reach an agreement with either DirecTV or Dish Network.
For that matter, DirecTV and Dish aren’t alone. The Dodgers-owned SportsNet LA is not yet available on any major cable system not owned or affiliated with Time Warner…meaning, according to the Los Angeles Times, about 70% of the Los Angeles TV market can’t watch the games.
By those standards, even the carriage wars way back when SportsTime Ohio started seem kind of quaint.
But even in 2006, the money gap between the Cleveland market and the Los Angeles market was large…
NO TELEVISED JOE: After the Cleveland radio team of “Brian and Joe” was broken up, both hosts had pretty decent landings.
Brian Fowler ended up in morning drive on a different station, as co-host of Clear Channel country WGAR/99.5’s morning show with LeeAnn Sommers.
And although he’s still on the radio as afternoon driver (“The Joe Show”) on Salem CCMer WFHM/95.5 “The Fish”, Joe Cronauer has lost his TV gig.
Cronauer posted the news to his Facebook page last week:
The news director at WKYC has decided to go in another direction and as of tomorrow, I will no longer be on the morning show Channel 3. I’ve had a lot of fun for the past 3 1/2 years and have enjoyed shining a spotlight on the positive side of Northeast Ohio! You can still LISTEN to me on 95.5 The FISH weekdays from 3pm – 7pm for “The Joe Show”. I appreciate all of your support!
As is often the case, when a media executive says “we’re moving in a different direction”, it means “away from you”.
Cronauer started at WKYC as a contributor “Good Company (Today)” and later became a co-host, the program itself becoming “Live on Lakeside”.
He then moved onto the Channel 3 news early shift, becoming a feature reporter for the station’s morning newscasts…
CHICAGO CONNECTION, PART ONE: There’s an increase of media traffic on I-80/90, as Cleveland media types shuttle to Chicago.
We briefly told you last time, about a story that was breaking as we were preparing to post our last update.
Long-time Tribune Fox affiliate WJW/8 “Fox 8” president/general manager Greg Easterly is heading to the Windy City, taking the same post at WJW’s new big brother station in Chicago, Tribune flagship TV station WGN/9.
We learned of the news from Chicago media reporting icon Robert Feder, who had more to say about it:
Moving up from the 19th largest market to the third is Greg Easterly, a 17-year veteran of WJW-TV, Cleveland’s Fox affiliate. Tribune Co. picked up WJW last December as part of its $2.7 billion acquisition of 16 stations owned by Local TV Holdings. Easterly spent his first 10 years at the station as news director before he was named general manager in 2007.
And from a statement on the hiring from Tribune broadcast media boss Larry Wert:
“Greg is a proven leader, both at the head of a station and in the newsroom, and he has a keen understanding of the management and operations of a legacy station with market dominance. WGN programs a powerful schedule of news, sports and entertainment for itself and CLTV, with more news than any other Chicago station — I’m confident WGN will continue its growth and success under Greg’s expert guidance.”
Feder notes that like WGN, “Fox 8 News” programs a “massive amount of news”, some 71 hours a week…including the top-rated 6 1/2 hour “Fox 8 News in the Morning”.
In his new role in Chicago (starting April 24th), Easterly will also run the CLTV local cable news channel under Tribune’s wing…
CHICAGO CONNECTION, PART TWO: Former Scripps ABC affiliate WEWS/5 “NewsChannel 5” news director Jill Manuel was news director of that very same CLTV before coming to Cleveland.
She’s got a different stop in her return to Chicago.
In a statement, WEWS management said after her abrupt exit that she was leaving for “bigger opportunities in another market”, and according, once again, to Robert Feder:
Jill Manuel, former news director of Tribune Broadcasting’s CLTV, is returning to Chicago to become assistant news director at Fox-owned WFLD-Channel 32.
Feder provides us with a highlight reel of Manuel’s accomplishments at 3001 Euclid:
During her tenure in Cleveland, Manuel was credited with introducing the “Newsroom of the Future,” requiring all journalists including anchors, reporters and photographers to shoot, write, edit and voice stories for broadcast, web and mobile devices. In 2011, her station won a George Foster Peabody Award for investigative reporting.
As for Manuel, Feder quotes from her statement:
“I am thrilled to be returning to Chicago to work with the Fox 32 news team,” Manuel said in a statement. “I look forward to collaborating with them to produce quality journalism and tell stories that impact our audience on broadcast and digital platforms.”
It’s worth noting that though Feder’s report on Manuel joining Chicago’s Fox O&O is pretty straightforward, here’s some other quotes from him about that station:
These days practically every satellite interview on (WFLD’s) “Good Day Chicago” is sponsored by somebody selling something. But this one was about as shameless as they get.
On the other hand, it shouldn’t come as a surprise considering it’s the same station that condoned a contributor who boasted about free stuff she got from companies she promoted on the morning show.
Manuel might want to put protective gear into her moving van:
Forget about a libel attorney. What WFLD-Channel 32 staffers may need is a good personal injury lawyer.
Melody Mendez, news anchor at the Fox-owned station, bailed out of the final hour of “Good Day Chicago” Friday after she tripped and fell over loose cables on the newsroom floor. Co-workers said she seriously injured her wrist.
And in a Feder piece from November noting the exodus of experienced talent for “younger, less experienced newcomers” at Chicago’s Fox 32:
This is the same low-rent outfit that requires its anchors to operate their own Teleprompters by stepping on foot pedals or pressing hand-held devices to advance their scripts. The same one that dropped its professional makeup artist and ordered on-air talent to apply their own makeup. The same one that turned a reporter blue — literally blue — right before our eyes.
How are the ratings, you ask? Dead last — and down as much as 36 percent from last year.
Good luck, Jill…
TV INTERACTIVITY: Three Cleveland TV stations will up the interactive quotient soon, though almost no one will see it.
WKYC/3, WEWS/5 and Raycom Media’s WOIO/19 are the local participants in an interactive experiment that will take place over the next few months, according to TVTechnology:
Interactive tests planned by the stations include additional photo and map overlays offered to viewers wanting more information about particular news events and weather reports, as well as personalized traffic information and content from the station’s own websites. Functionality also includes the ability to interact with advertising by requesting more information such as store locations or receiving coupons.
But you’ll only see and be able to participate in the trial if you have an LG-brand smart TV.
The three local stations are taking part since their parent companies (Gannett, Scripps and Raycom) are part of the “Pearl” venture exploring use of digital media alongside broadcast signals.
The other two markets with stations taking part are Atlanta and Orlando…
JSA FADING: Another big change in TV is on the regulatory side, and it could have a big effect on one Northeast Ohio market.
The Federal Communications Commission this week announced policy changes involving those “JSAs” – joint sales agreements that allow one TV ownership group to effectively operate stations that do not count (now) against their ownership cap.
From the FCC’s own release:
The Commission’s radio rules have long recognized that these agreements create an ownership interest when the JSA allows for the sale of 15% or more of the advertising time on a competing local station. Today’s Report and Order applies this same standard to broadcast television. Parties to existing TV JSAs will have two years to come into compliance with the applicable local ownership limits. Waiver requests, considered on a case-by-case basis, must show that strict compliance with the rule is inconsistent with the public interest.
That very much starts the clock in Youngstown, where two of the market’s three full-power TV stations are affected.
LIN TV owns CBS affiliate WKBN/27 and low-power Fox affiliate WYFX-LD/19, and operates ABC affiliate WYTV/33 under such an agreement.
(Of course, we reported earlier that LIN TV is headed for merger land with Media General.)
Our friends at the Business Journal have more on the ruling and its impact in Youngstown.
We don’t know if Youngstown’s economy (improving because of the shale boom) will be considered bad enough for LIN/Media General to get some sort of economic waiver.
Low-power stations like WYFX-LD do not count in ownership cap discussions, so LIN/Media General can own the home of “Fox Youngstown” outright along with WKBN-TV…
A WINT FM UPDATE: We reported earlier that newly renamed Spirit Broadcasting talk WINT/1330 Willoughby “Integrity Radio” plans to add an FM signal soon.
But an article in the Lake County News-Herald had few details, and for that matter, so did some of our sources in Lake County.
Enter the details, thanks to WINT president Ray Somich, who was kind enough to go beyond the newspaper article for us.
The FM signal is the current W221CT/92.1 Ashtabula, which Spirit is in the process of buying from Western New York-based religious chain Family Life Ministries.
Not far from that group’s Bath NY headquarters is long-time personal and professional Friend of OMW Scott Fybush, keeper of NorthEast Radio Watch.
Scott tells us that Family Life applied for a large number of translators in the FCC’s most recent window, and is selling off those it does not need for its own operations.
And of course, the folks at WINT have no intention of simulcasting Lake County’s “Integrity Radio” in Ashtabula.
Somich tells us that the signal will indeed be moved into Lake County, and it can’t make that move on 92.1…so after it’s acquired, the former WELW will decide on a new home for the translator which will be the FM home for the programming now on 1330 AM.
Scott suggests that one future option could be 102.9 FM, due to rules that allow the signal to be moved to “an IF frequency”, 10.6 or 10.8 mHz away…and 92.1 plus 10.8 is 102.9, a frequency that could fit WINT’s new FM translator right between Media One’s WZOO/102.5 “Magic Oldies” Edgewood/Ashtabula, and Moody’s WCRF/103.3 Cleveland.
For his part, Somich tells us there are “a couple of options” for 92.1’s new home in Lake County…
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