Just a couple of notes:
* It doesn’t really affect Northeast Ohio at all, but that long-rumored Citadel deal with ABC Radio has been officially announced. The transaction basically merges ABC Radio into Citadel, with Disney shareholders retaining 52 percent ownership…and the new radio group will be managed and operated by Citadel.
Not included in the deal are the Radio Disney or ESPN Radio networks. That means nothing happens, at least for now, to ABC/Disney’s only local media presence, Radio Disney O&O AM 1260 in Cleveland.
The only other effect we can come up with – the new “Citadel Communications” will include ABC’s other radio network products, including syndicated hosts like Sean Hannity (WHLO/640, WEOL/930) and including ABC News Radio product. The new Citadel company has a 10 year agreement to distribute ABC News Radio to radio stations…Disney, oddly enough, retains non-radio distribution rights (Internet, etc.) to the news network.
Locally, a number of stations carry ABC’s radio news product, including WAKR/1590, WNIR/100.1 and WARF/1350 in the Akron market.
* It was indeed the “Power of 5” for ABC affiliate WEWS/5 Cleveland last night, as that’s the official name of their new fancy, high-tech, we’ve-got-better-toys-than-the-others doppler radar system.
The new system supposedly grabs real-time, updated radar (every 30 seconds) from 5 radar locations, including as far west as Fort Wayne IN. We’re assuming the raw data is coming out of the National Weather Service for at least the out-of-town radars, since the southernmost radar shows up on the map at about the location of the NWS forecast office in Wilmington, northeast of Cincinnati. (We’re also assuming WEWS isn’t putting up their own radars outside of Cleveland.)
Unless we’re forgetting it from another station, the new radar brings 3D weather imagery to the Cleveland TV market for the first time, though it’s basically like the Google Maps “tilting” effect.
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