Our apologies for a delayed update…but Blogger is having indigestion this morning, and we haven’t even had access to the Mighty Blog of Fun(tm) for the past couple of hours!
It’s Monday, and that means it’s time to pick out the useful pieces from Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist Roger Brown’s Monday Media Column…
STO PROGRAMMING: Roger follows up on an item we mentioned over the weekend…the new in-house programming by the folks at SportsTime Ohio, which showed up on the station’s new website schedule last week.
Brown tells us that the Browns “Training Camp Daily” show, which premieres Wednesday at 10:30 PM, will be handled by WKYC/3 sports director Jim Donovan (an STO regular), Plain Dealer Browns beat writer Tony Grossi, and former team coach Sam Rutigliano.
Donovan also tells The Artful Roger that he hopes to bring ex-Browns lineman Doug Dieken – his Browns Radio Network partner – aboard the show.
The moves will bring STO to its previously announced goal of a seven-day a week evening schedule from 6 PM to midnight. STO boss Jim Liberatore says it starts a “new era” for the regional sports network, though we’d be more impressed if that new era involved a full-time channel.
As we’ve personally told Mr. Liberatore, many people even forget STO exists if they’re not looking for an Indians game. Being lit up each evening will help, but STO really needs to move to the next step…a 24/7 channel. It won’t take THAT much more to get there, as channels like FSN Ohio only have a certain number of shows that repeat during the day…
BROWNS TIFF: Roger goes over some of the past run-ins between Raycom Media CBS affiliate WOIO/19 and the Cleveland Browns, as evidence that the most recent difficulty between the two organizations is just the
latest problem.
In addition to the K2 Blowout between Browns receiver Kellen Winslow, his father and WOIO lead sports anchor Chuck Galeti (where we think Winslow Sr. overreacted), Brown reminds us of “unease” with 19’s Sharon Reed and her behavior – and dress – at Berea. Well, we guess someone would dress that way if she were hoping to date players, not just interview them.
The PD columnist also says the team wasn’t thrilled with the station’s handling of the team-related shows, including spotlighting the station’s personalities…and the low ratings those shows have gotten on WOIO.
But Brown doesn’t mention our earlier report that the station came in last year with a “we own this place swagger” in training camp, not to mention the fact that such behavior got 19 Action News types placed on a short leash in Berea.
He also intimates that WKYC/3 is “drooling” over the prospect of swiping the Browns rights from WOIO, due to apparent personal dislike between WKYC general manager Brooke Spectorsky and his counterpart at WOIO/WUAB, Bill Applegate. If we recall correctly, Spectorsky was formerly the GM at 43…before the stations combined forces in the mid-90’s.
WKNR/ESPN: Brown also fills column space with the laundry list of gripes that ESPN Radio may have had with Salem sports talk WKNR/850…which he said “tested ESPN’s patience”. Among them – pre-emption of network programming with infomercials and Lake County Captains games, not to mention repeats of Premiere host Jim Rome’s show.
We’re sure the brass in Bristol weren’t thrilled with any of that, but our guess is that the move to drop WKNR was pro-active on the part of one Craig Karmazin, who runs the network at his sports outlets in Milwaukee and West Palm Beach FL.
Karmazin’s Good Karma Broadcasting also has a sports station on FM in the Madison WI market, but it runs FOX Sports Radio… for at least one reason, possibly, because Clear Channel’s WTSA/1070 owns the ESPN rights in that market.
To that end, Roger finally notes that current gospel daytimer WABQ/1540 is expected to take the ESPN Radio affiliation when WKNR loses it in mid-October. But he does not mention Karmazin at all, or his recent move to purchase WABQ. That’s a surprise, because Roger Brown’s column was the very first place Karmazin’s name was mentioned locally…
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