Outside Northeast Ohio

Time to check in with some of the outposts away from the greater Cleveland/Akron/Canton area, unless another TV station is going to sue another professional sports team, at any rate…

MIAMI VALLEY MY-GOODBYE: It looks like CBS affiliate WHIO/7 Dayton’s second channel won’t be the market’s home of My Network TV this fall.

Current UPN cable-only affiliate Miami Valley Channel (also known as “UPN 17”) is being dropped by the Dayton area by Time Warner, the market’s dominant cable operator. As such, The Dayton Daily News reports that “MVC” will sign off at the end of 2006.

What we’re wondering – will Dayton go without a My Network TV affiliate based in the market?

In an unusual arrangement, Cincinnati’s WSTR/64 has a translator in Dayton on channel 66 (with an application to move it to channel 22). Barring any other affiliation announcements – such as a new subchannel of one of the other full-power digital stations – it looks like WSTR will act as the My Network affiliate in both markets.

The “My” folks are still also without a home in Toledo, where the status of current UPN affiliate WNGT-LP/48 is still up in the air. It doesn’t appear likely that “UPN 48” will make it to the fall as a general entertainment independent station – we expect the folks at Cornerstone Church to officially take it over at some point in the next few months.

The rival CW Network already has affiliates in Dayton – current WB outlet WBDT/26 – and Toledo – Buckeye Cablesystem’s cable/satellite-only WB affiliate “WT05″….

CINCINNATI SPANISH: This happened a few days ago, but since we’re cleaning up after the markets outside Northeast Ohio… gospel WCVG/1320 Cincinnati has flipped to a full-time Spanish-language format, the first such outlet in the Queen City.

This leaves us wondering when this part of the state will get a full-time Spanish-language outlet. The only one in the Cleveland/Akron/Canton area is Lorain non-comm rimshot WNZN/89.1, which struggles to reach even Cleveland’s western suburbs from its tower west of Lorain.

Youngstown has Stop 26 Riverbend-bankruptcy-court-in-possession WASN/1500 in Spanish, minus the four brokered English talk hours hosted by Louie Free in late mornings…

CINCY RATINGS: Cincinnati Enquirer TV/radio writer John Kiesewetter weighs in with the latest Cincinnati radio ratings on his TV blog. And though we don’t really even dissect the ratings in Northeast Ohio here, we’re paying attention due to recent high-profile changes on the Cincnnati AM radio dial.

Kiesewetter notes that then-liberal talk WCKY/1530 dropped to “24th of 27 stations” in the market in the most recent survey, with numbers under half of the format’s highest on 1530. In the meantime, then-sports WSAI/1360 rose above that mark, tied for 15th with CBS Radio alt-rock WAQZ/97.3.

Kiese also notes that the renewal of 1530’s former “real oldies” format on WDJO/1160 also did better than 1530’s last book as a liberal talk station.

Of course, Jerry Springer, Air America and liberal talk swapped frequencies with “Homer – The Sports Animal” a while back…