And a note from your Mighty Blog of Fun(tm): Real life intrudes again, and our updates may not be as regular this week as we’d like. But we’ll try to check in…
MAD DASH TO BLACKSBURG: As America got really familiar with a college campus in Southwest Virginia really quick, coverage of the largest shooting massacre in American history overtook local airwaves as well.
All local TV stations, that we saw, dipped in and out of coverage of the mass murder at Virginia Tech on Monday afternoon, provided by their various networks.
On the radio side, we didn’t have much chance to check, but did hear WTAM/1100 “Sportsline” host Kevin Keane on his program later in the day – putting aside the balls, bats and nets for one night on the Clear Channel talker.
But then, we noted that at least two local TV news types were dispatched to Blacksburg, Virginia – presumably at the point where someone in their newsroom looked at a map and said, “hey, there’s only one state between Ohio and that part of Virginia!”
Making the trip for NBC affiliate WKYC/3 was evening co-anchor Tim White, and heard by phone from the area on ABC affiliate WEWS/5 Monday night was new Akron Bureau chief Pete Kenworthy. (No, we don’t know if Pete was sent because Akron is closer to Virginia than Cleveland.)
If FOX O&O WJW/8 and CBS affiliate WOIO/19 sent anyone, we missed it…
EXTRA CHANNELS: OMW commenters and E-Mailers provide the “rest of the story” to our note that Universal HD has now shown up in the HDTV lineup of Time Warner Cable’s Cleveland-based systems – formerly owned by Adelphia and Comcast.
There’s now a reverse HD migration – of a network that’s been available in the former Adelphia TWC territory since before the sale being offered to “original” TWC systems.
We’re told that ESPN2HD has now made it to the “legacy” Akron/Canton TWC lineup on channel 560.
TWC just announced a company-wide deal with Disney involving the ESPN networks, and the folks formerly in Adelphia land already had it in a grandfathered deal with that company.
We still haven’t seen ESPNU return to the TWC Cleveland digital lineup as of yet. The network did, for whatever reason, NOT have that grandfathered agreement in the old Adelphia deal.
And we’re told Universal HD is now also on the TWC Akron/Canton system at channel 556, though we don’t know if that’s new or not. We recall TWC has added the network for special events (like the Masters, which completed recently), but maybe it’s there to stay now…
PUSHING OUT THE FRINGES: OMW hears from Bill Weisinger, otherwise known as “Uncle Bill” from WSTB/88.9’s “Sunday Oldies Jukebox”, on some technical fixes to the Akron market station broadcasting from a tower formerly used by Kent State University’s WKSU/89.7 on the Kent State campus.
Bill tells us that some “long overdue improvements” have been made to the transmitting facility, which he says should improve fringe reception for WSTB. The changes are even more important since the Streetsboro City Schools-owned station had to drop online broadcasts recently, due to changes in music royalties and reporting for online outlets.
Of course, this will also expand listenership for WSTB’s primary alternative rock “AlterNation” format, which is operated by Streetsboro High School students Monday through Saturday…
AND ONE EDITORIAL NOTE: Folks, please note – we are not connected with any TV or radio stations or other media organizations in Ohio (or anywhere else).
For whatever reason, many people seem to think we’re somehow involved with “Ken and Kitty”, the now-former country radio morning show recently dumped from WYGY/97.3 “The Wolf” in Cincinnati, which may or may not be owned by: Bonneville, Cumulus, Susquehanna, Entercom, John Doe Broadcasting or the Cincinnati Reds.
(Well, we’ve lost track, haven’t you? It’s owned by one of those companies, but if we put it here, it’ll probably get sold again tomorrow.)
Just this week, a reader E-Mailed us asking us if we could improve our signal. OMW Radio, anyone? We have a lot of radios here in the OMW World Headquarters, but we’re pretty sure there’s no transmitter in the building.
We asked what frequency the reader thought we were on, and our reader apparently was looking for Kenston High School-owned adult standards outlet WKHR/91.5 Bainbridge. And yes, it’s a tough catch from our reader’s location on the far west side of Cuyahoga County.
We’re thinking of putting up a page with local broadcast information, including contact numbers, websites and E-Mails. If this doesn’t take over our lives, we’ll think about doing it.
But please, readers…use Google first, or some other source. We have no transmitter and can’t bring back your favorite morning duo…
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