We’ve got a bunch of items just waiting to see air. Or, umm, pixels…
NEWS DIRECTOR SHUFFLE: Cleveland has been one of the larger TV markets to have two news director openings at the same time.
OMW hears noise that one of the two positions is all but filled, and the other has some strong candidates.
We’ll get to that one first.
We’re told by sources walking by South Marginal Road that two in-house candidates are among the top contenders for the job to replace Greg Easterly at FOX O&O WJW/8 – a couple of station news producers. Easterly, of course, moved up to the station’s general manager post recently.
Over at Gannett NBC affiliate WKYC/3, just about anyone who has even been near 13th and Lakeside tells us that acting news director Rita Andolsen is well-liked, well-respected by staffers and a good candidate.
But another name has surfaced connected to the opening at Channel 3 News – someone who’s already in the building and has ND experience.
Hmm. Why do we feel the need to rent the DVD of the 90’s TV sitcom “Night Court”?…
WHILE WE’RE WATCHING (SO TO SPEAK) CLEVELAND TV: At another station, in another job competition, OMW hears that a popular former Cleveland Browns player will do some anchor fill-in this weekend on Scripps ABC affiliate WEWS/5 “NewsChannel 5’s” sportscasts.
Yes, it’s Reggie Rucker, who was most recently seen working on Channel 5 as a part of the station’s Cleveland Browns draft coverage.
We don’t get any indication that it’s more than a fill-in for Rucker, as the station sorts through what to do with All Sports On-Air Positions Aside From Sue Ann Robak’s Job. Former WKYC/3 sports anchor Andy Baskin continues his regular fill-in on WEWS.
Speaking of former Cleveland Browns players doing TV – we wonder if Raycom Media CBS affiliate WOIO/19 will tap WNIR/100.1 afternoon drive talk host Bob Golic again to do fill-in… with the departure of David Pingalore to Orlando.
We believe we heard, or perhaps read somewhere, that “19 Action News” will put reporter Tony Zarella at the sports anchor desk as a fill-in. We would credit the proper source on that, but we can’t remember where we saw it…
THE VOICE OF STEELE – ER, TYLER: Maverick Media Lima programmer and OMW reader Dan Baisden passes along that he’s tabbed Shannon Steele as the new female station imaging voice for his cluster’s top 40 WWSR/92.1 “Star 92.1”.
Steele is not only the midday star at Entercom Buffalo’s WKSE/98.5 “Kiss FM” (one of the few not owned by Clear Channel), but, well, she’s also Sue Tyler of Northeast Ohio radio fame.
Most recently on D.A. Peterson top 40 WZKL/92.5 “Q92” in the Canton market, Sue’s resume includes stations from WMMS/100.7 and then-WZJM/92.3 in the Cleveland market, to WKDD/then-96.5 and WRQK/106.9 in the Akron and Canton markets.
We’ve had people wondering how to contact her, but she doesn’t appear to have put up a website for her imaging work. originalsteele – at – hotmail – dot – com should get you to her directly, if you’re not a spambot and can reconstruct that address…
HOMERUN?: We haven’t independently confirmed this, but our source is usually pretty reliable about this topic.
“Moohead Radio”, the sports-oriented website run by the head bovine otherwise known as Marc Steenbarger in real life, says that the satellite service DirecTV may finally relent on its now second-year prohibition limiting the distribution of SportsTime Ohio.
Last year, and again this year, the Cleveland Indians’ TV network is only available to DirecTV customers in certain areas – most notably Northeast Ohio. The areas are known internally as Zone 1 and Zone 2.
Moohead, er, Marc, tells us that DirecTV has agreed to open up STO and the Tribe to the other two zones in the rights area for the Indians – Zone 3 and Zone 4.
But…not until next year.
Moohead notes that those wishing to get the Tribe on satellite TV this year – and are in those areas outside of Northeast Ohio, etc. – will still have to use Dish Network, which has carried STO in all of the Cleveland market zones since the network launched…
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