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New Landings

Our title this Thursday is appropriate, at least, for the first two items:

A NEW KLEON: WRQK/106.9 nighttime personality Joe Kleon exited the Canton rock station shortly after Clear Channel took over the station’s operations from Cumulus.

AllAccess reports that Kleon has landed at crosstown D.A. Peterson top 40 WZKL/92.5 “Q92” and sister soft AC WDPN/1310 Alliance as that station’s new promotions manager.

Yes, that’s the same job once given to a Louisville KY radio guy now better known in his home market for getting into huge trouble for operating a charity of questionable worth.

Thankfully for the “Q92” folks, the man who actually took the job, Josh Miely, could actually show up for work.

But Miely is now leaving “Q92”, headed back for his mid-Atlantic home region for a “new opportunity” in Washington DC. Best of luck to both Mr. Miely and Mr. Kleon…

WEEKEND WITH THE CLIPPERS: In an earlier item, we outlined the odd radio situation for the AAA Columbus Clippers baseball team – with no full-power in-market outlet carrying the team’s games.

Now, the Washington Nationals’ top minor-league affiliate won’t have to point to an in-stadium sub-low-power station as its only Columbus “radio” outlet.

The team has announced that it’s hooked up again this year with North American standards WMNI/920 to air “Weekend With The Clippers”. WMNI aired 14 such games last year, and will broadcast about 42 games in the 2007 season on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

The team will continue to air selected games on its out-of-market stations, including WCLT/1430 Newark and the easternmost half of the “980 Homer” Dayton market sports simulcast, WIZE/1340 Springfield.

Oh, and the release linked above has some information we didn’t know about. The Clippers games also air on the HD2 subchannel of WCLT’s FM sister station, country WCLT/100.3.

A quick check of the WCLT website shows that the AM station is simulcast on 100’s HD3 subchannel, so we’re not sure what else airs on the HD2 subchannel besides the Clippers, or if that’s a typo by the WCLT webmaster.

Or, perhaps, if the Clippers only end up on the 100.3 digital signal if the AM side is carrying their games.

And of course, sub-micro-not-quite-LPFM 101.9 – no relation to nearby Delaware OH’s WINF-LP – continues to pump out all the Clippers’ games within a few feet of the concession stands…

ANOTHER RADIO ARTICLE: We told you earlier about the mention of Good Karma sports WKNR/850 midday host Tony Rizzo in the Monday “TipOff” column in the Plain Dealer.

But since we eschewed the Sunday PD, we missed the lengthy examination by PD writer John Petkovic on “The State of Radio”.

Petkovic talks to everyone from WTAM/1100 afternoon driver Mike Trivisonno and former WMMS/100.7 programmer and consultant John Gorman (complete with a plug for his upcoming book on ‘MMS, “Buzzard”), to local consultant Mike McVay.

It hits the highlights, or rather, low-lights, of the consolidation of radio, the rise of major corporations, and the looming satellite and non-radio competition (iPods, etc.).

But the article is wrapped around a visit to WKNR’s new afternoon drive host Mark “Munch” Bishop’s show on Thursday of last week.

Petkovic uses Bishop and his hiring by Good Karma Top Man Craig Karmazin as a sign that at least one radio operator is looking to hire more local talent to reach to a local audience. Both Bishop and Rizzo are long-time Cleveland sports guys who live and die by their local teams. And in our opinion, it’s very hard to be a Cleveland sports talk show host without having your own personal, painful memories of “The Drive”, “The Fumble”, et al.

(And we’re convinced, like a commenter to one of our earlier items said, that “Munch on Sports” producer Bernard Bokenyi and “Rizzo on the Radio”‘s Aaron Goldhammer may actually be living at WKNR’s Broadview Heights studios. At least it seems like it…as both ‘KNR staffers cross back and forth among various roles at all hours of the day and night…)

Over at the Clear Channel World Domination HQ on Oak Tree, Triv checks in about the failing fortunes of music on FM radio, agreeing with Gorman that the pie is shrinking when music can be delivered by so many other means, more customized to the user.

Enter OMW’s “FM Talk Watch”, where we note another new entrant – long-time AM news/talk outlet WILK in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, PA, which has been broadcasting on three Northeast Pennsylvania AM outlets, has added a four station – an FM.

And WILK’s website has a new logo, which clearly promotes the new 103.1 frequency “on top”.

The march continues.

And we’ll repeat our earlier prediction that least one local radio operator in Cleveland will end up doing talk of SOME sort full-time on the FM band by the end of 2007. Following, of course, Akron market FM talk staple WNIR/100.1 “The Talk of Akron” by roughly 26 years…

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