And in keeping with our schedule, this may be the last update until early next week. Please keep checking, though, in case of breaking items.
Or we could say something like – “At OMW, When News Breaks, We FedEx It Back And Wait For A Replacement”…
THE GLORIOUS NEW SET WORLD: We scratch our heads over this one.
In the two years we’ve been doing this – we missed our anniversary late last month! – we’ve seen very few topics that touch a hunger for information like the upcoming new set for FOX O&O WJW/8 “FOX 8” in Cleveland.
We’ve gotten E-Mail from all over. People want to see it. People want to know what it looks like.
We now know when it’ll debut.
We haven’t seen it here, but a number of readers say the station is teasing a July 16th unveiling, with promos hinting at the new “FOX 8” logo change…and since it is WJW, they’re assuring viewers that the “same great people” are going to be there.
Considering the station’s own ‘up in the air” status re: the announced sale of the FOX O&Os in Cleveland and smaller markets, maybe that’s needed more than ever.
But we will say that with a News Corporation deal to buy the Wall Street Journal apparently imminent, and even reported being complete in some apparently premature reports, we haven’t heard Peep One locally or nationally about any potential buyer.
Even if the WSJ deal gets done, our gut feeling tells us that WJW may end up staying in the FOX family. (Not to be confused with the old FOX Family Channel, now owned by ABC.) It’s just a feeling, folks.
Anyway, back to the set. The new “FOX 8 News” set, that is.
“FOX 8 News In The Morning” roving reporter Kenny Crumpton weighs in with a blog item posted earlier this week:
I think you guys will like the set. It looks just like the set we have in New York. We will do our first show from the set next week . Todd Meany will give you guys a tour of the set on the show. I can tell you it has lots of lights and cool camera shots.
It really looks something you would see in a bigger city. Everyone here is pretty happy about it.
Mr. “Kickin’ It With Kenny” Crumpton tells readers that they’re practicing on the new set this week in preparation for its launch.
Local TV news set design has always been rather muted compared to some of the larger markets, even nearby (like, say, Detroit). But in New York City, ABC O&O WABC/7 has long had a bare bones approach. It’s the personalities that are larger than life, there.
On that “why is half of Northeast Ohio apparently interested in this topic” question: We guess it’s because WJW has been something of a local TV touchstone for long-time local viewers, going back to the pre-FOX days as the market’s long-time CBS affiliate, where it dominated with “NewsCenter 8” and the like for many, many years.
And a fear, perhaps, that FOX will dump the “Cleveland’s Own” slogan and even philosophy entirely.
Fear not. Look how long it took a certain long-time late night movie/sketch show to be nudged off the station’s stage by FOX corporate brass in NYC…
WELCOME TO STO HD, DISH NETWORK FOLKS: Now, both major satellite providers are offering HD games from local regional sports network SportsTime Ohio.
STO’s HD Indians games are available starting now, says a release from the folks at Dish Network, on that service’s channel 381.
DirecTV has been carrying STO games in HD for some time, but we believe DirecTV subscribers need to have the MPEG-4 receiver/dish required to pick up the local HD over-air channels (WKYC/3, WEWS/5, WJW/8 and WOIO/19).
We have also never been able to nail down what channel the HD STO/Indians games air on DirecTV, so if anyone could clarify this as a comment to this post, it’d be helpful. One of our readers has been asking about it, and we don’t have a “test case” for him.
One difference here: As far as we know, Dish Network is concentrating on national channels, and has not added a large number of markets’ local channels in HD – including here in the Cleveland market.
Since we are tied to the good folks at Time Warner Cable, we’ll let others answer some of these questions for us…
“AKRON IDOL 2”?: We haven’t heard much of the activity surrounding Akron market talk WNIR/100.1 “The Talk of Akron” and its effort to replace former morning drive co-host Maggie Fuller.
But we did hear someone using the name Sally Ride on the show otherwise co-hosted by Stan Piatt, Steve French and Jim Midock the other day.
Someone help us with this – wasn’t there a Cleveland-based traffic reporter using that rather obvious “traffic name” a few years ago? We don’t know if that’s her, or not, and we can’t remember which station(s) the Cleveland “Sally” was on. (At least she didn’t use the name “Holly Copter”, which was stuck on female traffic reporters for years at sports talk WKNR….)
At least she’d be a professional radio person, if it was that “Sally Ride”. At times, we’re not sure if the folks at “Broadcast Park” have any idea how to hire outside radio pros who have no existing connection with the station.
As for Ms. Fuller, we’re reminded that she has expressed an interest in returning to the airwaves, somewhere, on her own website. We’ll have to assume that’d have to be somewhere outside of Akron, for presumed non-compete reasons…
DOVER/NEW PHILLY TV: OMW hears from readers in the Dover/New Philadelphia area that the local cable TV programming operation is back on Time Warner Cable channel 2.
The channel is now being run by a Tuscarawas County outlet called Prestige Creative Marketing and is called “PCM TV”. We’re told it runs news and weather crawls, some video, and news updates from WJER/1450. (We’re not sure what runs on the video portion, though.)
Then-Adelphia channel 2 went “dark” for local programming when the previous operator ended its run producing the channel’s local output.
The new “PCM TV” replaces a simulcast of WKYC/3’s “NBC Weather Plus” feed, which continues on digital cable channel 183.
And for whatever reason, we’re told that the WKYC-produced “Akron/Canton News” has disappeared from the TWC Tuscarawas County system – at least according to our reader, who says infomercials have taken over the channel once used for the Akron-based newscast, channel 72. Perhaps it’ll show up somewhere else on another channel…if it has not already…
NEW SITE: And finally, a short one…OMW hears that NextMedia Canton talk WHBC/1480 “NewsTalk 1480” has a new website.
It bears the station’s new logo and other features, including news, and a promise of both live Internet streaming and podcasting.
OMW hears that a live 1480 stream is due very soon, along with the other new features…
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