Just some stuff to refresh the Mighty Blog for a Monday…and as it turns out, another sports-related theme has emerged, without us even trying…
ONE QUESTION ANSWERED: It didn’t take long for Youngstown TV Supergroup New Vision Television to name a replacement for veteran WYTV/33 sports director Bob Hannon, who left the station to head up the Youngstown branch of the United Way.
He’s the station’s assistant sports director, Bill Castrovince, who’s been in that role and doing the ABC affiliate’s weekend sportscasts since 1998…long before the station got swallowed into a three-way (two-and-a-half-way?) newsroom operated by the new WKBN/27-WYFX/17-62 owner.
The Youngstown Vindicator reported Saturday that Castrovince, a native of Euclid, was elevated to the top “33 News” sports job earlier last week.
And as you can see to the left, he has also been photographically added to the weeknight news team on the “33 News” website.
The Vindicator didn’t report who will take Castrovince’s weekend slots. We weren’t in the market this weekend to see, but we wouldn’t be surprised if that got backfilled by existing WKBN/WYFX sportscasters.
We presume that’d mean some combination of “First News” sports anchor/reporters Joe Ausilio and Chad Krispinsky, but that’s just a guess on our part.
We also assume that the station could hire someone who would be the fourth sportscaster between the two operations, though we would not bet on it entirely…or against it, considering the station’s heavy focus on sports via WYTV’s MyNetwork TV subchannel “MyYTV”…
TALKIN’ FOOTBALL: Rubber City Radio oldies WAKR/1590 Akron is launching a new football show tonight.
“Three and Out With Frank Stams”, featuring the former Cleveland Browns and Notre Dame defensive lineman, will air Mondays at 6 PM on WAKR throughout the football season.
Quoting a station press release:
The hour-long program will include Stams and guests weighing in on football, covering local scholastic, collegiate and professional teams and taking listeners calls.
Stams, of course, also has another radio gig on another station – as color commentator for the University of Akron Zips football broadcasts, which air on the Akron ISP Sports Network on flagship Clear Channel sports WARF/1350, and starting this year on sister rock WRQK/106.9.
(For those checking for the Zips on “Rock 106.9”, WRQK joins the game broadcast 15 minutes before kickoff, and doesn’t carry the full pre-game show that’s heard on “SportsRadio 1350”.)
And alongside Stams on the Zips’ radio broadcast is another local broadcaster doing double-duty in such a manner – play-by-play voice Steve French, whose “day job” is doing sports and, uh, other funny stuff on Media-Com talk WNIR/100.1 “The Talk of Akron”‘s morning show…
TOUCHDOWN: OMW hears that one Toledo station is stocking up on college football play-by-play.
Matrix talk WNWT/1520 is not only carrying Notre Dame games, and Westwood One and Learfield Sports games, it’s also the newest affiliate of the independent “Touchdown Radio” syndication operation.
Long-time OMW reader Chuck Matthews, now consulting WNWT after his departure from Cumulus talk WTOD/1560 “SuperTalk 1560” due to budget cuts, tells us Notre Dame games will get priority on Saturdays, and then the biggest game(s) from the other syndicators will be aired.
The “Touchdown Radio” linkup brought WNWT a Saturday night game between the Miami Hurricanes and the Florida Gators, for example.
Chuck reminds us that WNWT also carries the NBA’s Detroit Pistons in Toledo, and continues to be Toledo’s Cleveland Browns affiliate…although after the egg the Browns laid on Sunday, he might not want to admit to that…
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