This one is mostly updates or comments, on earlier items…we were quite busy over the weekend, as you can see. Though there is at least one “new” item or two…
ANOTHER POLITICIAN: Our blogging colleague over at Gannett Cleveland NBC affiliate WKYC/3, senior director and “DIrector’s Cut” blogger Frank Macek, tells us that former WKYC anchor Tim White isn’t the only former station anchor to head for the ballot box.
As we noted here, White filed in the Democratic primary for the 17th Ohio House seat being vacated by Josh Mandel, a Republican running for state treasurer.
“Scott Newell also ran last year and won,” Macek wrote on a comment to our earlier item.
As it turns out, the former WKYC reporter/anchor, best remembered for his turn as host of the “AM Cleveland” midday talk show in the 1980’s, is serving his first term on Pepper Pike City Council.
Newell was just sworn in last month, and is serving alongside a star of new media on the Pepper Pike council – popular political blogger Jill Miller Zimon (“Writes Like She Talks”).
But the former WKYC anchor and host is not exactly a newcomer to civic service, even in his hometown of Pepper Pike. He’s been on that city’s Planning and Zoning board since 2002.
There must be something in the political water in Pepper Pike, as that’s also White’s Ohio home city…
THAT’S ROBIN: Speaking of midday TV talk shows, one of 2010’s got a name change recently.
The Local TV Fox affiliate WJW/8 “Fox 8” 10 AM show formerly known as “That’s Life” has been renamed for its one and only host as “The Robin Swoboda Show”.
It makes sense to us….the “That’s Life” name already seemed a bit unnecessary, anyway. The show’s always been a vehicle for Robin, a long-time local TV personality who came to prominence as an anchor on the old “NewsCenter 8”, back in WJW’s CBS affiliate days.
Of course, she also spent some time in radio, as a morning drive co-host at Salem CCM WFHM/95.5 “The Fish”.
If the “That’s Life” name seemed silly, Swoboda’s teases before the change were even sillier…”new set, new host…WHATTT???”, she said in mock horror in promos before the name change…that alone telegraphed the new name to us…
AND MORE ON J.R.: Both broadcast and non-broadcast friends, and family, gathered Saturday in Oak Harbor to remember former Cleveland radio personality J.R. Nelson.
Nelson, born James Marik, and originally from in that same area, went on to greater fame after he left Cleveland, of course.
We touched on a bit of that in our earlier item on his death, but here’s a well-written summary from our friend and colleague Scott Fybush’s NorthEast Radio Watch this week, who notes Cleveland’s role in his career:
But like many of the radio people who were working for Cleveland-based Malrite in the early 80s, he made the migration to the New York market – or at least to the swamps of Secaucus – to be part of the 1983 launch of Z100 (WHTZ 100.3 Newark). Nelson was an integral part of Z100’s groundbreaking “Morning Zoo,” serving as the station’s production director and imaging voice, as well as sidekick to ringmaster Scott Shannon.
Nelson eventually returned to Cleveland, then moved on to Detroit, where he had been doing production and imaging for the CBS Radio cluster there until two years ago. Nelson’s imaging work was heard worldwide, including on many British commercial stations.
He died on Tuesday (Feb. 16) at his home in the Detroit suburbs after a long battle with bladder cancer. Nelson was 60.
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