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Comings And Goings

Or, more accurately, in order, “goings, and comings, and goings”…

HE’S OUT: It’s no secret that Clear Channel Canton hot AC WHOF/101.7 “My 101.7” morning driver Gary Rivers has been in, uh, a little legal hot water lately..and it’s a pretty decent educated guess that those problems have turned him into the now-former morning driver for “My 101.7”.

The folks at Freedom Avenue say Rivers is indeed no longer with the station, and tell OMW:

“We are searching for the next My 101.7 morning show and are looking forward to making an announcement as we start 2011.”

It’s an announcement Clear Channel clearly didn’t want to have to make.

And here’s a good clue as to how important the “community image” is to the position – and what more than likely tripped up Rivers, who made it into the Canton Repository for his legal troubles.

From a quote by Clear Channel operations chief Keith Kennedy in Wednesday’s AllAccess:

“We are a gold based AC, and are looking for a full service morning show. Can you entertain, inform, and be the positive voice for our community? We aren’t looking for yuckers or prerecorded comedy bits. Be real. Be Fun. CANTON is a great place to live and work, you could be a big fish in a small pond. Ideally the next host would have 3-5 years of a morning show experience. Perhaps you are looking for your next opportunity, or for a place to wrap up a career. We’d like to find a employee who could be here to build a legacy over the next few years. This job won’t be easy, you’ll be replacing a show that was traditionally Top 2 25-54, visible and popular in the community.

Emphasis ours, of course.

(And yes, we were busy on Wednesday, and hadn’t had a chance to check AllAccess when we tweeted about this.)

And if your name has been in the paper for an encounter with the local authorities, you probably shouldn’t bother sending Keith your package. ([email protected] is the online stop for submissions, or via mail to, of course, the Freedom Avenue Clear Channel Akron/Canton compound.)

Rivers wouldn’t be the first personality to exit his job after a high-profile legal tangle. And some have survived such problems.

But the intersection of his problem, and the station’s “community friendly” morning show image, spelled doom for his time at Freedom Avenue. If he were a rock or top 40 jock sharing PG-13 rated material, he might still have a job today…

COMINGS: A high-profile on-air opening in the Akron market has been filled.

And if you watch moves at Rubber City Radio country powerhouse WQMX/94.9 at all, the name of the personality taking the 7-midnight time slot is no surprise to you: Sarah Kay.

Sarah is a long-time WQMX weekender who moves into the station’s evening slot on December 13th, and as far as we know, is the only local radio personality known for her pink hair.

No, we’re not kidding…from her WQMX bio:

Something you may notice about Sarah Kay when you meet her is that she wears pink everyday!

She has been doing so since she was 13, so why stop now?! Everything is pink- her glasses, her cell phone and even her Christmas tree.

Other WQMX weekend/part-time personalities have been filling the time slot since Amanda Casey left the station. She moved to the Cleveland suburb of Mentor, and hopes to pursue other opportunities – including station consulting, as she has programming experience in the Western U.S….

AND GOING: This is not a big deal, unless you have this thing for Canada like your Primary Editorial Voice(tm) does. (We still haven’t forgiven WGN America for not running the final season of CTV’s “Corner Gas”, after all.)

A Canadian radio presence that makes it to portions of the Northern Ohio radio dial is going away, and soon. Canada is abandoning the AM dial like it was a bad disease, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is no exception.

The public broadcaster is about to abandon its long-time 10,000 watt AM signal out of Windsor, Ontario…Radio One outlet CBE/1550, which on a good day puts a scratchy-but-still-listenable signal into much of Northwest Ohio. We’ve heard it through static as far east as Bay Village, which we noted when Craig Karmazin’s Good Karma Broadcasting bought its first local station, first-adjacent sports WWGK/1540 “KNR2”.

In Windsor, CBC is now testing for a move to CBEW/97.5, and after the traditional brief period of simulcasting, 1550 will go dark…much like many CBC AM outlets have already done.

We first learned of the CBEW testing from our long-time friend and colleague Scott Fybush at NorthEast Radio Watch, who calls CBE “the last powerful CBC Radio One AM outlet between Manitoba and Nova Scotia”.

Some of the shuttered CBC AM signals have survived, most notably AM 740 in Toronto, taken over by private operator CFZM as older-skewing “Boomer Radio”.

But CBC is likely to shut down 1550 completely, as we don’t see any private operator taking over the signal. None of the biggest AMs in Windsor need any signal help, after all, as talk giant CKLW/800 booms all over the region, and sister oldies CKWW/580 is happy with its low dial position.

But the move also affects CBC Radio’s French operation in Windsor, CBEF/540 “Radio-Canada”, which is also moving to FM.

The CBC FM signals won’t make it to Ohio, more than likely, though much of Detroit will still hear them. Even if we convinced Rubber City Radio to do late night transmitter maintenance on rock WONE/97.5 Akron, the CBEW signal would not make it this far southeast, or even in much of the tradiitional area that could get CBE on 1550.

Those looking for Canadian radio programming in Ohio will still have CKLW and other stations, like powerhouse sister FM AAA outlet CIDR/93.9 “The River”, on the radio dial…and every CBC Radio outlet from Windsor to Yellowknife to Halifax on the Internet, and on smartphones…

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