Some Leftover Stuff

And now, some items that have nothing to do about major changes at a local sports radio station…though we’ll revisit that in the next day or so…

PERMANENT REPLACEMENT: It may just be a coincidence, but as the trial of former Scripps ABC affiliate WEWS/5 “NewsChannel 5” sports anchor/reporter Terry Brooks plays out on the station’s own newscasts, the man who’s been filling in for him has been given the job permanently.

He’s Mike Cairns, who is well familiar with the role of second sports anchor/reporter from his previous work as weekend sports/anchor reporter over at Gannett NBC affiliate WKYC/3. At WEWS, he’ll join sports director Andy Baskin.

OMW hears that Cairns will continue his work on various SportsTime Ohio shows, including “Tee It Up Ohio”, the “Ohio High School Kickoff Show” and “The Viking Basketball Report”, as well as play-by-play work for the network’s OHSAA coverage. Cairns freelances for STO and other outlets through his own company.

We also hear that OMW reader Andre Knott, whose day job is as Browns beat reporter and sports anchor/host for Clear Channel talk WTAM/1100, continues to do freelance fill-in at NewsChannel 5.

In fact, we saw him at the station’s sports anchor desk the day after getting this news.

And no, we’re not going to cover the trial of Terry Brooks. If you want those legal details, head to his former employer’s website. We’ll put up a mention here when it’s finished, though…

FIXTURE MOVES: For the past few years, Rick Allen has been a fixture at the CBS Radio Cleveland cluster…where he’s done duties ranging from overnights at classic rock WNCX/98.5 to weekends at hot AC WQAL/104.1 “Q104”.

Starting soon, “Rockin’ Rick” is headed back to his native Akron, radio-wise.

Rick has announced that he is leaving the CBS cluster for Akron’s own Rubber City Radio – he still lives in Akron’s Ellet neighborhood.

His role there will be similar, and he’ll be heard at one point or another on all the Akron group’s stations – rock WONE/97.5, country WQMX/94.9 and oldies WAKR/1590.

Rick’s been in the business for a long time.

Your Primary Editorial Voice(tm) is one of many who heard the start of his career at WAPS, the Akron Public Schools station which at the time was a student-run top 40 station at 89.1 FM. (Of course, though still owned by the Akron school district, WAPS is now professionally-run AAA “The Summit”, at 91.3 and simulcasting in the Youngstown area at 90.7.) Rick was an Akron student, just 12 at the time.

As a teenager, Rick ended up starting his commercial radio career on Akron’s WKDD/then-96.5.

And no, we don’t know exactly how long he has been in the radio business, but it’s probably been over 30 years…

THE COURTRIGHT AND WTAM UPDATE: We already noted here that a member of a noted local broadcasting family has joined Clear Channel talk WTAM/1100’s newsroom.

She’s Julie Courtright, the daughter of late Cleveland news icon Ken Courtright…who, we’re reminded, actually appeared on the station now known as WTAM a number of times.

Quoting our own item on his passing last April:

In addition to his time at WERE, Courtright was also heard on many incarnations of 1100 AM in Cleveland – KYW, WKYC, WWWE “3WE”, and as noted in our previous item, even on the current WTAM as a weekend newscaster in the 1990s.

We’ve also answered some other questions about WTAM’s recent newsroom moves.

OMW hears that veteran weekend evening anchor Cliff Bachele is staying at Oak Tree. Though he won’t be heard on 1100 anymore, Cliff will take Monday-Friday anchoring on two of Oak Tree’s hub stations – talk WKBN/570 Youngstown and talk WPGB/104.7 Pittsburgh. That’s a role he was filling three days a week, along with the WTAM weekend duties.

AND OUT THE DOOR: And in the process of clearing up the WTAM newsroom situation, a reader asked about newsman Nate Marinchick.

Unfortunately, we’ve learned that Nate was let go in the shuffle involving the recent WGAR/99.5 morning show changes. Lori Hovater has taken Nate’s duties, voicetracking news for both WPGB and WGAR…

AND OUT THE DOOR TWO: We apologize for the confusion on our Twitter and Facebook presence over the past few days, but we honestly didn’t know she was gone.

We noted watching a Sunday night story on Local TV Fox affiliate WJW/8 “Fox 8 News” about a decision by Parma mayor Dean DiPiero to not run for office again, and commented that his wife, of course, was “Fox 8 News” reporter Kathleen Cochrane.

We thought the line “he talked with his family about the decision” sounded kind of odd, considering that a key member of “his family” worked at that very same station.

As it turns out, she doesn’t, anymore.

Sources at South Marginal tell us that Cochrane did not return to the building after taking a leave of absence this past summer.

You’d never know it from the “Fox 8 News” website, where Cochrane’s bio (complete with the information about her well-known husband) is still posted as of this writing, with an update date of October 2010.

OMW also heard earlier that the station’s Danielle Frizzi is also no longer in the building, and her bio has been removed from WJW’s website…

AND STILL THERE: Despite her recent high-profile departure, there’s still a section on Fox8.com for former mid-morning host Robin Swoboda.

That’s likely because “The Robin Swoboda Show” still exists at 10 AM weekdays on Fox 8, but without either Robin or, well, a name of ANY sort.

The show currently airing – hosted by WJW entertainment reporter David Moss and former WQAL/104.1 “Q104” morning co-host Rebecca Wilde – has no name. And it continues to use Swoboda’s sets and graphics (without the “RS” logo designed for Robin, though the logo, Robin’s picture and name are still all over the website).

We’ve reported numerous times that incoming Fox 8 meteorologist Kristi Capel is expected to take a role on whatever show replaces Robin’s local program.

We’re admittedly not the target audience for “The Robin Swoboda Show Without Robin”, but a brief watch showed us a nice chemistry between Moss and Wilde, and a nice energy that came through on the air.

(Yes, OMW reader Rebecca Wilde, that is a compliment, though we were initially just poking fun at the fact that your show has no name…)

AND YOUNGSTOWN: One of our readers wasn’t happy that there was no information about a number of recent TV anchor changes in the Youngstown market.

We’ll let him chime in here via a recent comment:

I know that Youngstown is a relatively small market of no interest to most of OMW’s following, but there were two significant departures of on-air personalities in recent weeks that received no mention whatsoever, namely, Cindy Matthews (WFMJ) and Jennifer Jefcoat (WYTV). Not to mention the addition of Teresa Weakley, moving to WKBN from WKRN in Nashville last September.

OK, consider them mentioned. (We have not verified the item past our reader’s comment, though we’ll attempt to get more information for a later update.)

Here’s a bit of OMW Behind The Curtain here: We do cover Youngstown whenever it comes up media-news-wise, but our sources in the Mahoning Valley are almost all radio-related.

Thus, when changes happen on the TV side of things in Youngstown, we often have to scramble to keep up. And, we can’t receive any of the Youngstown TV stations here at OMW World Headquarters, so if someone is new or missing, we can’t see it here. We can pick up the stronger Youngstown radio stations.

That having been said, consider this a request: If you’re an OMW reader in Youngstown with any information on TV changes, please let us know…and for that matter, that request applies to everyone reading…