A Better Mix

From your Mighty Blog of Fun(tm), a better mix of today’s and yesterday’s media news items.

(Well, since Clear Channel’s WMVX changed to variety hits WHLK/106.5 “The Lake”, the slogan hasn’t been used much – give or take NextMedia’s WHBC-FM “Mix 94.1” in Canton…)

NEW ASSISTANT NEWS DIRECTOR: Scripps ABC affiliate WEWS/5 will have a new second-in-command in the newsroom, and she’s actually a familiar name to long-time Cleveland TV news viewers.

That’s because Ellen Miller spent a number of years as an investigative and general assignment reporter at now-Gannett NBC affiliate WKYC/3, which means this is a return to the market for her…this time, behind the camera.

Since Miller was at WKYC, she’s held a multitude of news management jobs.

Though she’s most recently been director of the Center for Sustainable Journalism at Kennesaw State University in Georgia…here, we’ll quote from her bio there:

Previously, she was Assistant News Director at WFLD TV in Chicago, IL, responsible for seven daily newscasts and 150 people who produce the news. She has run smaller news organizations in Charlotte, NC, and Nashville, TN.

OMW hears she’s also had news management experience in Sacramento.

But Northeast Ohio viewers likely remember her from her 11 years doing both general assignment and investigative reporting at WKYC…

COMING SOON: OMW is tracking another piece of news about of local TV news, but this news egg isn’t quite ready to hatch yet.

This in-front-of-the-camera change at one local TV newsroom will be pretty big, but we’re not ready to confirm it yet.

Check back here in the next few days, or watch our Twitter account, for more…

NEW DAY’S DAY: We don’t get everything 100% right, but we’ll pat ourselves on the virtual back for extensive, correct reporting on Local TV Fox affiliate WJW/8’s new mid-morning program “New Day Cleveland”.

As we reported earlier, the show will indeed feature WJW entertainment reporter David Moss and incoming “SkyFOX” traffic reporter Kristi Capel as co-hosts, with radio personalities Rebecca Wilde, Jimmy Malone and Jen Toohey – who were featured on the show’s predecessor, “The Robin Swoboda Show” – also aboard.

In Monday’s item, we noted that the premiere would be later this month:

OMW hears that the “Hollywood and Dine” experience will continue in the former “RS” time slot until the last week of the month…when “New Day Cleveland”, with Moss, Kristi Capel and various local radio personalities once featured with Swoboda (Rebecca Wilde, Jimmy Malone and Jen Toohey), takes to the “Fox 8″ airwaves.

The very next day, the “New Day Cleveland” Twitter account was kind enough to confirm our reporting, even if indirectly:

Our official launch date for new programming is….FEBRUARY 28th! Mark your calendars and begin your countdowns! T-Minus: 20 days!

The “New Day” Twitter account has offered up videos with Moss and Capel, and just before that update, they told followers that “New Day” was “out and about today shooting a brand new episode” – which would presumably also confirm our reporting that the first few “New Day” episodes will be recorded…

JOE TAIT: The latest news in the Joe Tait Recovery Story came this week from the Cleveland Cavaliers, who passed along word that the Cavaliers Radio Network Hall of Fame broadcaster has been sent home.

Cavaliers Hall of Fame radio announcer Joe Tait was able to move home from the rehabilitation facility he was at yesterday. He will now continue his rehabilitation process from home. Further updates on Joe’s condition and status will be sent as appropriate.

Joe and the entire Cavaliers organization continue to thank the many fans, broadcasting colleagues and the NBA community around the league that have recently expressed their well wishes and good thoughts related to this difficult and challenging time.

And this, from the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s Mary Schmitt Boyer:

It is unknown at this time whether he will be able to return to the broadcast booth this season as he has hoped.

Here at your Mighty Blog of Fun(tm), we’re among millions who would love to hear Joe return to the Cavaliers Radio Network microphones.

But with the team literally breaking records lately, and not of the good variety, maybe it’s better for Joe’s health to sit the rest of the season out.

Tait was often quoted as saying he’d seen “a lot of bad basketball” before a certain number 23 came to town (and later left, of course)…but this recent losing streak makes the old Cavaliers teams almost seem like winners.

On the other hand, we’d love to hear Tait’s Take on this misbegotten team that’s become a literal national joke…

PRESIDENT TRIV?: Let’s make one thing clear…if this long shot actually happens, we’re looking at moving to Canada.

But indeed, Clear Channel talk WTAM/1100 afternoon driver Mike Trivisonno’s “big announcement”, pushed to Wednesday afternoon’s 5 PM hour, was that Triv would be running for president as a Libertarian Party candidate.

Huh?

Of course, Triv is not actually running for anything. If anything was actually happening, he’d be immediately forced out of his perch at “The Big One” due to federal election “equal time laws”.

He can talk about “running for president” all he wants, and remain on the air, but actually filing for candidacy means he’d have to go off the air (which was actually pointed out numerous times on Wednesday’s show).

We don’t know what prompted this publicity stunt.

We do know that an Atlanta radio host, WSB’s Herman Cain, has seriously contemplated a run at the Republican nomination for president, but as far as we know, the long-time business executive is serious about his potential run.

In the end, if is for some reason not a publicity stunt, Triv would likely run into the same problem Sirius XM/former CBS Radio star Howard Stern ran into when HE announced he was running for governor of New York State (also as a Libertarian, by the way)…political candidates generally file financial disclosure forms…

503 S. FRONT AT 1036 S. FRONT: Columbus alt-rocker WWCD/102.5 “CD101 @ 102.5 fm” is moving…this time, physically.

With its Brewery District space shrinking at the Worly Building due to the incoming Shadowbox Cabaret group moving in, the Fun with Radio locally-owned station says it’s moving down the street to its own building – the Swiss Chalet Party Haus, which will become the Alternative Station Party Haus by summer.

In a statement, WWCD GM Randy Malloy says they would loved to have stayed at the Worly Building, but that space requirements for the station’s “Big Room” performance space meant that wasn’t possible:

“With Shadowbox Cabaret’s plans to move into the Brewery District this summer, many hours were spent exploring a way for WWCD and Shadowbox to coexist in the Worly Building. We are very appreciative of repeated efforts on behalf of The Worly Building management and Bill Schottenstein to work out a solution that would have allowed us to stay. Ultimately, given the space requirements for Shadowbox, we would not have been able to keep the Big Room to remain in our current space.”

Malloy would not say why the station stubbornly hangs onto its “CD101” branding long after abandoning its original home frequency at 101.1 FM (now the Ohio State University’s classical WOSA “Classical 101”) for an LMA of WHIZ Media Group’s 102.5 FM/Baltimore OH.

We wonder if there’s some as of yet unknown reason why WWCD hasn’t dropped the “101” part.

And the ongoing jokes about the branding led one message board poster to joke that WWCD’s new physical address will be “503 S. Front Street at 1036 S. Front Street”. Heh…

THIS…IS CBS NEWS: It’s pretty difficult to hear CBS Radio News in Northeast Ohio on the radio – unless you’re within range of Media-Com talk daytimer WJMP/1520 Kent-Not Really Akron-Really Not Cleveland, or unless you pick up nighttime skywave reception of big CBS-owned all-newsers like WCBS/880 New York, KYW/1060 Philadelphia or WBBM/780 Chicago.

That’s changed to those with popular smartphones with streaming audio apps.

And now, CBS Radio News has debuted a new iPhone app with an interesting feature – a 24/7 stream of the network’s offerings.

As of yet, there’s no version for our Android phone, though CBS does have other Android apps, and we actually already found the 24/7 CBS Radio News stream on CBS Radio’s new Android app.

Tom Taylor’s “Taylor on Radio-Info” newsletter quotes CBS News Radio VP Harvey Nagler as saying “there’s nothing else out there” like it, in terms of a pipeline to network radio news content.

But local listeners know that there is something else like it, at least locally, in terms of a 24/7 stream of live and rotated recorded news contact – Rubber City Radio’s “WAKRNewsNow”, which mixes in expanded news and other regular radio station features with live newscasts and other live news coverage from the cluster’s news flagship, WAKR/1590 Akron.

“WAKRNewsNow” is also available via the station’s AkronNewsNow iPhone app.

And though there is no ANN Android app yet, the 24/7 stream can be heard on Android one of two ways – via the excellent free streaming audio app TuneIn, or direct from the AkronNewsNow website, where choosing the “WAKRNewsNow” stream on an Android browser (as linked above) pops up the stream directly.

Another local angle to this story – as we reported earlier, former WTAM reporter Greg Saber contributes Northeast Ohio stories to CBS Radio News on an exclusive freelance basis…

ONE OTHER STORY FROM ELSEWHERE WITH A LOCAL ANGLE: Parkin Broadcasting, now known as “PBC”, is expanding its empire.

The Los Angeles based owner of Youngstown’s WYTV/33 recently announced that it was purchasing Topeka KS ABC affiliate KTKA/49.

We note that here, because it now appears PBC will do exactly has it already did in Youngstown – farm out actual operation to the station to New Vision, which owns Topeka NBC affiliate KSNT/27 and Fox affiliate KTMJ/43 – according to competitor Gray CBS affiliate WIBW/13.

Long-time OMW readers already know how this plays out.

In Youngstown, New Vision kept a handful of WYTV employees, including anchors Stan Boney and Len Rome, but otherwise moved the station lock, stock and newsroom over to New Vision’s studios on Sunset Boulevard, home of CBS affiliate WKBN/27 and Fox affiliate WYFX-LP/62 “Fox Youngstown”.

Watching the moves in Topeka closely from Cleveland is one Annette Lawless, the “Fox 8 News” reporter who started her career at KTKA…