The Monday Followup

As usual when big news comes out, there’s a followup that comes a little later…

BIG SHOES: To say that the next afternoon driver at Clear Channel Cleveland country WGAR/99.5 has “big shoes to fill” is probably our understatement of the year.

But the station has begun the daunting process of filling the afternoon drive time slot left open by one of the biggest tragedies in local radio history – the passing of Chuck Collier.

All Access reports that Clear Channel Cleveland OM Keith Abrams (Hi, Keith!) is starting the process of looking for WGAR’s next afternoon driver/music director. Collier, a 40 year WGAR vet going back to its days as an AM adult contemporary outlet at 1220, passed away in late September.

Quoting the All Access item:

The station is looking for a candidate who “must have strong SELECTOR skills and 3-5 years on-air experience (Country preferred but not necessary).” Candidates who, in the station’s words, “take great pride in creating extraordinary content,” can send their materials to WGAR PD CHARLEY CONNOLLY at charleyconnolly (at) clearchannel.com.

Now, that’s a tough job…picking who follows a legend like Chuck Collier…

107.3’S PRICE: FCC documents that showed up today put a $6.5 million price tag on the sale of WNWV/107.3 Elyria – from Elyria-Lorain Broadcasting to Akron’s Rubber City Radio Group.

Upon approval, the station now known as AAA-formatted “V107.3” will become the fourth station in the RCRG Northeast Ohio cluster, joining oldies/news/sports WAKR/1590 Akron, rock WONE/97.5 Akron, and country WQMX/94.9 Medina.

All three of those stations are operated out of the Akron Radio Center, on West Market Street between two Akron landmarks, the West Point Market and Acme #1.

But 107.3 will not be operated out of Akron, aside from any temporary operation needed for a short time after the sale’s closure. (Rubber City is not entering an LMA with Elyria-Lorain, so that company will continue to operate 107.3 from its Elyria studios until the sale is final. When the sale is final, Rubber City will have to find a new home for 107.3.)

And despite the fact that the location is mentioned in the agreement now found in the FCC database, Rubber City will not operate 107.3 from ELB’s existing Cleveland-area sales offices in Rocky River.

One good reason? There isn’t a studio there, or room to build the necessary studios. We don’t know if the Akron-based company will keep West Side sales offices in Rocky River, but they won’t be operating WNWV from there.

We have also heard every rumor you could imagine about future format plans for 107.3. We don’t trust ANY of these rumors enough to even hint about them, and there well could be no format change in the short term.

Our best guess? That decision has yet to be made.

While we’re talking about Rubber City, congratulations to long-time promotions guru Joyce Lagios, who has been promoted to VP/Marketing and Promotions for the Akron stations. Her time goes back to the common ownership of WAKR, WONE and then-WAKR-TV at Copley Road…if the stations have been out in the community, Joyce has been there.

The company also announced that Jody Wheatley has been named promotions and music director for WQMX…

NEW TRAFFIC: Scripps Cleveland ABC affiliate WEWS/5 has a new traffic reporter, as of today.

From a memo sent last week about the hiring of Alicia Roberts from Florida:

Alicia will assume the role of Traffic/Transportation Multi-Media journalist.

Alicia comes to Cleveland via Tampa where she was the morning traffic reporter and a fill-in anchor at WFLA-TV in Tampa. While in Tampa, Alicia built an extensive on-line and social media community around Tampa traffic to extend her brand and the station’s.

Alicia has also worked at WFXT and WYBE in Philadelphia. She has a Master of Science degree in Communications from Drexel University and a B.A. from Temple University.

Alicia’s first day on the job will be Monday, October 17th.

We weren’t watching whatever WEWS calls the Program Formerly Known As “Good Morning Cleveland” this morning, and did not see Alicia – no relation, by the way, to former 5’ers Alicia Booth or Stephanie Roberts (yes, that’s a joke).

We also don’t know what this means for “GMC” traffic reporter Patty Harken…

LASH DOINGS: Whiplash Radio’s Chris Lash is checking in with the Mighty Blog of Fun(tm) on some changes at one of his two Youngstown market stations.

Lash is again taking a more active role at his standards WHTX/1570 Warren, he tells us:

WHTX Program Director Ray LaShure has left the building, and (Lash is) assisting operator Jim Davison with day-to-day programming responsibilities. WHTX has a new redesigned website at www.fabulous1570whtx.com and will now be the new hourly news affiliate of CBS Radio News in Warren/Youngstown.

OMW hears that one of our own, Secondary Editorial Voice(tm) Nathan Obral, helped in the website redesign.

Lash also still owns talk WYCL/1540 Niles, which is still operated by Philip Cato…

AND AS USUAL: If we missed something, we’ll get a Round Tuit(tm) as soon as possible…