Weekend Roundup

With some updates, and a brand new item…

THE 20 YEAR AFFILIATION ITCH: Since about 1994, Rubber City Radio Group oldies/news WAKR/1590 Akron has carried some form of ABC News Radio…most recently, the “Entertainment” news network feed, not to mention some historic carriage of ABC and its predecessor, the NBC Blue Network, dating back to the station’s early days.

That’s changing, and soon.

Starting at the stroke of midnight Saturday night into Sunday morning, WAKR picks up CBS Radio News, and that’ll mean a lot of changes on West Market Street, news-wise.

But, why make the change?

Rubber City VP/information media and long-time OMW reader Ed Esposito notes ABC News Radio’s saturation in Northeast Ohio, with many stations carrying it.

He tells us:

“One of our concerns with consolidation and movement of national news network voices in northeast Ohio has been maintaining our own local identity along with the opportunity for the WAKR audience as well as others to benefit from other reporting sources.

Currently CBS Radio, ABC Newsradio, NPR, Fox News Radio and AP Radio offer the best reporting and news broadcast product.

With ABC dominant on many signals in our market, we like the opportunity to offer a stronger home for CBS Radio and more diversity to the radio journalism offerings in the market.”

Esposito says the station has had a “great partnership” with ABC News Radio, and notes highlights such as ABC reporter Aaron Katersky anchoring coverage from the 2008 vice presidential debate from the Akron Radio Center.

But he notes, “when the opportunity arose to refocus our news efforts on the broadcast side, we found CBS’s original reporting and fresh delivery very attractive in helping drive WAKR is a different direction.”

Esposito notes CBS’ “comprehensive reporting from Washington, Wall Street and around the world”.

Starting early Sunday, CBS News programming such as the audio version of “Face the Nation” and CBS Radio’s “Weekend Roundup” will replace ABC News Radio’s long-form programming on 1590 AM.

And the network’s hourly top-of-the-hour newscast will be heard on WAKR full-time, to be immediately followed by local news from the company’s AkronNewsNow newsroom. Previously, ABC’s hourly updates weren’t heard during hours with live, local news (generally daytime hours weekdays, and Saturday mornings).

CBS Radio News updates will be heard during sports programming as well.

Esposito calls out legendary CBS names such as Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow, with the network of Cronkite and Murrow now partnering with the local newsroom at WAKR.

And it also gives a wider voice to veteran Northeast Ohio newsman Greg Saber, the former Clear Channel talk WTAM/1100 reporter who is CBS’ stringer correspondent in this area.

A question we don’t know the answer to: what happens to CBS Radio News on its current affiliate in the Akron market, Media-Com talk WJMP/1520 Kent/Ravenna/Streetsboro/Brimfield-on-a-good-day?

Since big brother talker WNIR/100.1 “The Talk of Akron” already carries the ABC Information Network newscasts, we’ll presume Little 1520 will pick up some flavor of ABC News Radio starting Sunday…or whenever someone at Broadcast Park gets around to getting into the closet and changing it…

COLBY’S JOB: We told you earlier that Radio One Cleveland operations manager Colby Colb (Tyner) is headed for Washington DC, for a new programming job with Radio One.

We know now the new gig for Colby: he becomes VP/Programming at the company’s DC-area headquarters.

Of course, Colb’s exit from Carnegie Avenue means there are two big roles to fill there.

In addition to his job as the cluster operations manager, Colby Colb also helmed afternoon drive on Radio One’s hip hop station in the Cleveland market, WENZ/107.9 “Z107.9”, in addition to his oversight of that station, urban AC WZAK/93.1, gospel WJMO/1300 and brokered/talk WERE/1490…

AND SPEAKING OF 107.9: Alt-rock “The End’s” 2012-2013 successor, Murray Hill Broadcasting alt-rock WLFM-LP/87.7 “Cleveland’s Sound” (heard on old analog TVs on channel 6) is just a couple of weeks and change from a big format change… and a language change.

Well, mostly, as Murray Hill head honcho Tom Wilson tells Scripps ABC affiliate WEWS/5 “NewsChannel 5”:

Half of the content will be broadcast in Spanish and half of it will be broadcast in English.

But no, the English part of the content won’t be alternative rock music hosted by the current “87.7 Cleveland’s Sound” personalities.

The Hispanic population in Cuyahoga County and beyond has certainly grown.

But the Plain Dealer’s Robert L. Smith points out what we’ve mentioned here…that the Cleveland market’s existing small Spanish-language stations serve different areas of the market, with different audiences:

A number of small, low frequency stations have served pockets of the region’s Hispanic community — targeting Puerto Ricans in Lorain and Mexican Americans in Painesville, for example. But Greater Cleveland has never had a 24-hour bilingual station that reaches across the community, despite the prevalence of such stations in other major cities.

And that bilingual part may draw in non-Spanish speakers, Wilson tells the PD:

In fact, Wilson said, the partners expect non-Hispanics to make up 30 percent of the audience, which makes the format practical.

Hispanic Roundtable president Jose Feliciano tells the newspaper that he thinks there is “a demand for knowledge of Hispanics” in the larger area community, citing interest in Hispanic culture, events and music.

But in the end, it’s all about the money.

LMA operator TSJ Media’s Josh Guttman tells the paper that the phones are already ringing with calls from big name advertisers looking to reach the station’s new audience after January 1st.

Guttman said he’s already heard from Ford, McDonald’s and about a dozen other potential advertisers who heard the news.

“I’ve gotten more calls from advertisers for this than for any launch we’ve ever done before,” he said.

The PD’s Smith says the outgoing “Cleveland’s Sound” “generated plenty of buzz but not enough advertising in a little more than a year on the air.”

And NewsChannel 5’s Volk quoted owner Wilson about the current station, saying he said WLFM’s “lack of audience and profits made this decision even easier”.

Buzz, as loud as it is, apparently doesn’t pay the bills.

But on camera, Wilson tells WEWS and WKYC’s Jim Donovan that it was an opportunity to serve an audience that hadn’t been served in the Cleveland market before.

Wilson and incoming “La Mega” program director Daniel Melendez appeared on Channel 3 News’ 7 PM show with Donovan.

Melendez says the new station will be “as local as possible”.

We’ve extensively covered the problems with the 87.7 signal.

It is the audio of an analog LPTV station that goes away on September 1, 2015 with the LPTV digital transition (a deadline recently reaffirmed by the FCC)…and that doesn’t change with the station’s language-and-format change.

It’s above the commercial broadcast band, and for that matter, above all the non-commercial stations. A number of radios can’t even reach north of 87.9 FM or the University of Akron’s WZIP at 88.1.

And the station actually sounds clearer “on channel” at 87.75 mHz, which few radios can tune in. (Much clearer, we can confirm, as the “fuzz” goes away on our radio that can tune to 87.75.)

The good news for Melendez as he embarks on programming Cleveland’s “La Mega”?

At least the signal, such as it is, has market-wide reach…his Columbus station, WVKO-FM/103.1 Johnstown, is easily the worst rimshot in that market. (And in Columbus, that’s saying something.)

Wilson and Melendez have already come up with a stunt to mark the format change, as 2013 gives way to 2014… the song “Auld Lang Syne”, which will change languages to “Por los Días Pasados” at midnight…