Our first two items are definitely of a controversial nature… and the first one has spread like wildfire all over Northeast Ohio media…
SALES BOMBSHELL: We don’t normally spend a lot of time with off-air items in local TV and radio, but this one is too…interesting.
When we first heard that a lawsuit had been filed claiming salacious working conditions in a local TV station’s sales department, we joked, “oh, it’s probably at Reserve Square”…the home of Raycom Media duo CBS affiliate WOIO/19 and MyNetwork TV outlet WUAB/43.
Uh, yes…our first instinct was correct.
The Plain Dealer’s Rachel Dissell explains:
A lawsuit filed last week against WOIO-Channel 19 and its parent company accuses the local station of creating a sexually hostile work environment and retaliating against an advertisement sales employee who complained about it to station managers.
The complaint, filed by Kevin Flanigan II, of Avon, also alleges the station encouraged the use of sexual favors and sexually explicit tactics to entice advertising clients and that drug use and alcohol use at advertising-related events was common.
Yipes.
The lawsuit, helpfully linked in its original form on the Cleveland.com version of Dissell’s article, is an R-nearly-X rated description of the WOIO sales department by Flanigan, much of it centering around his now-former boss…station sales manager Debra Pando.
In this era where workplace behavior is under a microscope, where employees are routinely reminded of the need for circumspect behavior…well, the suit is a rather interesting read.
For his part, it’s such an explosive topic that the station’s boss felt the need to go on the record with the PD:
William Applegate, vice president and general manager at WOIO, said while the station would not normally comment on pending lawsuits that “the numerous offensive and erroneous allegations contained in this suit compels us to strongly deny them on behalf of the station and particularly our employees, viewers and clients.”
“And yes, we certainly do intend to defend ourselves vigorously,” Applegate said in an email to The Plain Dealer.
Applegate’s station has certainly not been shy.
This is, after all, the operation that featured a lot of on camera skin from former anchor Sharon Reed (“Body…..of Art”), now presumably fully clothed as the evening co-anchor at KMOV/4 in St. Louis.
Applegate was once called out in Chicago by respected media beat writer Robert Feder for, as we recall, encouraging more revealing outfits for his female anchors at CBS O&O WBBM/2.
But this is another can of worms entirely.
We have no idea if the allegations brought in Flanigan’s lawsuit are true. As a rule, we don’t really keep in touch with the sales side of the area’s broadcast media. And also as a rule, we don’t generally wallow in the mud.
But if the lawsuit’s more salacious allegations were recorded and put on the air, the ratings would likely rival or beat CBS’ prime-time ratings on WOIO.
And you’d probably have to put the show on a premium pay-cable network…
DISNEY CONTROVERSY: This controversy is definitely not as, well, sexy as what’s outlined above.
The stations of Radio Disney generally speaking don’t do anything controversial. Serving up pop music to kids on the AM dial isn’t controversial at all, really.
But the radio network’s Cleveland outlet, WWMK/1260, has been in the white hot spotlight for an effort it has now abandoned.
Radio Disney Cleveland staffers toured 26 elementary schools and other locations around Ohio, says “The Hill”, which covers doings in Congress and Washington DC:
The tour, led by three Radio Disney staffers from its Cleveland branch, offered interactive demonstrations on how oil and gas pipelines work. The Ohio and Gas Energy Education Program — which is supported by oil and gas companies — funded the project.
The tour drilled right into the “fracking” controversy…fracking, for those who haven’t followed it, is shorthand for the “hydraulic fracturing” drilling process that has energized the oil and gas industry in Ohio.
The Akron Beacon Journal’s Bob Downing has more:
Activists said Rocking in Ohio, a 60-minute interactive program presented in schools in eastern Ohio, was inappropriate in pushing shale drilling.
Rocking in Ohio supporters have said the program emphasizes science and technology, not drilling.
As noted, controversy isn’t really what Radio Disney is all about, so the network says in a statement that it’s abandoning future events and not expanding the program outside Ohio:
“The sole intent of the collaboration between Radio Disney and the nonprofit Rocking in Ohio educational initiative was to foster kids’ interest in science and technology. Having been inadvertently drawn into a debate that has no connection with this goal, Radio Disney has decided to withdraw from the few remaining installments of the program.”
The Radio Disney promotions staff in Cleveland will presumably spend their energies on less controversial events, like hosting events at area bus stations…
TOM SHAY PASSES: Though he’d spent many years behind the camera at Vindicator NBC affiliate WFMJ/21 in Youngstown as a news producer, viewers in Cleveland and Akron may remember watching Tom Shay.
Shay recently passed away after a long, tough battle with cancer.
His on-air stops include Akron and Cleveland reporting gigs for Scripps ABC affiliate WEWS/5, and he also had a producer’s job at the aforementioned WOIO/WUAB.
He came to “NewsChannel 5” the way a host of other newsies got to Cleveland…after a stint as co-anchor at Akron’s now-former ABC affiliate, WAKR-WAKC/23.
Shay shared the “23 Newsday” anchor desk with station news director Mark Williamson, who is now communications director for the Akron Public Schools after a long stint in the same role for Akron mayor Don Plusquellic.
An OMW reader in the Mahoning Valley tells us that WFMJ anchor Jennifer Baligush “cried on-air” when announcing Shay’s death.
Like many long-time broadcasters, Tom Shay became a part of many people’s lives over his time in the business.
Marilou Johanek, a columnist for the Toledo Blade, was one of those people.
The second day of the new year was his last. Tom Shay, a news producer at WFMJ-TV in Youngstown, died on Jan. 2.
He was a broadcast colleague of mine from way back. More important, he was a cherished friend. But as with so many other friends with busy lives, my contact with Tom had become limited over the years.
Johanek’s column says that Tom Shay died of “complications of Hodgkin’s lymphoma”.
We’ll let Johanek close this out, with her description of her former colleague:
Tom Shay was a good man with a dry sense of humor and a warm heart. His death came too soon. It taught me much about what I missed.
ICE ICE DESK: Here’s a way to get yourself noticed on social media, and on national shows…put your anchor on a desk made of ice in the middle of the most bitter cold the region has seen in years.
That’s exactly what Gannett NBC affiliate WKYC/3 did with “The Ice Desk”, and it took a rap (yes, a rap) by 7 PM anchor Robin Swoboda for the desk idea to catch on, well, maybe not fire.
And sure enough, the now-melted Ice Desk got the attention Channel 3 was looking for:
The Ice Desk has been a social media sensation too, being tweeted and posted about by TV stations and meteorologists across the country. Our sister station in Atlanta, WXIA, created their own version of it. Cable networks like MSNBC and CNN have mentioned it on their morning news programs.
The station notes that both its network’s morning show, “The Today Show”, and ABC late night host Jimmy Kimmel joined in on the “fun”…WKYC says it’s taking Kimmel’s pokes in stride.
Then again, this sort of activity on local TV news is basically the equivalent of serving up a (snow covered) softball to Kimmel, who just loves skewering local TV news…
DOC IN LA: Doc Thompson is an Ashtabula native most noted locally for his work at Clear Channel classic hits WMJI/105.7 “Majic 105.7”, particular on the station’s long-running morning show with John Lanigan and Jimmy Malone.
Since then, Thompson has carved out quite the talk radio career, including a recent stint in afternoon drive at CBS Radio talk WXYT/1270 Detroit…now a full-time repeater for the company’s CBS Sports Radio network, an AM compliment to the popular live-and-local “97.1 The Ticket”.
Doc landed with Glenn Beck’s “TheBlaze” online network, where he does a morning drive show (Eastern time).
It’s that placement that got him on the air in Los Angeles.
Clear Channel liberal talker KTLK/1150 there got blown up with the new year, now sporting the calls “KEIB” as conservative talk “The Patriot”…the new home of Premiere’s Rush Limbaugh after a lengthy run at big brother talker KFI/640. (And yes, the new 1150 calls in Los Angeles harken to Rush’s fabled “Excellence in Broadcasting Network” branding.)
The new KEIB needed to fill the early morning hours, 3-6 AM Pacific, so it’s plugged in Doc Thompson’s “The Morning Blaze” show from the online network.
Doc’s show is followed on the KEIB schedule by Glenn Beck’s Premiere show (6-9 AM PT), which is also heard on “TheBlaze”.
In addition to his online work and local radio work, Thompson has been a frequent fill-in on Beck’s own show…
THE BULL’S MOVE: We were tuning around late one Saturday night, when we noticed that CBS Sports Radio was airing something other than local host Adam “The Bull” Gerstenhaber’s national show in its normal 10 PM-2 AM time slot.
It turns out that the WKRK/92.3 “The Fan” host is still on the network…and still on Saturdays from 10-2…that is, now from 10 AM to 2 PM.
Adam “The Bull”, of course, is still heard weekdays 2-7 PM on “The Fan”, co-hosting “Bull and Fox” with former Ohio State Buckeyes/NFL player Dustin Fox…
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