UPDATE 6/5/14 2:00 PM: OMW hears that the open afternoon drive slot at Cumulus rock WYFM/102.9 “Y-103” in Youngstown will be filled by Steve Hammond. Hammond previously worked at Rubber City Radio rock WONE/97.5 Akron in afternoons and evenings.
Hammond’s time slot at WONE was filled by program director Tim Daugherty, who moved from morning drive when WONE hired Jeff Kinzbach for that time slot.
Hammond starts at Y-103 next Tuesday…
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Those who haven’t been paying attention, or are just doing something like watching cable TV, may be a bit confused…
TWC ANALOG SHIFT: As we’ve mentioned many times, cable systems nationwide are moving off their long-time analog cable platforms.
That wire that brought you about 60 or 70 “expanded basic” channels, plugged directly into your TV, is much more valuable to a cable company if it can make the bandwidth-hogging analog channels go away.
The latest step for Northeast Ohio’s Time Warner Cable system is shuttling little watched local, public access and other channels to digital…opening up space for new HD channels and Internet access.
Last week, a number of those “second tier” local channels disappeared for Time Warner analog subscribers, replaced with a message to get a digital tuning adapter (“DTA”). Of course, those with existing Time Warner digital cable boxes saw no change.
Time Warner spokesman Mike Pedelty passed along the official statement about those changes, which we pass along to you:
· There is a shift in video delivery from analog to the improved picture and sound quality digital signals provide. Time Warner Cable currently offers its programming in the digital format, but still provides customers an analog options to help them ease through the transition. Most, if not all, of our competitors provide only one option which requires box connections to each TV.
· The vast majority of our customers (approximately 75%) will experience no change as they have cable boxes which are capable of handling the digital signals.
· By digitizing signals, we are able to provide more HD and OnDemand content, faster Internet speeds and evolving services as they are available.
· No channels are being removed, they are simply being digitized. Also, these channels are still part of the same level of service (Starter TV)
· The DTA is a one-way device that converts the analog signal to digital.
Customers have until July 31, 2014 to take advantage of the free DTA offer. The DTA is free until September 2015. After September 2015, the DTA fee is $1.50 per month.
The channels affected include ION O&O WVPX/23, which has aggressively warned Time Warner customers of the change and urged them to get the DTA boxes.
Also affected are: TBN O&O WDLI/17, TCT O&O WRLM/47 and Retro TV affiliates WAOH-LP/29 and WIVM-LD/39 (in some areas where it had analog placement), along with a host of public/educational/city access channels.
Behind the digital move, these channels are also still available via “clear QAM”, the standard which lets digital tuners – in TVs, boxes, computer TV tuners – pick up the unencrypted signal.
The so-called “major” local channels, like the network affiliated stations, still are available both in analog form, and in digital form via QAM tuning.
As warned in a previous TWC legal notice, you’ll have to rescan your tuner…as many of these “background” digital channels have changed. (They’re all there in a scan we did recently.) This also applies to those receiving HD local channels directly on their digital TVs, which use the “QAM” standard to scan in digital channels “in the clear”.
And unlike with the network affiliates, those with QAM tuners will have to hunt for the new digital locations of the former analog channels…as there is no “labeling” for these new QAM channels. (The network affiliates show up pre-labeled, such as “3-1 WKYC HD”, etc., but the new additions do not.)
We don’t even remotely have time to compile a list, but some brief examples include local access channels, showing up in the 73.(x) range, and Retro TV affiliates WAOH-LP/29 (97.1) and WIVM-LD/52 (90.63). WVPX has already been in clear QAM and labeled properly as “WVPX HD”. Most of WIVM’s coverage has already been on Time Warner’s digital system (position 989 in Stark County).
As noted, for what Time Warner says are the 75% of viewers already with a digital cable box, nothing has changed… and they can easily ignore this item. That is, unless they’re like the OMW World Headquarters(tm), with one outlet still in analog.
Those who do get the “DTA” boxes will not have to fish through the QAM mess…the DTA box will act like existing digital boxes, and return the moved channels to their former analog positions.
TWC’s Pedelty does tell us that the cable system has “no plans” to move SportsTime Ohio to another tier, despite legal notices that the system could consider moving STO to the “Digital Variety Tier”….
WE MISSED IT: Briefly from the “we missed it, somehow” file, there is officially a new co-host on CBS Radio hot AC WQAL/104.1 “Q104″‘s morning drive “Fee’s Kompany” show.
Carley McCord joins host Allan Fee after a stint as a broadcast media assistant with the Cleveland Browns.
But a station release notes that she was picked to be on the ABC reality show “The Bachelor”, but “turned it down” to come to Cleveland.
She also was first runner-up (“twice”) for the crown of Miss Louisiana.
As McCord joined the show a few weeks ago, we’re just catching up…
ROCK CHANGES: “Bob and Tom” listeners who haven’t been paying attention – either to Clear Channel rock WRQK/106.9’s on-air product/website or this site – may have been surprised to hear the Indianapolis-based duo no longer on the airwaves in Canton.
As we told you last week, Wednesday was the first day for “Rock 106.9″‘s new local morning show, “The Stansbury Show”…hosted by Cleveland radio veteran Dan Stansbury and Canton’s Matt Fantone.
One OMW reader in Copley missed our item, and says the remaining “B&T” outlets are “very weak”.
He’d probably have to drive a few miles south on Ohio 21 and point his car towards Loudonville, where the show can still be heard on the northern half of the Ashland/Mansfield simulcast of Clear Channel’s “The Fox” rock format (WXXF/107.7).
That signal was once smooth jazz WBZW “The Breeze”, targeting nearby Wooster…and the signal makes it (weakly) into car radios in southwest Summit County…
STAR 94.7?: We got a note recently from a reader, wondering how translator W232AI/93.7 Niles was able to launch the urban AC format “Star 93.7” (a simulcast of WGFT/1330 Campbell) on that frequency.
After all, it’s the full-power home of CBS Radio sports KDKA-FM “93.7 The Fan” in Pittsburgh.
That’s a conclusion that has now also been reached by the station’s owner, Y-Town Radio Broadcasting LLC, and they’ve applied to move the 93.7 facility to a different FM frequency and city of license.
Hat tip to our content partners at RadioInsight, who found the filing:
Due to interference caused to KDKA-FM Pittsburgh, Y-Town Radio Broadcasting’s Urban AC “Star 93.7” W232AI Niles, OH has filed to relocate to 94.7 with a slight power drop from 200 to 160 watts at 297 meters. The translator will change COL to Girard, OH while continuing to rebroadcast 1330 WGFT Campbell.
RadioInsight’s Lance Venta also includes a new 60 dBu coverage map for the relocated 94.7 signal, courtesy of the FCC’s website.
At first glance, the new signal (with a new COL of Girard OH) seems like an improvement for what will presumably become “Star 94.7”.
But any translator is squeezed in somehow in a crowded radio landscape like Eastern Ohio.
The new 94.7 signal will trade on-channel interference with 93.7 Pittsburgh, with first-adjacent placement between WWSW/94.5 Pittsburgh and WQMX/94.9 Medina.
W232AI/93.7’s current signal doesn’t reach the protected contour of “93.7 The Fan” out of Pittsburgh.
But if a translator interferes with a full-power station even outside the protected contour, and listeners complain about it, it must still move.
That’s what happened to the translator once licensed to Lorain at 100.3.
Listeners to Media-Com talk WNIR/100.1 Kent “The Talk of Akron” in that area were prompted by the station to complain to the FCC, and that translator had to move.
Today, the 100.3 translator is Clear Channel alt-rock W256BT/99.1 Cleveland, the current simulcast of WMMS/100.7 HD2 known as “99X”…
NO MORE MR. SPORTS: John Batcho, the long-time Youngstown radio personality known as “Mr. Sports”, is no longer at Cumulus rock WYFM/102.9 “Y-103” in that market.
We reached out to his now-former boss, long-time OMW reader and Cumulus Youngstown rock PD Matt Spatz, who helpfully provided us with a statement:
“John is no longer with Y-103 and we certainly wish him well. We hope to have a new afternoon drive personality on Y-103 very soon.”
And there’s no word from any corner, at this point, as to why “Mr. Sports” is no longer on Y-103…
Where is Mr. Sports and what happend? When did he leave?
That has always been the way radio stations operate. A dj or other personality suddenly disappears from the airwaves and it is as if nothing happened. In the case of Mr. sports, a long time fixture, y-103 owes it to it’s listeners to at least acknowlege his departure if it hasn’t done so already. To the best of my knowlege it hasn’t. STOP PLAYING YOUR AUDIENCE FOR FOOLS! IT