Here We Go Again

Another week, another week opener.

We haven’t forgotten our #TheNextRadio series. It’s just that Life has Intervened to the point that we haven’t had time for the extra processing needed for the next segment.

But in the meantime…

BEEFING UP THE WX: Some more changes (stop us if you’ve heard this before!) are coming to 3001 Euclid. But it’s an effort to add staff to the weather department at “NewsChannel 5”.

An Alert OMW Reader actually spotted one of the two new additions coming to Scripps ABC affiliate WEWS/5 in Cleveland.

@ohiomediawatch "Have you heard anything about Janessa Webb from KTVA coming to a local Cleveland Station? Their FB pg says she is.

— Christopher Bennis (@chrisbennis) March 16, 2015

That’s KTVA/11, the CBS affiliate in Anchorage AK, which had this to say about its departing weather person on March 16th:

Sad to say that tonight was the last KTVA broadcast for the incredibly talented Janessa Webb. She’ll soon be starting a new journey at a very lucky TV station in Cleveland, Ohio.

Everyone here at KTVA will miss your energy, your smile and your positive presence in the newsroom. Best of luck!

And though we didn’t know which TV station in Cleveland would be “very lucky” to get Webb, we now can confirm that she’ll start at NewsChannel 5 in just over one week.

From a memo that floated out of 3001 Euclid and took the prevailing winds to the OMW World Headquarters:

First, as we’ve discussed, we are expanding our weather team to five and the first of those additions is meteorologist Janessa Webb. Janessa comes to us all the way from Anchorage, Alaska where she is a meteorologist and weather reporter at KTVA-TV. She has also worked in the same capacity at KYUR and in a number of other capacities in both local television and radio.

Janessa is a graduate of Winston Salem State University where she played volleyball. She earned her meteorology degree at Mississippi State. Janessa will serve as our “number five” meteorologist (primarily weekends and stormtracking) and her first day is April 1st!

If Webb’s most recent TV station sounds familiar, it’s possibly because it’s the very same station where a reporter resigned live on the air (complete with foul language) revealing, after reporting a story about a proposal to legalize marijuana in Alaska, that she was – surprise! – actually the head of the state’s organization backing the legalization of medical marijuana.

No, that wasn’t Janessa Webb. But it’s the last time her now former station was in the national spotlight.

Webb notes in her KTVA bio:

I’ve worked in television news for the last six years in Anchorage. I started as a fill-in, then after a two-year period, I became the chief weather forecaster at another station. I came to KTVA in 2011 and it’s been a time when I’ve learned a lot about myself. I’ve learned how much I adore Alaska and this community. This is my home, and getting the opportunity to work with some of people at this station has been a time I will never forget.

I’m a homegrown Alaskan who happens to really dislike the cold. People who meet me usually don’t believe I’m from the Last Frontier.

Umm, Janessa…check in with us round about November or December on that cold thing. Maybe she was spoiled by going to college in North Carolina and Mississippi.

Yes, there’s another incoming meteorologist at 3001 Euclid. From that pesky memo which floated our way:

Next, we have added meteorologist Somara Theodore who comes to us from WJCL-TV in Savannah, GA. Somara will be joining our GMC morning team as a secondary meteorologist focused on neighborhood and community forecasting and working with Tera Blake on all of our platforms to provide viewers with deeper and more detailed, specific weather information than anywhere else in the market.

Somara is a graduate of Penn State University where she graduated with a degree in Meteorology Forecasting. She’s also received training at the Weather Channel and the NOAA Center for Atmospheric Science in Washington D.C. Somara starts here at Newschannel 5 on May 26th!

If WJCL sounds familiar as well, it’s because the Savannah ABC/Fox affiliate was the home base for a season of TV Guide Channel’s reality TV show “Making News: Savannah Style”.

(And if you like that kind of fare, check out the current “Breaking Greenville” on cable’s TruTV, in between basketball games at the moment. The series features two stations in what the network calls “a playful rivalry” in the tiny market of Greenville MS. “Cheesy” may be a good word to describe both the stations and the TV show which features them.)

Anyway, we’re pretty sure Somara Theodore came to WJCL long after the TV Guide Channel crews left. Until recently, WJCL was a LIN TV sister station of Youngstown’s CBS affiliate WKBN/27…though WJCL ended up with Hearst ownership, while WKBN, Fox affiliate WYFX-LD/19 and the agreement to operate ABC affiliate WYTV/33 ended up with Media General.

And it wouldn’t be a Story About Change at 3001 Euclid without an additional change to The Beleagured “Good Morning Cleveland” (no, not its official name).

One again, from that Floating Memo, which announces the addition of Corinna Pysa as the show’s new “Live Center” anchor:

In that capacity, Corrina will present live and breaking news from our soon-to-be-built breaking news center in the main studio. She will start as one of our morning reporters and then transition to the Live Center position this summer.

Currently, Corrina is main anchor at WBOC-TV in Salisbury, MD. Prior to that, she was an anchor/reporter for KFBB-TV in Great Falls, MT. Corrina is a graduate of the University of Connecticut with degrees in Communications and Psychology. Her first day will be April 6th.!

The five NewsChannel 5 meteorologists referred to in the memo would be chief meteorologist Mark Johnson, Jason Nicholas, Tera Blake and the two new arrivals.

Where that leaves frequent station weather fill-in Elisa Malinovitz, we don’t know. We hope she’s able to either continue to fill-in, or land somewhere else in the market on a permanent basis…

PLAY BALL: Opening day, baseball wise, is coming very soon, so SportsTime Ohio has announced its broadcast team for the 2015 Cleveland Indians season.

Two names aren’t changing: play-by-play voice Matt Underwood and analyst Rick Manning return to the FOX SPORTS!! DID WE MENTION FOX SPORTS!! (sportstimeohio) booth to call all the action.

A new addition was already reported by the Lake County News-Herald’s Bob Finnan. From an STO release:

SportsTime Ohio is also pleased to welcome Andre Knott to the Cleveland Indians broadcast team as the new reporter.

A graduate of Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary High School and Kent State University, Knott has contributed to SportsTime Ohio’s coverage over the past several years in various capacities from covering high school football and Cleveland Browns to hosting Drennan Live. He was the Browns Radio Network sideline reporter for six years and has also been seen and heard covering Cleveland sports on WTAM, WKNR and WEWS.

It looks like Andre is indeed headed out of Oak Tree…”Sports Feed” co-host and WTAM evening host Nick Camino promoted Knott’s last “Sports Feed” appearance on Friday. Unless he is hiding a big red “S” on his chest, doing both jobs would be an impossibility.

We also now know who will handle the “Indians Live” pre-game and post-game shows all season long:

Last season, SportsTime Ohio introduced Jensen Lewis as co-host of Indians Live on select home games. This season, he will assume the role of analyst on all Indians Live pre- and postgame shows. Lewis pitched for the Indians 2007- 2010 after which he spent time in the Indians, Diamondbacks and Cubs minor leagues until 2013.

Jensen and company will camp out on a new set at Progressive Field, next to the new “The Corner” two-story bar in right field. And presumably, someone will keep the “Indians Live” crew away from the booze if the Tribe stinks that day…

BYE, RYAN: We don’t really follow the comings and goings of support staff members for iHeart rock/talk WMMS/100.7-and-syndicated morning drive fest “Rover’s Morning Glory”…so much so, that we missed the entire stint of the show’s most recent regular phone screener:

I want to thank @roverradio, @rmgduji, @GodfatherForTwo & Keith Abrams for last 3 months. It has been an honor phone screening for RMG #CLY

— Ryan Hoppe (@ryanhopperadio) March 18, 2015

Ryan Hoppe’s Twitter account describes him now as a “Radio Free Agent”, and promises some more online content.

The young fan of all sorts of “hot talk” shows actually got a listing last November in the All Access “On the Beach” section:

And that’s…all we know, for now.