As usual, guess who starts our press release parade? Well, she WAS first...and she has some help from another Kent-based Friend of OMW... ----- (WKSU and Western Reserve PBS) WKSU AND WESTERN RESERVE PBS EXAMINE VIETNAM’S LEGACY 40 YEARS LATER COLLABORATION INCLUDES RADIO REPORTS AND DOCUMENTARY FILM The WKSU newsroom looks back at two significant historical events, presented in collaboration with Western Reserve PBS. As the 40th anniversary of the fall of Saigon and the end of the … [Read more...]
Confusion And Change
Posted on June 5, 2014 · 2 Comments
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... ----- Those who haven't been paying attention, or … [Read more...]
Spring Changes
Posted on May 1, 2014 · Leave a Comment
The theme for this one is change... in one way or the other... CHARTER, NOT COMCAST: Northeast Ohio customers of Time Warner Cable, the area's dominant cable provider, were preparing themselves to deal with Comcast. The merger of Time Warner and Comcast has been in the works, and is currently awaiting federal regulatory approval. It's that bid to garner approval that led Comcast and Time Warner to team up with a third company, Charter Communications...which will either directly or … [Read more...]
Spring Layoff Season
Posted on April 17, 2014 · Leave a Comment
The snow is no longer flying again, for now, but the layoff season is in full swing... CLEAR CHANNEL SALES CUTS: It'd been foreseen for weeks. Media giant Clear Channel was expected to radically overhaul its sales structure, cutting back on local sales efforts and streamlining that end of the company's operations. Sure enough, that became a reality on Wednesday. We'll let the excellent Tom Taylor Now newsletter handle the basic description, quoting from a company release about a topic Clear … [Read more...]
Clearing Out The Year
Posted on December 26, 2013 · 2 Comments
There's a lot of media news to wrap up 2013, and not all of it is good, unfortunately... HEGAN PASSES ON: Long-time Cleveland Indians broadcaster Mike Hegan passed away Christmas Day in South Carolina. MLB.com Indians beat writer Jordan Bastian has the story: Mike Hegan spent most of his life around the Cleveland Indians. He shagged fly balls in the outfield of Cleveland Municipal Stadium as a boy, played in the ballpark as a visiting big leaguer and went on to call some of the … [Read more...]
The Fox-STO Shoe Drops
Posted on December 28, 2012 · 9 Comments
We've discussed the rumors. We've discussed the reports from every outlet this side of "Shopper's Weekly" that a sale of Cleveland-based regional sports network SportsTime Ohio was imminent. It's now official, slipped just under the Tax Impact Door of 2012. As expected everywhere (including here), Fox Sports Media Group has signed on the dotted line, with a reported, estimated $230 million purchase of the network owned by the Dolan family, who also happen to own the Cleveland Indians of Major … [Read more...]
Press Release Theatre (Vol. 9), The Time Warner Cable SportsChannel Edition
Posted on December 20, 2012 · Leave a Comment
UPDATE 12/20/12 10:07 PM: We're told that the network actually launched in August...we haven't had Time Warner Cable's digital service since before then. But TWC's own release talks about the network in terms of "will be" and "will bring", so they must see this as a post-soft launch statewide. Some wording fixed... ----- Having apparently lost or abandoned its reported bid to buy SportsTime Ohio, Time Warner Cable is going ahead full steam with its own statewide sports network...called "Time … [Read more...]
Chad And Larry
Posted on December 4, 2012 · 2 Comments
Two names have dominated local media news the past few days. Let's start with the most recent update... CHAD'S OUT: It was pure speculation in our last item...a prediction that comedian and Clear Channel rock/talk WMMS/100.7 afternoon co-host Chad Zumock would ride out the storm of an OVI arrest in Lakewood, his second in the past four years. Here, let's just see how wrong we were: He might get a brief suspension under Clear Channel policy (as far as we know, Zumock wasn’t on the air Friday), … [Read more...]
Early December
Posted on December 3, 2012 · 5 Comments
Here's another update as we round into early December...as items seem to have accumulated in enough quantity to release them into the wild... STO'S FUTURE: The occasional rumbling we've heard about SportsTime Ohio's impending sale has turned into a loud roar. Now, from just about everyone not named "Dolan", we hear that the regional sports network owned by the family which owns the Cleveland Indians is thisclose to being sold. Early on, there were rumors that Time Warner Cable and Fox Sports … [Read more...]
All Over The Map
Posted on October 10, 2012 · 4 Comments
UPDATE 12:10 AM 10/11/12: Jim Davison tells OMW that he will continue as operations manager of WHTX/1570 Warren, which will continue in its current standards format as "The Fabulous 1570" and retain its current staff and features. Jim also confirms that WYCL/1540 Niles has changed from classic country to a Spanish-language format as of Tuesday afternoon... ----- We're catching up again with a wide variety of media items, both in kind and location... DISH DEAL: Viewers to Gannett NBC … [Read more...]
