Long-time OMW reader Trip Ericson (RabbitEars) gives us his take on the local digital TV situation, including potential channel availability should one of the Cleveland market stations wish to make a channel move...particularly the alleged CBS affiliate currently stuck on RF digital channel 10...-----------------Hello, all!I'm Trip Ericson, the lunatic behind the website RabbitEars.Info, and I've penned this special guest feature on Ohio Media Watch to try to address some of the questions about … [Read more...]
Local And Connected
Posted on September 4, 2009 · Leave a Comment
Some of these items are local to our Northeast Ohio base, and others are only marginally connected...FRY STEPS DOWN: The long-time leader of Time Warner Cable's Northeast Ohio division is calling it a career.Beacon Journal business writer Betty Lin-Fisher reports that Steve Fry, who's been guiding the local arm of the cable company for as long as anyone can remember - the last 19 years as TWC's Northeast Ohio division president - is retiring.Fry's been working for Time Warner Cable and its … [Read more...]
Of Jimbo, Frogs and Love
Posted on September 3, 2009 · Leave a Comment
That's "Love" as in "K-Love", and "Frogs" as in amphibian radio and TV symbols...MORE JIMBO: Former Youngstown-area congressman Jim Traficant could probably scratch his nose at this point, and he'd dominate media coverage...covering which direction he scratched, and at what time, and where.In our last item, OMW visited the possibility that Traficant could wind up doing something on the air at Clear Channel talk WKBN/570 in his home market.Though we'd earlier downplayed the prospect, Clear … [Read more...]
Some Answers
Posted on September 1, 2009 · Leave a Comment
One thing we've learned here in the over four years we've been doing OMW - unanswered questions eventually get answered...CHUCK'S OUT: Like, for example, the question many of our readers had a few weeks ago - where is Chuck Galeti?We got a flood, well, a minor trickle, of E-mail when people started seeing former WEWS/5 "NewsChannel 5" sports anchor/reporter Sue Ann Robak doing the sports segments on the Cleveland market's alleged CBS affiliate's weekend newscasts...instead of Galeti.Fast … [Read more...]
All Over The Map
Posted on August 31, 2009 · Leave a Comment
It's a typical Monday, as we let items free that need their freedom...GOING DOWN: It's no surprise to anyone who follows population figures, but the folks at Nielsen Media Research have announced that the Cleveland TV market continues to lose position in its market rankings.From the TV ratings giant's release:The Top 10 local markets, known in the industry as Designated Market Areas or DMAs, will remain the same this season, with a few rank changes in the Top 20. Moving up are Seattle, from 14 … [Read more...]
Friday Followup
Posted on August 28, 2009 · Leave a Comment
And heading into a Friday, some followups...and one more item...QUICK EXIT: Thursday morning, we reported that Clear Channel Cleveland market manager Mike Kenney was packing his bags and heading to North Carolina. It'd been officially announced, just an hour or so before our post, that Kenney would take over the market manager post at Clear Channel's Charlotte cluster.Back in Cleveland, it was "promotion from within" at Oak Tree, with Gary Mincer taking over as market manager, and George Allen … [Read more...]
THIS JUST IN: CC Northeast Ohio Management Shuffle, Part Two
Posted on August 27, 2009 · Leave a Comment
UPDATE 8/27/09 2:20 PM: AllAccess reports that Mike Kenney will take the place of "longtime" CC/Charlotte market manager Morgan Bohannon, who is apparently out of that building today...-----------Just days after we told you that Clear Channel Akron/Canton market manager Dan Lankford was heading to a similar post at the company's Harrisburg/Allentown PA operations, a bigger shoe has dropped...and that falling footwear is at Oak Tree.OMW hears that it's been officially announced - Clear Channel … [Read more...]
Making The Midweek Connection
Posted on August 26, 2009 · Leave a Comment
As has been the case recently, we have a bunch of odd, mostly unconnected items that need to be let free...MORE FOX: It's not like it was exactly a secret.We knew that Local TV Cleveland Fox affiliate WJW/8 "Fox 8" was about to lose its 9-10 AM syndicated morning show, "The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet"."M&J"'s run ended months ago, with the announcement that original production would be stopped earlier this year. The show has continued to air on affiliates like "Fox 8" locally, but … [Read more...]
Very Random Tuesday
Posted on August 25, 2009 · Leave a Comment
Clearing out our inbox on a Tuesday makes for a very, very random collection of items...DIGITAL TRANSLATORS: Unique among major Cleveland market TV stations, Ideastream PBS affiliate WVIZ/25 has maintained low-power translators in locations on the edge of the market for years.OMW reader Trip Ericson (proprietor of TV information site RabbitEars) gives us the heads up that the pubcaster intends on converting these small transmitters to digital format.W63CT is licensed to Eastlake, but the 34 kW … [Read more...]
Those Cable Boxes Have To Go
Posted on August 21, 2009 · Leave a Comment
Many Time Warner Cable customers in the company's areas formerly serviced by Comcast have been E-mailing us over the past two months or so...with one question. "When are we going to get the same HDTV offerings now available elsewhere on Time Warner?"Some have speculated that the cable boxes Comcast used - manufactured by Motorola and General Instrument - have been an obstacle that slowed down the HDTV rollout in the areas that used to be served by that company.Those boxes...are being shoved out … [Read more...]
