A TV documentary based on Mike Olszewski's book "Radio Daze" premieres this week."Radio Daze: Cleveland’s FM Air Wars" debuts Tuesday night at 9:30 PM on Western Reserve PBS, the local PBS affiliate combo known to mere mortals as WNEO/45 Alliance-WEAO/49 Akron.Quoting a release from our good friends over on Campus Center Drive:It presents the dramatic rise of northeast Ohio’s FM rock scene, from its early days on college and ethnic stations manned by hippie disk jockeys to a billion-dollar … [Read more...]
Monday In December
Posted on December 1, 2008 · Leave a Comment
Unless you're a big winter weather fan, or happy about the start of a new work week, the phrase "Monday in December" seems rather foreboding. For that matter, so do some of our news items as we start the week...WKYC BUYOUTS: OMW hears that our earlier fears regarding Gannett's continuing effort to reduce staff at Cleveland NBC affiliate WKYC/3 are true.We passed along an item earlier from Dave Hughes' DCRTV - that Gannett was actively offering buyouts to help further cut staff at its TV … [Read more...]
WKRP? Well, Sort Of
Posted on November 30, 2008 · Leave a Comment
A small Cincinnati TV station is getting nationwide attention for a name change - sort of.Though we first picked up on this thanks to an item on the Cincinnati-area based Tri-State Media Watch blog last Monday, the name change of Cincinnati low-power Class A station WBQC-CA/38 to "WKRP" - inspired by the popular TV show about a fictional Cincinnati radio station - made the national news Saturday, via this Associated Press story.That story was presumably inspired by Cincinnati Enquirer TV/radio … [Read more...]
Friday Oddities
Posted on November 28, 2008 · Leave a Comment
OK, so we'll squeeze out one more update of odd stuff this Friday after the Thanksgiving Day holiday.There is some more economic bad news for those in local media, but we'll put that on the back burner until our Monday morning update...keeping the meaning of "Black Friday" for holiday shopping crowds for now...ION OF CHANGE: A little change could be coming to the digital signals of the ION Network's owned and operated TV stations, and the ION folks are going about proposing the changes in an … [Read more...]
Random Tuesday Stuff
Posted on November 25, 2008 · Leave a Comment
Some items kicking around the Mighty Blog of Fun(tm)'s storage bin...HSFB IN HD: The good folks at SportsTime Ohio have passed along their coverage plans for this coming weekend's Ohio High School Athletic Association high school football championships.And the schedule of six games includes three that will be broadcast in HD format:11/28 11:00am Div. VI - Delphos St. John's vs Bascom Hopewell-Loudon11/28 3:00pm Div. IV - HD - Steubenville vs. Kettering Archbishop Alter11/28 7:00pm Div. II - … [Read more...]
Maybe Nothing To These – Yet
Posted on November 25, 2008 · Leave a Comment
A couple of rumors, reports and such that may or may not mean anything to Northeast Ohio... yet:CLEAR CHANNEL/CBS SWAP: A note in Monday's "Taylor on Radio-Info" E-Mail newsletter caught our attention.Columnist Tom Taylor reports word that CBS Radio chief Dan Mason spent Monday in Houston, reportedly working out details a rumored swap that would have Clear Channel sending two stations to CBS Radio there.As part of Clear Channel's recent privatization deal, the U.S. Department of Justice … [Read more...]
Friday Cleanup
Posted on November 21, 2008 · Leave a Comment
UPDATE 3:15 PM 11/21/08: We added a new item below, about the debut of a new Toledo weekend radio show produced by one of our regular readers. Scroll down for the update...-------Cleaning up some items as we intend to head out the door for the weekend...WNEO'S DIGITAL: OMW hears from Western Reserve PBS that the station is still technically in testing mode today with its new digital signal for Youngstown market WNEO/45 Alliance, which lit up for the first time on Thursday evening.For now, WNEO … [Read more...]
Add 30 Days?
Posted on November 21, 2008 · Leave a Comment
It looks like America's full-power TV broadcasters may get an extra 30 days to help assure a smoother digital TV transition.Broadcasting & Cable Magazine reports that Thursday, the U.S. Senate passed "by unanimous consent" a so-called TV "nightlight bill", which would "would allow broadcasters to continue an analog signal for 30 days past the Feb. 17, 2009 cut-off date".Though the bill reportedly has support of FCC commissioner Kevin Martin, and the support of the White House, B&C … [Read more...]
WNEO Digital Coming Back – Step One
Posted on November 20, 2008 · Leave a Comment
OMW hears that Western Reserve PBS' WNEO-DT/45 Alliance (the operation's Youngstown market facility) is indeed on course to return to the airwaves on Friday.After the Kent-based PBS affiliate shut off the analog channel 45 signal for good on Wednesday morning, station engineers have been busy installing the new digital channel 45 transmitter, and have been testing it off-air into a dummy load.The digital transmitter is being switched today into the now-formerly analog transmission line, and … [Read more...]
The New Way To Cover News
Posted on November 20, 2008 · Leave a Comment
Rest assured, given the current economic conditions and the flagging fortunes of media outlets, this'll be here soon enough.But right now, a joint "news coverage sharing" venture between NBC and FOX is being implemented in markets where the two entities actually own stations. This USA Today story from last week has details.Basically, the NBC and FOX-owned stations in those markets will create a shared assignment desk, with some camera crews from each station devoted to staffing it. The goal, … [Read more...]
