Since we don't usually buy Cleveland Magazine, we didn't know that a prominent local sports media personality is featured this month until we saw Bruce Drennan on the magazine's cover at a local newsstand.Sure enough, the very interesting tale of the sportscaster's recent fall - and rise - is featured in a story titled "The Reconstruction of Bruce Drennan", which can be read online here.The magazine also offers a podcast featuring the Drennan story.The basics of the story are well known to OMW … [Read more...]
WNEO Analog Shutoff
Posted on November 18, 2008 · Leave a Comment
The second Northeast Ohio full-power analog signal to leave the airwaves is about to do so.As scheduled, Western Reserve PBS' WNEO/45 Alliance, the Youngstown market half of the Kent-based public TV operation, will shut down the analog Channel 45 transmitter on Wednesday morning - for good - to prepare for an upgrade to the digital WNEO signal, which will move from digital channel 46 to digital channel 45.OMW hears from our friends at Western Reserve PBS that the analog 45 signal will go dark at … [Read more...]
Cincinnati Way
Posted on November 18, 2008 · Leave a Comment
Our primary focus here at OMW is Northeast Ohio, covering the radio and TV stations (and other media) of the Cleveland, Akron, Canton and Youngstown areas.We'll occasionally run items from other parts of Ohio, as far afield as Toledo, Lima and Cincinnati, but we don't really have all that many sources in other parts of the state.That's one reason we wholeheartedly welcome a new media blog that focuses on Cincinnati, Southwest Ohio and nearby areas.Check it out at Tri-State Media … [Read more...]
Friday Grab Bag
Posted on November 14, 2008 · Leave a Comment
Rounding out our week...NO 58: With the digital side of Western Reserve PBS' WNEO/45 Alliance off the air this week in preparation for the station's early digital switchover, one of our readers noticed that the public TV outlet's Youngstown-based low-power translator is also off the air.OMW has confirmed that the translator, known legally as W58AM and serving low-lying areas of the Mahoning Valley that may be shadowed from WNEO, is indeed off the air due to transmitter problems...and has been … [Read more...]
Less Than 100 Days
Posted on November 11, 2008 · Leave a Comment
"100 days" is a popular measuring stick for a number of things in our modern world.Here, we're not talking about the progress of presidential administrations. We're talking digital TV...as we're less than 100 days from the mid-February day where every full-power TV station in the country will be forced to shut down that old analog transmitter, and solely broadcast its new digital signal.Well, give or take a few stations shutting analog down early...among them, Northeast Ohio's own WNEO/45 … [Read more...]
Monday Is Packed
Posted on November 10, 2008 · Leave a Comment
...full of news, mostly updates to some of our previous items. But they're necessary updates...WKDD MORNINGS: As it turns out, veteran Clear Channel Akron/Canton hot AC WKDD/98.1 morning man Matt Patrick won't be soloing it on the FM side of his broadcast life.After being tipped by a reader who spotted the absence of Patrick co-host Angela Bellios on the station's website, OMW confirmed Friday that the station's morning show will no longer be "Matt and Angela".But there will be a replacement … [Read more...]
Small Screen Browns
Posted on November 6, 2008 · Leave a Comment
There are times when the NFL's Cleveland Browns have stumbled in nationally-televised games, so much so that they may have wished the size of the picture to shrink dramatically. A recent big Monday Night Football win over the Giants excepted, of course.No matter what the local pro football team does tonight, some will indeed watch the game on very small screens.The Browns play the Denver Broncos tonight in the opener of the NFL Network's Thursday night series. As per usual in these … [Read more...]
Midweek Visit
Posted on November 5, 2008 · Leave a Comment
Just some followup and stuff floating around...WSTB: We hinted at this in our last item, when we reminded readers that general manager Bob Long and his student crew at Streetsboro's WSTB/88.9 wouldn't be around last night to cover Portage County election returns.OMW hears that moves are actually being made to reconstruct the Streetsboro school district-owned station and return it to the airwaves - at some point.As we pointed out shortly after school officials had station computers removed and … [Read more...]
Election Day
Posted on November 4, 2008 · Leave a Comment
On this perhaps Biggest Ever Election Day, it's as close to the Super Bowl as local newsrooms will ever get.Since the presidential race is the primary race of interest, the various network partners of local TV and radio stations will do the "heavy lifting", with pretty much all of the TV and radio network newsrooms showing up at around 7 PM Eastern time - with coverage available even on broadcast TV networks well past midnight.Local news outlets won't stay on the sidelines all night, though. … [Read more...]
The Job Loss Storm
Posted on November 3, 2008 · Leave a Comment
We wish we had better news for our return.In our last full item, we talked about the continuing reports of job losses at Ohio media outlets. We had no idea that the following week would be one of the worst such weeks for local media workers...ever.The news is so bad, and so widespread, that we abandoned plans for a single, large update covering everything we've missed in the past week. Instead, we decided to split this bad news into a large update of its own. We'll have other news not related … [Read more...]
