This is the latest in our ongoing watch of news/talk stations moving to FM in other markets.Though Bonneville news/talk KTAR/620 Phoenix was already readying an FM broadcast on 92.3 there, as it turns out, the station is actually MOVING to the FM dial...leaving its long-time AM home at 620 behind.The station announced this week that it'll create an all-sports station on the AM frequency KTAR will open up. KTAR's sports rights, which include most of the Phoenix market's major league and major … [Read more...]

A couple of items involving TV:TV MARKET RANKINGS OUT: The new list of America's TV markets is out, and the Cleveland/Akron/Canton market continues its slow slide down to the bottom of the top 20.Northeast Ohio's dominant TV market is now 17th in the country according to the folks at A.C. Nielsen, the ratings service that's the keeper of the TV list of designated market areas. That's down from 16th last season. When your Primary Editorial Voice(tm) was just a youth, we remember that Cleveland … [Read more...]

Some stuff that's been kicking around our heads, and we hope we remembered right at the keyboard tonight:SPRINGER GONE?: We've been expressing doubt about the status of Air America Radio-WSAI/1360 Cincinnati host Jerry Springer's mid-morning talk show, even before Clear Channel moved it and the liberal talk format from 50,000 watt powerhouse WCKY/1530 a while back.Is "Springer on the Radio" history, soon?A message board post brought this Boston Globe profile of Air America evening host … [Read more...]

FMQB now weighs in with a small item on the OMW Story of the Year, the big station swap between Cumulus and Clear Channel in Ohio and Michigan:Clear Channel and Cumulus have worked out a complex swap of stations, where CC's Ann Arbor, MI and Battle Creek, MI clusters are being traded for Cumulus' Canton, OH stations. Clear Channel owns four stations in each of the Michigan cities. Sources tell FMQB an LMA is set for Friday, September 1.Note that the FMQB folks say "Cumulus' Canton, OH … [Read more...]

This is print media related, but it's way too big for us to ignore here at OMW.The long-rumored job cuts at the Akron Beacon Journal are becoming reality, and they are deep.Beacon Journal business writer Gloria Irwin reports that some 40 of the newspaper's 160 newsroom employees are being laid off in a cost-cutting move by new ABJ owner Black Press.New publisher Edward Moss had the unenviable task of wielding the job cutting knife. He tells Irwin that the Beacon's profits had dropped some 50 … [Read more...]

We'll expand more on these later, if needed:MORGAN SPORTS: WJER/101.7 Dover-New Philadelphia morning drive host Bill Morgan may be losing his FM perch when Clear Channel moves that station up into their Akron/Canton cluster on Freedom Avenue, but his voice will be heard on at least one Clear Channel outlet this fall and winter.OMW hears that Morgan has been hired by the University of Akron's Zips Sports Network as in-studio host, and play-by-play man for Zips' women's basketball games. ZSN … [Read more...]

OMW hears that the long-awaited announcement has been officially made this morning at Cumulus Canton rock outlet WRQK/106.9 "Rock 107" - the station is going to Clear Channel as part of that multi-station swap in Ohio and Michigan.OMW also hears from a number of sources that the announcement only involved WRQK, as we've been reporting for some time now. Despite rumors and even other reports on the deal, there is no indication that any other Northeast Ohio station is being swapped from Cumulus to … [Read more...]

"It", of course, is our now long-standing report of that cross-state radio station swap between Cumulus and Clear Channel, which we know for sure includes Cumulus Canton rocker WRQK/106.9 going to Clear Channel...and a pair of Clear Channel clusters in Michigan going to Cumulus.That part has been confirmed numerous times by numerous OMW sources in both states, and also by other sources, including Mike Austerman's Michiguide up there.The folks at Conclave's "Main St. Tattler" have reported a … [Read more...]

Starting off the week with a couple of items outside the usual OMW coverage area, from the Queen City of Cincinnati:CBS SELLS CINCY: It'll be Entercom buying the CBS Radio cluster in Cincinnati.The $262 million deal also covers CBS Radio's stations in Rochester, Memphis and Austin. Joining the Entercom family in Cincinnati will be country WUBE/105.1, hot AC WKRQ/101.9 "Q102", oldies WGRR/103.5, and alt-rock WAQZ/97.3.This deal means two things:1) It ends speculation that former Clear Channel … [Read more...]

For whatever reason, we had this one wrong.As it turns out, current Toledo market WB affiliate-to-be-CW affiliate "WT05" is NOT available on DirecTV, as we had thought previously.Long-time OMW reader Chuck Matthews recently picked up voiceover work for the station, which is owned by Buckeye Cablevision and is seen on that system - and some others - in the Toledo market.Chuck tells us that the WB channel in Toledo's DirecTV local channels lineup is not "Toledo's WB5", but is currently the … [Read more...]