SportsTime Ohio has locked up what perhaps is the single biggest cable signup after Time Warner.STO and the Indians are announcing an agreement with the Adelphia cable systems in Northern Ohio to carry the team-owned network. On Adelphia's main Greater Cleveland system, STO games will air on cable channel 17, and the SportsTime Ohio site lists a number of other channels in other Adelphia areas. (We'll list them at the bottom of this item.)It was announced that Adelphia would start carrying the … [Read more...]

WSPD/1370 Toledo evening talk host Bob Frantz wrapped up his two-day stint opening up the WTAM "live and local" mid-morning talk show slot this week, saying that he hoped he'd be able to return "sometime down the road".We haven't heard any official word on who will do the rest of the week, or beyond, but we're hearing some expected names being bandied about.Among the names - regular Triv substitute and former WEWS/5 weatherman Brad Sussman, and WOIO/19-WUAB/43 sports director and former WTAM … [Read more...]

A spokesperson for CBS Radio gets around to answering the rumor that's been burning up the Internet all weekend - the supposed return of deposed afternoon bad boys Opie and Anthony to CBS, to take over mornings for the floundering David Lee Roth show...based at New York's WFNY/92.3 "Free FM" and heard locally on WNCX/98.5.AllAccess reports today that the unnamed CBS representative "flatly denies" that O&A are "returning to CBS Radio". Even if you don't parse that statement as some have - … [Read more...]

The parent company of the Akron Beacon Journal, Knight Ridder, is being sold to California-based McClatchy, in a deal that's reportedly worth $4.5 billion in cash and stock.But that doesn't end the uncertainty for the Beacon. The deal only means - as the newspaper itself reports - that the Beacon and 11 other Knight Ridder papers are going to be changing hands again...as McClatchy won't hang onto those newspapers. The group being sold off again includes not only the Beacon, but the San Jose … [Read more...]

And some followup to some of the items we've been talking about:GOING LOCAL: We're listening right now to a recording of this morning's first local mid-morning talk show on WTAM/1100. As reported here first, it's indeed WSPD/1370 Toledo evening host Bob Frantz - a former WTAM sports voice - on the air for day one...after the end of what Frantz called the Jerry Springer "experiment".While noting that he was a "moderate conservative" and welcomed all viewpoints, Frantz joked that WTAM's decision … [Read more...]

Just a few items to launch you into Monday:STO DEBUT: We'd almost forgotten, but Sunday was the debut of the Indians' new in-house TV network, SportsTime Ohio. We'd forgotten because the OMW World Headquarters (check your real estate listings soon!) is barely within the boundaries of Adelphia's currently existing Cleveland area cable system. Though both the Tribe and Adelphia keep saying an agreement is expected soon, it didn't come in time for Sunday's STO opener - where the Indians bested … [Read more...]

In the item immediately below this one, we noticed that Clear Channel talk WTAM/1100 Cleveland's website schedule looked a bit odd...with a collision between the weekday schedule and weekend schedule.As it turns out, the fault lies not with WTAM, but with how the schedule looks in the Firefox browser, at least version 1.5 on our Windows XP equipped PC. Here's what it looks like in that configuration, with the schedule starting at Saturday morning and being "rudely interrupted" (as we jokingly … [Read more...]

Some random items for your weekend:WEIGHING ANCHORS: Plain Dealer radio/TV columnist Julie Washington has a nice piece spotlighting a piece of recent news - the naming of WJW FOX 8 weekend anchor Lou Maglio to a permanent seat alongside long-time anchor Wilma Smith at 6 PM.FOX 8 president/GM Mike Renda tells Washington that the station wanted to keep a different anchor team at 6 PM, with Bill Martin and Stacey Bell in place as the 5 and 10 PM weekday anchors. The station hasn't yet announced … [Read more...]

We almost missed this one in today's Roger Brown column in the Plain Dealer, primarily because we were preoccupied with the WTAM situation.Brown quotes DirecTV executive vice president Dan Fawcett, saying it's "unlikely" the nation's biggest satellite provider will come to an agreement with Cleveland Indians-owned SportsTime Ohio before Opening Day to air the 130 cable/satellite Indians games. This had kind of been hinted for some time, but it's the first public statement from the satellite TV … [Read more...]

UPDATE: While in line at the grocery store listening on our portable AM radio, OMW heard WTAM news anchor Darren Toms confirm this report during his 4 PM newscast. Today was indeed Springer's last day on WTAM, and a "variety of local hosts" will air in the 9-11:30 AM weekday slot until a permanent local host is named.Here's radio trade site AllAccess' confirmation of the item below, which you read first right here on OMW...-------------ALL ACCESS has confirmed a story first reported by OHIO … [Read more...]