An announcement, which we'll make in more detail later, and have hinted about: OMW is indeed going on hiatus sometime this week.During our hiatus, we'll continue to pass along major local media news, like station sales, format changes and major changes involving on-air personalities (firings, departures, moves, etc.). But we won't publish daily until our return. We'll explain it all in the "Hiatus" message about to be posted, but until then...WSPD GETS T-R-O: A Lucas County judge has granted a … [Read more...]

OMW has first word of the format about to launch on Clear Channel's new Canton market radio station, WHOF/101.7.It's "My" format.No, not "my" format - or even "ours", editorially - but "My" as in the name for an adult contemporary format - the station will be known as "My 101.7", and launches at 4 PM this afternoon...just moments from now.UPDATE 4:30 PM 1/16/07: As reported above, "My 101.7" (or do we put that in lower case?) launched on schedule at 4 PM.After a countdown, a station piece took a … [Read more...]

UPDATE 1/15/07 8:35 PM: The countdown started, we're told, somewhere during the 4 PM hour, and is timed for a station launch at what sounds like exactly 4 PM on Tuesday.Intermixed with the "tick, tock" of the countdown clock is a female voice announcing: "This is 101.7, where a new radio station begins in (x) hours." A simple "This...is WHOF North Canton" legal ID is inserted by the automation computer at or near the appropriate time. The tick, tock sound also has long periods of time without … [Read more...]

Some random notes...STILL WAITING: We're going to hold off on trying to set a debut date for Clear Channel's new Canton FM station, WHOF/101.7. We believe it'll be "soon", but we're not going on a limb until someone at Freedom Avenue gives a heads up on the exact start time.You may find out earlier, if you're within range of the station's signal, by turning on a radio to 101.7 FM...WOIO GRAPHICS: We've passed along rumors, such as they are, that Raycom Media's WOIO/19-WUAB/43 will make the Local … [Read more...]

Note that the following item is filled with speculation, rumor and not really a lot of facts. Still, we'll helpfully identify what is fact, and what isn't, for you...The Cleveland sports radio community and listeners are in a holding pattern wondering what'll happen to Good Karma-run sports talk WKNR/850. Changes of some sort would appear to be in the offing, but what?Let's run through some stuff we found in a recent Google search. Most of this stuff has been written in the past month or so, … [Read more...]

And some more stuff floating around the OMW Pool - yes, we're heated, so come on and dive in! You'll find some familiar things in the water...WRQK'S TRANSFER: OMW is hearing from numerous sources that the official transfer of Cumulus rock WRQK/106.9 has been "set in stone", after a number of false starts and guesses.At 12:01 a.m. next Tuesday, January 16th, "Rock 107" goes under the control of Clear Channel in an LMA. The LMA will be in effect until the reported sale of WRQK to Clear Channel, … [Read more...]

The nearly 20-year veteran morning host at Kent-based public radio outlet WKSU/89.7 will no longer be heard each morning during NPR's "Morning Edition". Leonard Will is retiring from WKSU after Friday's broadcast.Will has been with WKSU since 1988, joining the NPR outlet fresh off of a unique challenge - restarting public radio in Cleveland, as the general manager and architect of WCPN/90.3 at its launch.But his resume extends back much further, as WKSU's Bob Burford shares in the release on … [Read more...]

We're doing a midweek cleanup, and we're adding some new items as well...NO 101.7 YET: No, Clear Channel's new Canton radio station hasn't hit the airwaves at 101.7 FM as of this writing.But OMW hears from an eyewitness that an FM antenna was indeed placed atop the tower at 22nd and Whipple NW in Canton late Wednesday afternoon, where the station - and soon-to-be-sister station WRQK/106.9 - will broadcast from.That eyewitness is none other than John Amrhein, an OMW reader with a pretty good … [Read more...]

We'd be remiss in our role as a site honoring local media history if we didn't mention the passing of Alice Weston on Tuesday.Generations of Cleveland TV viewers - and we mean literally, generations - watched Alice Weston on local TV. In her 50-plus year career, which took her to pretty much every local TV station, Alice was a true fixture of this TV market.She was a pioneer, as well...becoming the first female TV host in this region when she joined WEWS/5 just a year after the station hit the … [Read more...]

Our apologies for being away, as what was advertised as a two-hour Blogger outage turned into a four-hour outage. It's free, right?NEXTMEDIA CHANGES: And no, the NextMedia changes we're talking about are not at the company's Canton cluster...but rather, at the top.NextMedia co-founder and executive chairman Carl Hirsch is stepping down from his post at the mid-to-small market radio group. He's heading out for new challenges in media, or so the release says. His departure is said to be … [Read more...]