In case you missed it on the radio, you can read it online.CBS Radio Cleveland's alt-rock WXRK/92.3 "92.3 K-ROCK" has officially relaunched under that new moniker...the calls and slogan were both on New York City's 92.3 for years, until that station changed to talk WFNY "Free FM" earlier this month.The speech given on air at just after 11 this morning by WXRK program director Kim Monroe is on the station's website this afternoon. (Despite the underlying URL stubbornly attached to this link, the … [Read more...]

As noted earlier here in the Mighty Blog of Fun(tm), Radio One brokered talk WERE/1300 Cleveland is set to become the local affiliate for a new African-American oriented issues talk network...now scheduled to start in two weeks, on January 30th. Thanks to a bit of digging, we've found out what kind of national newscasts the station will run.WERE now features newscasts from the USA Radio Network, which will likely go away with the new format...at least in daytime hours. In place of USA will … [Read more...]

We haven't been near a radio before 10 AM, let alone near our only radio that can pick up Canton market CHR WZKL/92.5 Alliance ("Q92"), so we haven't heard what the station has been airing in morning drive after the departure of "Kathy and Tim" last Friday.But the staff page on the station's website now contains this message:"THE COUNTDOWN HAS BEGUN!MONDAY, JANUARY 30thMornings Will Never Be The SameMornings 5:30am-10am"For the nonce, it still lists night jock DeLuca in his 7 PM to midnight … [Read more...]

OMW has no idea why, but two local TV operations have apparently decided to stop using digital "stretch" mode on locally-produced programming and commercials...on their digital over-air stations.Sometime in the past few days, both WEWS/5 and WOIO/19-WUAB/43 stopped forcing 4x3 (originally analog) programming to fill an entire 16x9 screen. Actually, as of recent months, WEWS had a partial stretch - to roughly 14x9 - on its locally originated content.Removing the stretch entirely is a good idea, … [Read more...]

A couple of items to post out of recent columns in the Plain Dealer:* PD sports media columnist Roger Brown notes the departure of WKYC/3 weekend sports anchor Mike Cairns, who exits the Gannett Cleveland NBC affiliate on March 5 in what's called a "mutual decision". It doesn't sound like Cairns has another out-of-town job in mind, as he tells Brown he's staying in town looking for "another TV job". In today's column, Brown suggests that Cairns "may be a candidate" for a job with the Cleveland … [Read more...]

Salem CCM WFHM/95.5 "The Fish" is losing its midday personality and music director for another not-yet-publicized destination outside Cleveland.The move was reported in today's AllAccess, and is also reported directly by the station itself...as the departing Todd Stach posted a goodbye message to listeners on the Fish website. Quoting: "I wasn't looking for another job. This new opportunity in another city came to me, and after a lot of prayer and thought...as a family...we decided to go for … [Read more...]

It took us a while to sort through this here at OMW, but it looks like the Stop 26 Riverbend stations in Youngstown and Columbus are a step closer to being sold.The company filed for bankruptcy in July, citing over $20 million in debt. And in September, the bankruptcy court ordered Stop 26 Riverbend to either find new financing, or sell the five stations... including WRBP/101.9 Hubbard, WASN/1500 Youngstown and WGFT/1330 Campbell in the Youngstown/Warren market, and WVKO/1580 Columbus and … [Read more...]

While driving near Canton, we caught a weekend jock on WZKL/92.5 Alliance, better known as Canton market CHR "Q92", tout the station's "brand new morning show" starting tomorrow. Without a lot of details, he said only that he knew the show would be "live and local".Now...the "Rest of the Story". OMW hears that Tim Richards and Kathy Vogel are out as the station's morning drivers, and that night jock Pat DeLuca will be taking over the show. "Kathy and Tim" have been doing the Q92 morning show … [Read more...]

And goodness, these two words have popped up before in the Mighty Blog of Fun(tm).The first word...Joe.The second word...Finan.Hmm, that sounds like the name of a certain former WNIR/100.1 afternoon drive talk host. We gotta stop looking over at the cover of the CD of his last show on that station.Or is there another reason we're bringing up his name for a second time? Stay tuned. Definitely stay tuned. No, really, stay tuned. (Hey, the folks at AllAccess have their "AllAccess Action" … [Read more...]

There's been a lot of scuttlebutt and message board chatter about a "big announcement" supposedly coming out of WTAM/1100 Cleveland afternoon drive motormouth Mike Trivisonno. (Check your Ohio laws about the need to describe him as such. We're sure it's in there somewhere!)And OMW has done some digging. It turns out that the Triv show "announcement" is not likely to be about any lineup change, overnight rebroadcast or anything of the sort, though we do understand that Triv's planning an … [Read more...]