Ohio Media Watch

We're not sure if he's officially the new radio "beat writer/columnist" for the Akron Beacon Journal, but the paper's Dan Kadar had another radio-related story in Saturday's Beacon...on the exit of Howard Stern from terrestrial radio, and local affiliate WNCX/98.5, CBS Radio's Cleveland classic rocker.Kadar talked with WNCX program director Bill Louis, who called the upcoming David Lee Roth morning show "the great unknown". Louis tells Kadar that he'll be listening along with everyone else to … [Read more...]

OMW has audio of Howard Stern's last live over-air broadcast, an event which has been hyped beyond belief, as it aired on Cleveland affliiate WNCX/98.5 this morning. We haven't listened to much of it yet, but we note that Howard did mention the area.In his opening speech, Howard asked his audience if they remembered some seminal events in the show, including when his live national broadcast from Cleveland was cut off by an engineering employee of a WNCX rival, rocker WMMS/100.7. The broadcast … [Read more...]

The news battle between Northeast Ohio's two largest public broadcasters continues.This time, it's WCPN/90.3-WVIZ/25's Renita Jablonski exiting her post at the Cleveland NPR/PBS affiliates and joining her former boss at Kent State University's WKSU/89.7, news director Dave Pignanelli. The Cleveland Plain Dealer's Julie Washington reports that WKSU is hiring Jablonski to host a new regional news magazine show. WCPN has also seen the loss of other newsies over the past couple of years for … [Read more...]

This item has a very small Northeast Ohio connection, but since it involves a Friend of OMW, we'll gladly trumpet the news.Veteran programmer Clarke Ingram, who was once briefly program director of Canton market CHR WZKL/92.5 "Q92", is once again holding the programming reins of a station. He's been named program director of Broadcast Communications' Pittsburgh market oldies/talk/brokered combo WKHB/620 Irwin PA and WKFB/770 Jeannette PA, better known as "620 KHB" and "770 KFB". Clarke's been … [Read more...]

A road trip back into Northeast Ohio from Pennsylvania brought us through the Youngstown/Warren market for the first time in some while. And OMW notes that urban WRTK/1540 Niles has STILL not changed format, despite being owned by the one and only steel supply magnate/Mahoning Valley AM radio king Harold Glunt for some months now.In fact, not much HAS changed at AM 1540. They're still running the same imaging liners voiced long ago by former station manager Lynn Tolliver Jr., aka the former … [Read more...]

Nationally syndicated Premiere host Glenn Beck is in town today...he'll make the final appearance in his "Christmas Tour" tonight at Akron's E.J. Thomas Hall.While looking for information about this, we found this article by the Akron Beacon Journal's Dan Kadar, which appeared in Sunday's Beacon. And in talking about being cancelled from his midday perch on Clear Channel Cleveland talker WTAM/1100, Beck said something many radio observers have noted over the past few years...an opinion heard … [Read more...]

OMW's gotta give it to Roger Brown, the Plain Dealer's often maligned sports/media columnist. Check out his Monday column, titled "FSN stands for 'Find Something New'". If nothing else, he gets a few points for coining that!We're still in a holding pattern, as the Cleveland Indians and Time Warner Cable, along with Gannett-owned NBC affiliate WKYC/3, cross the T's and dot the I's on their new agreement. But we've been looking for hints about how it'll shape up, and have found these:* An … [Read more...]

This one has picked up so much attention, it's on the AP wire today.The Wisconsin State Journal in Madison reports that Clear Channel news/talker WIBA/1310 in that Wisconsin city has sold the naming rights to its newsroom. After the first of the year, WIBA reporters and anchors will be heard from the "Amcore Bank News Center".No, we're not making this up.And it's not even the first station in that state to do so. According to the article, sister Clear Channel news/talker WISN/1130 Milwaukee … [Read more...]

Surely, you've seen those little promos on local FOX O&O WJW/8's "FOX 8 News"...where the deep-voiced announcer proclaims proudly that the newscast is "nowwwwww broadcasting...in.... HIGH DEFINITION", while a "FOX 8 HD" logo appears onscreen.FOX 8 is one of a handful of local news operations in the nation to broadcast its local news content in HD. Well, most of it. (More on that, later.)OMW stumbled upon an October article at TVTechnology.com - which gives readers an inside look at how WJW … [Read more...]

If Plain Dealer sports media columnist Roger Brown is to be believed, the long-speculated Indians TV deal is taking shape...a script I shape, to be exact.Brown reports that the Indians are close to announcing a new deal with two players - NBC affiliate WKYC/3, and Time Warner Cable/Northeast Ohio. The team's reportedly set to create its very own cable channel, and Brown says the Tribe will air 130 of its games on the channel which will have TWC as its primary carrier. And as we expected, 20 … [Read more...]