Ohio Media Watch

Thanks to Radio-Info Cleveland board regular Johnny Morgan for the tip...It appears that WMJI/105.7 "Majic 105.7" vet Mike Ivers is out in middays at the CC Cleveland oldies powerhouse. He's been removed from the WMJI website, and has been replaced by Chuck Collier, better known as country WGAR/99.5's afternoon driver. Unless Chuck's slaving over a hot console from 10 AM to 7 PM, we'd have to assume that some of that time is voicetracked, likely on WMJI.Collier isn't the only voice associated … [Read more...]

Message board chatter would indicate that WQAL/104.1 Cleveland ("Q104") afternoon driver Brian "Fig" Figula is heading out of the Infinity hot AC station, destined for an unspecified programming job elsewhere. Assuming that there's a fire under all that smoke, we wish "Fig" well!One other note: We'd appreciate if people from stations all over Northeast Ohio would give us an update on what they're doing regarding Hurricane Katrina relief. Drop OMW a note - the E-Mail link is under the "View my … [Read more...]

From AllAccess.com today:THREE TREES COMMUNICATIONS Christian Top 40 (THE HOOK) WWWD/MACON, GA and simulcast sister WJYF/VALDOSTA, GA has rolled out a brand new fall on air lineup and, for the first time ever, the station is live in every daypart. The changes all began last weekend when THE HOOK stunted with an ALL APOLOGIES, ALL APOLOGETIX WEEKEND as they played songs by the Christian parody band APOLOGETIX.----------Tell us, Mahoning Valley OMW readers...has Michael "Angel" Arch been spotted … [Read more...]

Touching on the western edge of the OMW coverage area:* AllAccess reports that long-time Toledo radio personality Denny Schaffer is heading south. The WSPD/1370 afternoon host, who's also been heard on "KISS FM" in that market, moves to Clear Channel Atlanta talker WGST/640, where he'll take the open midday slot starting in early October. Among other folks who've been heard in that slot - "The Regular Guys", a former Los Angeles team who returned to an FM morning gig in the Atlanta market … [Read more...]

News flash: OMW doesn't just have WOIO/19 in its sights.A lack of sleep this morning, and curiosity about Hurricane Katrina, has us up at this early hour, and our TiVo landed on WEWS/5. (One of our regular rotating recordings is of ABC's "World News Now".)Like almost all stations these days, "NewsChannel 5" has that ever, um, helpful news headline crawl...the TV invention borne out of the need to feed us extra information after the 9/11 attacks. Unlike WOIO, which uses the crawl on all of its … [Read more...]

On the far-southwest end of OMW's Sphere of Influence:OMW hears that two "KISS FM Mid-Ohio" air talents are moving to Mansfield Clear Channel sister WYHT/105.3 ("Y105"), which is currently a Hot AC station. Making the move will be Nathan Tyler and Marty Scott, both voicetracking in from CC's Columbus cluster. Tyler does overnights and weekends for there for WNCI/97.9, and Scott is also based there, doing weekend shifts.The move is revitalizing the Mansfield/Ashland Radio Rumor Mill. Speculation … [Read more...]

A pretty reliable source clues OMW into some changes at two Cumulus/Youngstown stations.Our Mahoning Valley source tells us that WWIZ/103.9 "Rock 104" program director Jim Loboy is out of that post, and has moved over to the morning producer position at sister CHR WHOT/101.1 "Hot 101"...for long-time morning team "AC and Kelly".Rock 104's Matt Spatz reportedly takes over as program director of the Cumulus rocker. (And OMW knows that Matt has been spotted on the various local radio message boards … [Read more...]

There's a good reason OMW doesn't touch on media news out of Toledo often - we don't really know the market.A correction to our earlier report regarding Raycom Media (owner of WOIO/19 and WUAB/43 in Cleveland) and its merger with Liberty... it turns out that Raycom already owns Toledo NBC affiliate WNWO/24. Local media watchers there say it's likely that the newly merged Raycom will have to sell one of the two stations it'll end up with - the other being Liberty's WTOL/11. It's expected by most … [Read more...]

OMW realizes that WOIO/19 is basically an easy target. We're trying, as we continue to grow this blog, not to take too many pot shots at the local CBS affiliate...even if they deserve pretty much all of them.So, we'll open our look at the third Browns preseason TV telecast on a positive note.* The team of Sam Rosen, Bob Golic and Brian Brennan is meshing well. And in his second week as a "co-analyst", after the disaster that was week one's play-by-play role, former Browns defensive lineman and … [Read more...]

It probably doesn't mean much for Cleveland CBS affiliate WOIO/19 and UPN affiliate WUAB/43, but their parent company (Raycom Media) is taking over the Liberty group of 15 TV stations.With nearly all of its operations in the Southeast, Liberty's only Ohio station is Toledo CBS affliate WTOL/11 - better known as "Toledo 11". It's possible the merger will mean more cooperation between WTOL and the Raycom operations in Cleveland, at least in the area of news.And no, Toledo TV watchers, don't expect … [Read more...]