Some exits at local TV operations... END OF HIS ERA: OMW has confirmed a tip we received Tuesday about Time Warner Cable's management locally. Vin Zachariah has resigned as head of Time Warner Cable's Northeast Ohio division for "personal reasons". He took over the local arm of the cable giant in September 2009, taking over for long-time TWC NEO boss Steven Fry. We're told that Doug Whiting, the company's Midwest Regional Vice President for Customer Operations, will step in on an interim … [Read more...]
Digging Out
Posted on December 14, 2010 · 3 Comments
UPDATE 12/14/10 1:11 PM: We've added a new second item...scroll down... ---------- Pardon us while we put the shovel aside. After all, we've been dealing with yet another Northeast Ohio snowstorm... FROM TWO TO NONE: The older-skewing Youngstown market has long had two standards outlets - Clear Channel's WNIO/1390 Youngstown, and Cumulus' WSOM/600 Salem. It is about to have zero standards outlets, as WSOM has ditched the standards music for talk as "NewsTalk 600". "NewsTalk 600" features a … [Read more...]
No Theme Anymore
Posted on December 10, 2010 · Leave a Comment
We were going to have a "theme week" item, with three things all related in some way, and then...a whole bunch of other media news popped up... THE FCC SAID THAT: Long-time listeners to Good Karma sports WKNR/850 "ESPN 850" midday fixture "The Really Big Show" know it well...the infamous "Who Said That?" contest. For those who don't follow the antics of Tony Rizzo, Aaron Goldhammer and company: the contest, which ran until it finally ran out of gas last year, asked listeners to identify a … [Read more...]
Comings And Goings
Posted on December 2, 2010 · Leave a Comment
Or, more accurately, in order, "goings, and comings, and goings"... HE'S OUT: It's no secret that Clear Channel Canton hot AC WHOF/101.7 "My 101.7" morning driver Gary Rivers has been in, uh, a little legal hot water lately..and it's a pretty decent educated guess that those problems have turned him into the now-former morning driver for "My 101.7". The folks at Freedom Avenue say Rivers is indeed no longer with the station, and tell OMW: "We are searching for the next My 101.7 morning show … [Read more...]
TV, Radio And Other Stuff
Posted on December 1, 2010 · 4 Comments
We guess you could say that items have been piling up again. But we have another full menu for you this late Tuesday evening, and it's chock full of TV, radio and other stuff... NOT THE HELP THEY WERE LOOKING FOR: A recent FCC filing is bound to disappoint some over-air TV viewers in the immediate Akron/Canton area. OMW uncovered two recent filings by signal-challenged Local TV Fox affiliate WJW/8 "Fox 8", to add low-power digital translators to improve the station's reception in some … [Read more...]
Lorain County Mourns Loss
Posted on November 23, 2010 · Leave a Comment
One of the biggest names in Lorain County media has passed away. The newspaper he ran, the Elyria Chronicle-Telegram, reports the "unexpected" death of publisher A. Cooper Hudnutt, dead at the very young age of 57. Quoting the newspaper itself: Hudnutt, known throughout Lorain County as simply “Coop,” was found dead in his Elyria home, according to family. He had been publisher since 1991, when he replaced his father, Arthur D. Hudnutt. He also served as president of the board of Lorain … [Read more...]
The Big Update
Posted on November 23, 2010 · 3 Comments
"We're slipping," as a reader said. Just days after our big return, your Primary Editorial Voice(tm) became scarce, and we did not invoke our Secondary Editorial Voice(tm), though we notice he was busy with some items "off stage". So, it's a Thanksgiving feast of items, some of them courtesy of our second... EARLY CAST: Scripps ABC affiliate WEWS/5 is joining a growing trend in local TV news across the country - pre-5 AM newscasts. GM Sam Rosenwasser notes, in a memo that floated out of … [Read more...]
The Metheny Post-Mortem
Posted on November 12, 2010 · 8 Comments
From all the reaction coming out after a certain piece of big radio news from Chicago last night, you'd think Kevin Metheny had killed a man. As you've probably heard by now, Metheny "exited" (was pushed out the door, etc.) as program director of Tribune talk WGN/720, just weeks after his former Clear Channel colleague and Cincinnati-area resident Randy Michaels left as CEO of Tribune. Out the door with Metheny is WGN's newly installed evening host Jim Laski, a long-time powerful local … [Read more...]
A Week’s Worth Of Stuff
Posted on November 9, 2010 · 1 Comment
We've been hanging onto most of this, but one just happened today... HO, HO, HELLO: There have already been early Christmas music flips, even though Thanksgiving is still a few weeks off. Cleveland got on the Holiday Music Sleigh Ride today. And the first entrant in the sweepstakes isn't a traditional Christmas music convert...with Clear Channel hot AC WMVX/106.5 "Mix 106.5" jumping into Radio Jingle Bells sometime today. (We'll assume it happened shortly after the "Valentine in the … [Read more...]
RIP, Uncle Bill
Posted on November 5, 2010 · 4 Comments
OMW hears that "Uncle Bill" Weisinger, veteran local radio engineer and volunteer program director of WSTB/88.9 Streetsboro's "Sunday Oldies Jukebox", passed away this morning. Unfortunately, Bill's passing is no surprise to OMW readers, as we informed readers of his courageous battle against a cancerous tumor... and let people know back in late August that Bill was maximizing his time with friends and radio colleagues. This picture is reprinted from our earlier item, where a host of friends … [Read more...]
