TSMW Remembers Jim Knippenberg

Sad news to report, as we noted via our twitter yesterday afternoon.

Jim Knippenberg, the Enquirer's gossip columnist for 37 years before his retirement last year, has died. He was 63 years old.

The Enquirer reports in the above link that he had been ill for several days - but it doesn't appear to be flu-related. It's not clear what illness he may have had.

Knippenberg is, as we note, best known for 37 years as the "man about town" who would, as he said in a column:

"...go to stuff – parties, benefits, restaurant openings, cast parties on opening night, hot new nightspots. All the time, just trying to keep up with who’s doing what around town. Then, I report back to readers who wanted to get to that glitzy party but had baby-sitter problems or the sniffles or too bad a day at work.

“Ideally, this yields columns full of names of interesting people doing interesting things.”

For those 37 years, if you wanted to know who was doing what and where in Cincinnati...the "Psst!" column was where you looked to figure that out.

Knippenberg could do it all. He was a copy boy from 1965 to 1968 for the paper. He left there to teach journalism for three years at Newport Central Catholic - but couldn't stay away, and in 1971 rejoined the Enquirer as a general news writer, eventually rising to his position as a columnist and editor, and the rest is history.

By the way, you can view Knippenberg's columns from 1996-2003 via this link. And here's a well done tribute by current Enquirer TV critic John Kiesewetter.

We here at TSMW extend heartfelt sympathies to his friends, family, and colleagues...

Following Up on News Broken Yesterday

We received word almost at the same time other news organizations got it...but our source was Rick Sanchez on CNN via Twitter.

Lou Dobbs, who has been at CNN through almost its entire existence, announced rather abruptly he was leaving his TV program last night.

Dobbs helped launch CNN in 1980. He hosted "Moneyline" from that time until 1999 - when he abruptly left to found SPACE.com, which he ran until 2001.

Dobbs then returned to CNN, where he became anchor and managing editor of "Moneyline News Hour", which became the program he now leaves, "Lou Dobbs Tonight". He had positioned himself as an independent, "lashing out at what he described as the deficiencies and "partisan nonsense" of both major political parties, and injecting advocacy journalism into his coverage of topics ranging from free trade to immigration," as CNN says in their coverage of the longtime anchor's departure.

There's no replacement named yet, but it must be assumed some programming will air in the 7-8 PM slot on CNN.

Dobbs, meanwhile, continues his radio show, as we noted overnight via Twitter.

That show, "The Lou Dobbs Show", airs to 160 affiliates nationwide via United Stations Radio Networks, including stations in Lexington (96.1 WLXO-FM/Stamping Ground, KY) and Dayton(we're not sure, but his site lists 2, one being 1490 WKBV-AM/Richmond, Indiana as a signal so we're guessing it's that one, on a delayed clearance. The other is not in existence). It lists FOUR stations in Columbus.

But - there's a problem with those Columbus listings...namely, 1 out of those four no longer exists in the talk incarnation under which they carried Dobbs while we're unable to find his presence on one. WVKO-AM 1230/Columbus is a Fox Sports Radio affiliate now and has been for some time. Meanwhile, we can find no evidence of his presence on WATH-AM 970/Athens. That doesn't mean he doesn't air there - we just can't find him on their schedule. WATH mostly airs oldies during the day.

That makes his lone Central Ohio affiliate WCLT-AM 1430/Newark (along with the sister FM 100.3 WCLT-FM's HD3 signal which simulcasts the AM). And considering that 1430 there operates 500 watts daytime and 48 watts at night, they need that 50kW HD3 signal.

Anyway, our point is: Dobbs leaving his TV program suddenly causes a mad scramble for CNN to fill that 7 PM hour. Who do they take?

Our guess (and uneducated at that): Campbell Brown will have her program extended to a 2 hour show, beginning tonight.

We don't see them taking Wolf Blitzer and "The Situation Room" to a 4 hour slot.

The other possibility would have Blitzer's program moved to 5-8 PM, with Sanchez's "CNN Newsroom" taking a second hour at 4PM.

We'll let you know this evening...

Another Step Toward Launch for WVQC

WVQC-LP 95.7FM/Cincinnati has taken another step toward their launch.

While they're still working on getting a signal ready for terrestrial broadcast, they've posted a schedule of programming on their website.

That schedule is jam packed full of what looks like good, local programming.

One angle we hadn't covered before because we didn't know the full details of it: WVQC, based at Media Bridges, isn't going to be alone on the 95.7 frequency.

They're sharing airtime on that spot on the dial with Holy Spirit Center (in Norwood) and the Forest Hills School District (in Anderson Township, east of downtown). WVQC gets 51 hours a week to program on 95.7 FM. That's the reason for the grey areas on the schedule. If a timeslot is greyed out on the schedule, then Media Bridges-produced programming will air on the web only.

As we said, it's a schedule full of what sounds like great, local programming. Stations like this are always a great asset to the community...

Fort Hood Memorial Coverage, Plus Advanced Warning

UPDATE: Almost as soon as we posted that WXIX was going web-only with their coverage...Dan Carroll just broke into programming for live coverage...web only is still the case for WKRC and WCPO.

As you can see to the right of our page, we've been checking everywhere for coverage of the Fort Hood memorial.

We've found it on all four TV news stations' websites - but we almost didn't see it on WCPO 9/Cincinnati's site until we looked here.

WLWT 5/Cincinnati has it both online and on TV. We're watching it on 5.1 now.

WKRC 12/Cincinnati and WXIX 19/Newport both have it on their websites only as does the aforementioned WCPO. We flipped through those 3 channels, and saw normal programming.

By the way, just some advance warning: Business on the personal side of yours truly's life is about to pick up, between a holiday and some medical things Your Tri-State Media Watcher has to do.

As a consequence, our updates may not be as frequent November 18-30. We'll get here and post breaking news ASAP - but just know that our regular updates (meaning daily/near daily) will be scarcer in that time frame...

A Couple Quick Bits

There's a couple of pieces of information we had meant to share this morning - but didn't get Around Tuit until now...

Regent Communications Not Losing As Much: This one came out of the Enquirer this morning.

We mentioned some time back about a very low stock price...NINE CENTS.

Today, it's not a whole lot better...at 43 cents a share as of this evening.

But, says the Enquirer, the tide might just be beginning to turn:

The downtown-based broadcaster said it had a net loss for the quarter of $442,000, or 1 cent a share compared to a net loss of $46.3 million, or $1.19 a share, in the third quarter of 2008. The 2008 results included a non-cash asset-impairment charge of $67.5 million.

Regent doesn't own anything in the metro - but it owns stations down in Evansville, IN and Owensboro, KY. Those are in our extended coverage zone...and they're based here...so they're also local.

FOX Sports Ohio Swaps HD, SD Games: This word came from Fox Sports Ohio itself, via their Facebook Fan Page. They're planning a ten game switcheroo of High Def and Standard Def broadcasts - one of which already occurred.

The 10/20 Columbus Blue Jackets game against the Calgary Flames aired in Standard Definition, instead of HD.

The following, quoted from the FS Ohio Facebook Notes page, is the rest of the plan for HD and SD broadcasts:

The following games will be aired in standard definition:
1/2 vs. Avalanche
1/18 vs. Blues
3/19 vs. Wild
3/28 @ Blackhawks

The following games will be aired in high definition:
12/10 @ Predators
12/12 vs. Ducks
1/7 @ Oilers
3/9 @ Ducks
3/20 @ Predators

The total number of HD Blue Jackets broadcasts won't change - with 50 games expected to be in HD.

No Blackout...Yet: We found out about this on our return to the TSMW HQ, but tweeted about it this morning.

Local12 WKRC-TV 12/Cincinnati, WKYT-TV 27/Lexington and WHIO-TV 7/Dayton get another 24 hour extension on the blackout deadline for...you guessed it... the Cincinnati Bengals.

That deadline came and went this afternoon at 1 PM, but the Bengals had 3,000 tickets left to sell - and once again negotiated the extension with the NFL.

Our hope is, no more of these threatened blackouts...we're getting tired of having to say the same thing for nearly every Bengals home game...

News About Channel 9 News

We've got a couple stories in the hopper...and both are about WCPO-TV 9/Cincinnati...and no, we still don't have word about their move to RF 22...

Quinlivan Elected: As we covered its start, we feel compelled to update you on Laure Quinlivan's run for Cincinnati City Council.

Sure enough, last night Quinlivan won election to that body, coming in 8th. There were 9 seats open.

As we've said a few times before: We don't cover politics unless there's a media connection: in this case Quinlivan was an award winning I-Team reporter for Channel 9 before her contract was not renewed a couple years ago...

WCPO to do Bearcat Pregame Show: The station announced today that they'll have a pregame show before the University of Cincinnati Bearcats take on the University of Connecticut Huskies at 8 PM Saturday night.

Here's a quote from the station's story regarding the Bearcats selling out the only two home games that hadn't, well, sold out yet:

Before the teams kickoff at 8 p.m., Channel 9 will broadcast a special one-hour pregame show at 7 p.m. The show will include in-depth interviews, analysis on UC's national championship hopes, and what the nationally televised game means to the university.

John Kiesewetter reports that the show will be called “Bearcat Fever: Climb To The Top", and that Channel 9 hopes to get most, if not all, of the 7 PM hour. (They're broadcasting Ohio State's game Saturday night, too - and as soon as that ends will go straight to the pregame.) The Channel 9 sports team will report from UC's Nippert Stadium and the WCPO studios - but it's not known who will be where.

Our Take: This is a very smart move by WCPO. They're featuring this game locally, so, why not do a pre-game show?

Rhodes Takes a Break

John Kiesewetter is the first to report this...we're just picking it up...

Dusty Rhodes, Hamilton County's current auditor and part-time host at WDJO-AM 1480/Cincinnati, will be taking a break from his 5-10 AM morning show.

Rhodes did his last show for the station, which features the programming formerly at what is now WQRT-AM 1160/Florence, on Friday morning. He's been a Cincinnati radio staple for 48 years, with WSAI-AM (when it was at 1580), WLW-AM 700/Cincinnati, WDJO (the 1160 version), and WGRR-FM 103.5/Cincinnati to his credit, among others.

It's only a break for the 68 year old, who will return by the new year, according to Rodger Kay, who is OM for the Blue Ash oldies station. Rhodes says he has things he has to catch up on, and will be updating his Christmas music marathon program while he's away.

Subbing for him is Marty Thompson, who has WLW, WUBE-FM 105.1/Cincinnati, WDJO, WGRR, and other stations to his credit, and who now is programming VP for Dallas, Texas-based TKO Radio Network, and does a syndicated show out of his Miami Twp. home. That show reaches 130 affiliates 6 nights a week - but we don't know if any Cincinnati stations are among them.