19 Flub-up and aired swear...DTV test TONIGHT

A couple of items for this cold, icy Wednesday:

FOX19 Goofs On Simply Money Segment, AND Airs Swear: We've still got nothing confirmed with regards to cuts at Fox19 WXIX. But we DO have confirmation from at least one viewer about something that happened on their 6:30pm news last night.

Seems the station went to air one of their "Simply Money" segments, but the wrong one aired, we're hearing from a poster on skyeyeweather.com's forums. It was cut off near the end...but not before a four letter word starting with "sh-" was clearly heard by viewers.

If that's true, we've yet to find out if they apologized on air for the swear word going to air.

Apparently, FOX19 bosses are being really tight-lipped about any cuts they are making. Ohio Media Watch and I both have heard rumors, but because they are just that...rumors...we've chosen not to talk about them until we have confirmation. But it's safe to say, any next round might include the person or people responsible for last night's goofup.

DTV Soft Shutoff Test Tonight: Tonight at 7:31:00pm, Ohio TV stations will stop programming on their analog signals and broadcast a DTV test for five minutes.

If viewers do not have a DTV tuner, converter, or a cable/satellite hookup, they will see a message instructing them what to do to receive DTV on 2/17/09, with a phone number to call for help. That number, we believe, will be routed to a phone bank scheduled to be held at CET's studios tonight from 7:30 to 9:30pm.

We repeat: ONLY analog TV viewers with no cable or satellite service will see that message. As far as we know, both Insight and Time-Warner get the digital signals from all local TV stations here. We'll find out here at the TSMW HQ tonight, along with the rest of the Tri-State, at 7:31pm.

By the way, we're hearing a similar test will be done in Arizona at 6:20pm local time tonight.