Administrative Pieces of Business

I would like to attend quickly to two pieces of administrative business.

First, Tri-State DTV Watch is OPEN. So, any and all DTV items will go over there from now on. The link is at right, along with my Personal Thoughts/Observations blog. There WILL, however, still be brief summaries over here, but with links directing you to go over there.

The reason I linked the latter there, is because I have a link to this blog from that one, and felt it would be a good balance if I did the same in reverse.

The second piece of business is one in which you all can participate.

I would like to know whether some of you would be interested in me doing video updates as well as the text updates. Or should I just stick with text only? Or, and this would be a HUGE switch, should I do video only? You tell me.

Shortly, I will post a poll, inviting you to cast your vote as to which of the three I should do. I would kind of like to do more stuff with video blogging, but I'm not sure how well that would go over with this crowd. So this is YOUR chance to tell me what YOU would like me to do. The poll will run for one month...starting later this hour.

FOX19 Won't Air "Osbournes" Tonight

We got this piece of news from John Kiesewetter's Enquirer blog.

The show "Osbournes Reloaded" will NOT air locally on WXIX-TV/DT 19 tonight after American Idol, due to objections from FOX19 and Raycom officials over the content.

According to Kiese's item:

Fox says the seven Raycom stations are the only ones pulling the plug on the Osbourne family, made famous by their MTV reality show (2002-05). From what I can tell, it's the first time a local station here has not run a network show since Ch 9 and ABC affiliates balked at airing Oscar-winner "Saving Private Ryan" in 2004 due to its coarse language, to prompt clarity on language issues from the FCC. In the 1990s, Ch 5 would refuse to air some "Jerry Springer" shows because of potentially offensive content. In the 1970s, CBS' "Cher" didn't air here because the Ch 9 manager thought her costumes were too revealing.

Kiese goes on to cite two officials at FOX19:

Says Rick Oliver, Fox 19 operations director about the bleeping Little Osbournes: "I just don't think it's right for kids to see that." Says his boss, GM Bill Lanesey: "Some people might find humor in that, but I don't. This one just doesn't feel right."

WXIX will air the 10:00 news immediately following Idol tonight, then at 10:30 will air a special report, called "Surviving Severe Weather" hosted by Chief Meteorologist Steve Horstmeyer. That special report will talk about severe thunderstorms and the tools used in predicting them.

You can be sure that Your Tri-State Media Watcher will be recording that program to watch late tonight.

By the way, if you live in Dayton's TV coverage area, you'll still see the Osbournes...it will be on WRGT-TV/DT 45.

Thursday on TSMW - A TSMW First: 1-on-1 Video Interview

Coming up on Thursday, I will have an interview with Katie Finnigan from Media Bridges, which is the community media center behind WVQC-FM 95.7/Cincinnati. It's a TSMW first, Thursday afternoon right here at Tri-State Media Watch!

The Monday Update

UPDATE 5:45PM: We just saw this on the Fox19 twitter feed:

"Countdown is on - the new FOX19 is on the way....."

Stay tuned for more...but, one has to believe this is a large-scale relaunch of FOX19's branding...

We're doing a big update today, with stuff gleaned not only from our morning's TV viewing, but other information received today.

WXIX Says "Leggo my...Logo"?: That's what we're seeing in promos by the station.

The campaign has been going on all weekend, and touts next Monday as the date for whatever change they're about to undergo. Stay tuned for more on this one...

WKRC Celebrates 60 Years: 60 years ago this Friday, WKRC-TV/DT 12 began broadcasting as channel 11.

As they approach their 60th anniversary, the station is now putting old videos into a special section of their video page, called the "WKRC Video Vault". It's expected that the feature will grow every day, says John Kiesewetter in the story published both online here and in Sunday's Dead Trees edition.

WDTN Restoration in Butler/Warren/Clinton: Also from Kiese is the news today that Time Warner cable has restored WDTN-TV/DT 2 to the channel lineup in Butler and Warren Counties, as well as some parts of Clinton County, except Liberty Township and Mason.

TWC VP Pam McDonald says that these communities are included (the list is also at the above link, but we're reposting it here):

City of Carlisle
City of Fairfield
Fairfield Township
City of Franklin
Green Township (Clinton County)
Hamilton Township (Warren County)
City of Hamilton
Jefferson Township (Clinton County)
Marshall Township (Clinton County)
Martinsville
Marion Township
Midland
City of Middletown
Millville
New Vienna
Seven Mile
City of Trenton
Turtle Creek Township
West Chester Township

Insight Removes Yet Another Channel From Basic: Insight is back at it.

Here at the TSMW HQ in the KY suburbs of Cincinnati, we noticed this over the weekend...Univision, which is a Spanish TV network, has gotten pulled off Insight's Basic (1-99) cable service.

That marks the second time Insight has pulled a channel off Basic Cable and moved it to the digital tier. In this case, I don't yet know which channel Univision will be on...but will tell you when I do.

We think the local Hispanic community can't be very happy about this. (Your Tri-State Media Watcher has a Hispanic supermarket literally a 5 minute walk from his house.) This doesn't do Insight bosses any favors with that segment of the population.

WLWT Expands Blogging Tools

WLWT-TV/DT 5 has expanded the tools at their disposal to cover stories as they happen.

Now, the station's website, is offering Live Blogs to cover some of the bigger stories in the Tri-State, including the current Ryan Widmer murder trial.

Widmer is accused of murdering his wife Sarah in August 2008 in their Hamilton Township, Ohio home. (Hamilton Twp. is in Warren County, which is where Kings Island is.)

Anyway, we're guessing that this tool was one reason WLWT wanted to have computers in the courtroom during the McCafferty trial, as we covered previously here. Apparently, this judge was not so strict and has allowed the use of the computers.

We're sure several other news sites use the tool, and we know that WWE uses it for their WWE Universe fan section, to do live blog coverage of Monday Night Raw and Pay-Per-View events.

FOX19 Goes "Behind the Hits"

WXIX-TV/DT 19 has started a new series on the FOX19 Morning News, that will go behind the scenes of some of your favorite artists.

The series, "Behind the Hits", will air Mondays at 8:45am, and features WKRQ-FM 101.9 "Q102"'s Brian Douglas interviewing some of the artists as they either pass through the Tri-State, or just through WKRQ's studios.

We believe The Script will probably be the next ones to get the "Behind the Hits" treatment next Monday.

The piece that aired today about Natasha Bedingfield (one of Your Tri-State Media Watcher's must-listen to artists) was very well produced, and well done by Mr. Douglas in what is only his second interview segment for FOX19 TV. (Qualifier: And by second interview segment, we mean interviews HE has conducted with other artists, NOT interviews FOX19 has done with him. We know Mr. Douglas has been on WXIX TV before for regular segments, but he was always the interviewee.)

A Followup to the LeBar on "Castle" Story

We have more background about Josh LeBar, courtesy of John Hingsbergen who was kind enough to send me some links to information.

According to this Wikipedia entry, LeBar's best known for his regular character on the HBO series Entourage as Josh Weinstein.

He has also appeared in ABC's recently cancelled Pushing Daisies, CBS series CSI New York and The Man, Fox's Boston Public, WB's 7th Heaven, NBC's Three Sisters, and HBO's Tell Me You Love Me. And he currently is the voice of Flash Thompson in The Spectacular Spider Man, which will have its second season shown on Disney Channel in 2009, according to IMDB.

Closeout Item for the week of March 23-27

This is, as promised, the roundup of the rest of this week. Sorry we didn't get to some of it sooner...and by the way, the DTV stuff will be in the separate TSDTVW blog. (Heh...long acronym.) Those include the latest on those coupons for discounted converter boxes...and another item from Rich Emery, who is dutifully keeping us updated on some of the other stuff associated with DTV.

Now to the other items of the week:

100 Reds Games in HD: Fox Sports Net released its schedule for HDTV games for the Reds, John Kiesewetter at the Enquirer reports...and more than half the season's broadcasts WILL be in HD. To be exact, HD will be used for alll but 45 of the network's telecasts (making 100 out of 145). The slate will begin with the Opening Day contest against the Mets of New York at 1pm April 6.

Oh yeah...that's 1 week from this coming Monday. (Reds fans around the Tri-State are counting down...)

The "Reds Live" pregame at 12:30pm will NOT be HD, nor will the replay at 7pm Opening Day night.

Followup to Harvey Replacements: We haven't really touched on this...but it looks like ABC Radio is settling on a combination of people to replace the late, great Paul Harvey.

Among those is former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who will be providing 5 minute "Huckabee Report" news and commentary segments.

And that brings us to a local clearance we hadn't recalled for Mr. Harvey, and now Governor Huckabee.

We didn't realize it, but when 700 WLW-AM dropped Harvey's features in April 2008, WDJO-AM 1160 scooped them up and aired them four times a day weekdays, plus Saturdays at 10am.

And those slots now will be Gov. Huckabee's slots...as you'll now hear those "Huckabee" reports at 6:40am, 8:40am, noon, and 6pm weekdays, in addition to that 10am Saturday slot.

It should also be noted that Huckabee hosts a self-titled show on Fox News Channel on Saturday nights at 8pm, in case you can't for some reason hear WDJO either over-air or online.

Radio Free Queen City Followup: We guess this is more a followup to the followup.

Normally, we won't toot our own horn here. But, who in the Tri-State broke the news of WVQC-FM 95.7's August launch first?

That's right...we did here at TSMW.

We never once saw an item from Kiese in the Enquirer until the other day.

We can't recall where else we saw the story...but it hasn't popped up on any TV station website that we've seen yet.

Heh. See what can happen when you twitter? It proves the power of social media today. We were the first to break this wide open only because of our twitter page, and the fact that the folks at WVQC jumped on board.

Of course, you can still send your tips the old-fashioned way, via email...and we encourage that for those who wish to do so. :-) Remember, the email address is tristatemediawatch@gmail.com.

Local Man on "Castle" Monday night

A former La Salle High School drama student will figure prominently in the next episode of the ABC series "Castle" (9:00pm Monday, WCPO-TV 9/WKEF-TV 22).

John Hingsbergen, who is an avid reader of this space, forwarded an email he got from Connie Saho, a drama teacher at La Salle. Saho says that Josh LeBar, a former star at La Salle, had roles in productions of "West Side Story" (as one of the Sharks), "Jesus Christ Superstar" (as one of the Apostles), and what is thought to be his best role in "Guys and Dolls" (as Nathan Detroit).

I've requested more information on LeBar, and will post that in a followup.

We'll go through the rest of the week's items in a few minutes (Your Tri-State Media Watcher has been down with a cold/allergies for the better part of this week, and thus hasn't kept up on media stuff like normal).

An update regarding Radio Free Queen City WVQC

We received a press release from Katie Finnigan at WVQC-FM. You'll recall that we were the first blog in the Tri-State to tell you about the station, set to launch at 95.7FM in August.

The station is kicking off the first fund drive, which seeks to raise $127,000 by the time the station launches August 1st. They've also launched their website at http://www.wvqc.org.

Here's the press release in it's entirety. Again, thanks to Katie Finnigan for keeping us in the loop!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE



Contact: Katie Finnigan

Tel: 513-651-4171 ext. 11

Email: Katie@mediabridges.org





RADIO FREE QUEEN CITY TO FREE THE AIRWAVES

Independent station will bring community radio to urban core.



CINCINNATI, March 24, 2009: A new force is coming to Cincinnati’s airwaves. 95.7FM WVQC, Radio Free Queen City will bring local music, news and grassroots programming to the urban neighborhoods of Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. This week, the non-profit station is officially launching a new website, wvqc.org and kicking off the Free the Airwaves campaign to raise $127,000.00 by its launch date of August 1, 2009.



Radio Free Queen City will be a true community station with a schedule that emphasizes local music, news, events and talk, as well as alternative national programming. It will also air government affairs programming and Spanish language news. Programs will be produced by local volunteers and will reflect the interests of the community.



WVQC was awarded a low power FM (LPFM) license after a seven-year application process with the Federal Communications Commission. LPFM’s are non-commercial, community stations that broadcast at just 100 watts of power. Only about 1,000 licenses have been issued and they are almost never in urban areas. Cincinnati is the largest radio market in the country to receive one.



From its studio in Over-the-Rhine, WVQC’s signal will stretch 3-5 miles and cover most of the urban core of Cincinnati and part of Northern Kentucky. It will also stream live on the Internet.



Radio Free Queen City’s license is a rare opportunity for the city, but community support is crucial to its success. The FCC is requiring WVQC to begin broadcasting by August 2009. Funds from the Free the Airwaves campaign will purchase the equipment and hire the staff to meet the deadline.



Donations to the campaign can be made online at wvqc.org. Users can also find more information about the station, read the blog, sign up for email updates, and learn how to get involved. There is even a forum where Cincinnati residents can discuss what they’d like to hear on their community station.



WVQC is licensed to Media Bridges, Cincinnati’s community media center, providing the education, equipment and environment to assist people in communicating effectively through media. Media Bridges sets out to create a welcoming space for the public to come together to find solutions and share them. Not only do they offer free classes, but they also offer the means to create media productions. Media Bridges loans out equipment, library style, including cameras, microphones, computers and studios, so that people can create messages to take to the citizens of Cincinnati via Media Bridges’ cable channels, radio station or website.



###



For more information or to schedule an interview, contact Katie Finnigan at 513-651-4171 ext. 11 or Katie@mediabridges.org

Gannett to have second round of furloughs

We reported last week that Gannett, which owns the Cincinnati Enquirer, just had a round of furloughs for a lot of its employees...aka a week's unpaid vacation.

Well, an internal memo obtained by the FishbowlDC blog details plans for a second round of furloughs, "consisting of at least one week of unpaid leave, to be taken in April, May or June".

There's also plans to ask the higher-paid employees to take either a second week of furlough, or a one week reduction in salary.

Check that memo above for more details. We really hate writing these stories, and don't have the heart to say any more about this one in particular...

DTV Blog Now Up and Running

I decided not to wait until April...especially since the first piece of information I would post about DTV happens to be about something that could be very useful in an emergency. And you never know when one may strike.

So, Tri-State DTV Watch is now open and will be updated with any and all DTV related information for Southwest Ohio, Southeast Indiana and Northern Kentucky.

The Multi-Million Dollar Elephant in the Room

We can no longer try to ignore this story...so may as well dive in with both feet.

We subscribe to John Gorman's Media Blog, and for the last few weeks, Gorman has been discussing the negotiations between the radio industry (National Association of Broadcasters) and the recording industry (RIAA, the Recording Industry Association of America), and more specifically, SoundExchange, which is responsible for collecting royalties.

This week's blog noted a Radio Business Report article, which we'll link here.

The article goes into great detail, explaining how each station or broadcaster that streams via the Internet will have to pay any back-royalties dating to 2006, plus pay an increasing rate beginning this year.

The amount at first seems miniscule...at .0015 cents per song, per listener, that's not much. But then when you do the multiplication (average of 100 listeners per hour at 12 songs/hour) for an entire year, it comes out to about $15,768.00. Now...realizing that the amount of radio stations that play only music is slightly less than the number of radio stations in the entire country...if you multiplied that $15,768 by the number of radio stations in the United States...you come out with $219,774,384!

That's right. About $220 million!

We're interested in seeing just how many radio stations decide to shut down their internet streams, after seeing THAT figure.

However, we figure that number would more likely be in the ballpark of $100-175 million, after subtracting the amount of talk radio stations in the US.

Still, it is a multi-million dollar thing, regardless...and it's rather shocking...

Reminder - CW Cincinnati schedule being pre-empted for tonight

A reminder:

LOCAL12.2 CW Cincinnati's schedule for tonight is as follows:

Now - Louisville vs. Morehead St.
10pm - Local12 News at 10
10:30 - TMZ
11pm - Local12 News at 11
11:30 - Everybody Hates Chris
12am - The Game
12:30 - America's Next Top Model

An announcement, followed by a quick DTV hit.

UPDATE 5PM: I have decided to go ahead and create the blog as a placeholder for when I start posting to it.

When I launch it on 4/12, the URL is:

http://ohkyindtvwatch.blogspot.com/

Until then, it is a private blog, as I will be tinkering with it.

Original item follows...

_____________________________________________________________________________________

First, the announcement.

In the interest of keeping all DTV stuff separate, starting April 14, all DTV-transition items from then on will be posted to a separate blog. This way, we can keep those things, separate from the main blog - but a link will be provided from here to each item as it's posted, and when we post a DTV item, that will be a separate Twitter update.

Now a quick piece of interesting news from Rich Emery, who wrote us this morning to tell us he was able to pick up stations in Indianapolis and Louisville from his home in Hamilton(!) via his analog TV.

After telling us of previous experiences being able to pick up a station in Denver, Colorado (!!), Rich writes:

Here's why I bring this up -- around 7 AM this morning, I turned on a bedroom TV with nothing but amplified rabbit airs that's tuned to Ch. 3; before turning on the DTV converter box, I noticed an incredibly clear signal from Louisville's WAVE-3. It was equal to anything from Cincinnati this morning, which piqued my curiosity to see what other distant signals might come with such great atmospheric conditions.

By my tally, I was able to pick up completely viewable, identifiable analog signals from TWENTY-NINE stations today. Every single VHF channel except for Ch. 10 had something on it, something I've never seen before.

Dayton -- 7
Cincinnati (including WPTO, two KET stations from N. Kentucky, and two low power stations) -- 10
Indianapolis -- 6
Louisville -- 6

Let's see...12, 22...yep that's 29 stations! (Just double checking.)

This brings up an interesting point.

At 7 this morning, atmospheric conditions weren't precisely ideal for this kind of viewing. What you ideally want is high pressure, clear skies or fog, and light winds.

It should be noted that at 7 this morning, according to National Weather Service observations, we did have mostly cloudy skies in the Tri-State. A front had moved through this morning, and it had rained. The only ideal condition we did have was the light winds (at Hamilton, winds were calm at 7am) and fog (at CVG, or the International Airport). There was yet to be high pressure established.

Still, it's pretty amazing that even under what were less than ideal conditions, signals from Indy and Louisville STILL propagated all the way to Hamilton...

DTV Update

Well, that didn't take long.

Upon reviewing the DTV lists here (pre-June 12 transitions) and here (all others), here's what you need to know.

Lexington, Louisville, Cincinnati, and Dayton commercial TV stations will all wait until June 12.

The next ones to go will be WCVN-TV 54 and WKON-TV 52, along with the rest of the KET network. They'll go on April 16.

Then the Cincinnati, Dayton and Oxford PBS stations will all pull their plugs May 1.

The TBN-programmed WKOI-TV 43 in Richmond, Indiana will also pull it's analog off air May 1. Then the rest of the market will drop analog.

By the way, several of you tipped us to the lists being out, including Rich Emery (who emailed us the lists) and someone going by the handle of king-of-kings (via a comment). Thanks guys!

And Pat J, we're looking into that Dayton tip, too...

Midweek NCAA Update

We promised an update today, and it's chock full of NCAA tourney news...so here it is:

Local NCAA Plans: We have the schedule for Thursday's tournament games that will air on Local 12 WKRC-TV and Dayton's WHIO-TV 7. The schedule is a shared schedule, so both stations will air the same games, and all of them will be in HD.

Those games are:

12:20 p.m.: Butler-LSU
2:30 p.m. Northern Iowa-Purdue
7:10 p.m.: Michigan-Clemson
9:45 p.m.: Western KY-Illinois

Also, Local12.2 CW Cincinnati will air two afternoon games, but in Standard Definition, and those are:

12:30 p.m.: Texas A&M-BYU
2:45 p.m.: Maryland-California

And just announced as this is being posted is the Friday schedule, which we found through John Kiesewetter at the Enquirer. And the multiplexing will expand on Friday, to allow for both the Xavier and Louisville games to be shown in the Tri-State:

On WKRC, this schedule WILL be in HD:

12:30: Utah State-Marquette
2:50 p.m.: Dayton-West Virginia
7:25 p.m.: Xavier-Portland State
9:30 p.m.: Ohio State-Siena

Ch 12.2 will air three games Friday, BUT these are NOT High-Definition broadcasts:

12:25 p.m.: Tennessee-Oklahoma
2:35 p.m. Temple-Arizona State
7:10 p.m. Louisville-Morehead State

CBS' pregame shows will start at 12 noon and at 7pm. That is why Local12 News will be on CW Cincinnati on Thursday and Friday...we have also found out that Local12 News at 11 will ALSO be on CW Cincinnati Thursday night and Friday night, just because the games probably will run late and there will likely be postgame coverage. The news will also be moved on Thursday and Friday of NEXT week, too.

EDIT: And by the way, this will also bump all of CW Cincinnati's Friday night programming per John Kiesewetter. Everybody Hates Chris will air at 11:30. (Isn't it Everybody HATES Chris, Kiese?) Then it will be "The Game" and then "America's Next Top Model".

CBS College Sports Preview: Kiese also mentions an upcoming preview, which we knew of Insight's share of independently Tuesday night...but didn't know about TWC until just before we wrote the preview yesterday. (The Tri-State Media Watch HQ in Florence, KY uses Insight Cable, and has digital...)

Both Time Warner and Insight have announced a CBS College Sports TV preview to take place now through April 7, which is the day following the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship.

Insight will offer the channel at channel 530, with NCAA highlights on channel 501 (the latter will air through 4/30). Time Warner customers will find it on Channel 177.

B105 Inspires American Idol Performance: A hat tip to Kiese for this one, too.

When you watch tonight's American Idol, featuring Carrie Underwood and Randy Travis singing "I Told You So" (8pm, WXIX-TV 19/WRGT-TV 45), be sure to thank WUBE-FM 105.1 DJ Jesse Tack.

When Artista Records released Underwood's single of the song from her 2007 "Carnival Ride" CD, program director Travis Moon suggested that Tack try to combine it with Travis's version recorded in 1987. He did. Moon liked it so much he put it on B105 immediately, and it was a HUGE hit locally and now nationally.

So, Underwood and Travis will do the duet LIVE tonight...Tack said to Kiese: "When I put this together, my hope was that Carrie and Randy would hear this, and think what a good opportunity it would be to record it together.... I knew my version sounded good, but I didn't know if we would even play it. I certainly didn't know it would spread around the country. They must be getting a big response from other PDs (program directors), and seeing what's written on message boards."

We here at TSMW give massive props to Tack...he, after all, created the sensation, and now it's gone viral...who'da thunk it?

By the way, we know that the list of DTV transition dates has been released...we will post on that tonight, as soon as we've had time to digest it...

Preview of Wednesday's update

We'll be back later today with these stories:

* Which NCAA games WKRC-TV, along with CW Cincinnati and WHIO-TV plan to broadcast on Thursday.

* Why B105 inspired a duet that will be featured on American Idol Wednesday night.

* How you can see CBS College Sports TV in Cincinnati and N KY.

All this, plus breaking media news as we get it, Wednesday right here on TSMW!

Furloughs and Paper Closings

We don't typically spend much time on Print Media (as the subtitle says, we're about TV and Radio), but we'd be remiss if we didn't throw in a couple print-media notes here.

Yesterday, it was announced that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer will no longer be doing print editions, and is going digital only after this morning's paper. The publisher of the paper, Hearst, says that the economic conditions caught up with them.

Here's the article from the P-I itself.

Meanwhile, locally, of course the Post already shut down last year. But now the Enquirer is taking a step to help cut costs.

Many, if not all employees are being sent on 7 day furloughs (read: unpaid vacations) to help cut costs. Thus, the reason John Kiesewetter's blog wasn't updated last week...or why several people, including Peter Bronson, won't be doing any stories this week.

Now, print media won't necessarily go away. We know this. After all, there will always be some places where internet isn't readily available, or where people support the Dead Trees (tm by OMW) editions of their local papers.

But it is pretty clear from the P-I shutting off its print editions that print outlets know where the money will be in the future: the Internet.

As the story we linked above about the P-I says, conditions aren't just affecting local papers in the Tri-State. The P-I will be the largest newspaper to shut off their presses in the nation to date and go web-only. (Yes, we're pretty sure the Post had a smaller circulation than the P-I.)

It just goes to show, things are changing in the world...

EDIT: Cliff, aka 74WIXYgrad, makes a good point.

There may actually exist a situation, sometime in the future, where there are smaller print edition newspapers, dedicated to one specific neighborhood. He explains that there's a paper in his hometown, Rittman, Ohio, called the Rittman Post, which is really just a string of smaller, neighborhood-centered papers for news, but it's all one operation as far as classified ads go.

And by the way, as we're listening to 700 Club here as of 9:05am, they're talking about the P-I story.

More CC-Cincy layoffs??

We're hearing that there *COULD* be additional cuts at the Kenwood Tower HQ of Clear Channel's local cluster this Friday, according to a source who asked not to be named...stay tuned...

MOJO Afternoon Drive Change

One of the Queens of Comedy is out of the radio biz in the Queen City...and nationally as well, John Kiesewetter at the Enquirer reports.

Mo'Nique, who has had a syndicated show on WMOJ-FM 100.3 since June, announced Friday she was ending her syndicated radio show to concentrate on her comedic career. The show was syndicated via Syndication One, a division of Radio One which owns WMOJ, as well as WIZF-FM 101.1 and WDBZ-AM 1230.

Faith Daniels, host of the MOJO early-afternoon show, announced that Doc Kilgore, host of the evening daypart of MOJO's schedule, known as "The Quiet Storm", will take over today and in fact, he's in the middle of his show as we speak.

Kilgore, a Cincinnati native, started in the Scarlet Oaks broadcasting arts program in the late 1970s. His first paid gig was as a news anchor at WCIN-AM in the early 1980s, then joined the old WBLZ-FM. He spent 14 years as a DJ in Houston and Chicago. He's been at WMOJ-FM since it debuted in fall 2006.

We're hearing that Kilgore takes the MOJO afternoon drive show in a music-intensive direction.

The Madness Begins...March Madness That is...and WCPO's Good Morning Tri-State team now a-tweeting away!

Couple quickie items here:

March Madness: Well, it is March Madness time, and that means basketball all over our TV's here at Tri-State Media Watch.

WKRC-TV 12 as well as WHIO-TV 7 in Dayton both will broadcast CBS' coverage of the NCAA Tournament beginning Thursday. And that means, for the next few weeks, the prime-time schedules get messed with, particularly on Thursday and Friday nights the next 2 weeks.

While we don't have the schedule of games to be aired locally, at least in Cincy, we do know what's going to happen to Local12 News at Noon as well as First at 4 this week.

The noon newscast will be bounced to the CWCincinnati subchannel 12.2 this Thursday and Friday at its regular time. There will not be a 4pm newscast either day this week. (Something about this year's February/March sweeps, which wouldn't normally be an issue if not for that blasted DTV Feb. 17 conversion date that, for most, wasn't...)

We don't know how we missed this, but all month Local12 has been preparing viewers to make the switch to CWCincinnati for the midday news by simulcasting it on Local12 and 12.2. And it looks as though this will continue even after the first week of the tourney...

Meanwhile, the Dayton CBS affiliate looks to be planning to go with a shortened edition of NewsCenter 7 both Thursday and Friday this week.

WCPO Good Morning Tri-State team now on Twitter: We mentioned WCPO as having a twitter page for their weather team. Apparently, we forgot a couple of WCPO's Twitter names when we posted that.

Like WCPOTraffic, for example.

Or WCPO's main Twitter account.

Even John Matarese's Don't Waste Your Money segments have a Twitter home!

And here's the one Good Morning Tri-State, the station's morning show, is using. This is their talkback Twitter account, and it was just launched over the weekend.

Starting this morning, the Good Morning Tri-State team will use this to talkback to their viewers, in the stylings of CNN's Rick Sanchez (who actually started this whole revolution of news agencies tweeting), or of Local12's Doppler Tim.

FCC Sets New DTV Transition Rules

It looks like the FCC set new rules Friday, saying all of the stations left to transition to all-digital broadcasting must notify the FCC of their new plans by next Tuesday. (Hat Tip to Rich Emery for finding this information and sending it over)

Broadcasting & Cable magazine has more here including the link to the guidelines. We'll hit the highlights here, and these are quotes from the link.

-- The FCC is requiring that every station that has not yet transitioned to digital file a binding notice of analog termination by that March 17 date. Stations will have to air viewer notifications for at least 30 days before pulling the plug, including the information about antennas and possible signal loss where applicable. Once the stations have filed that notice, they may proceed with their plans without getting a specific individual approval from the commission.

-- Network affiliates that want to go before June 12 can do so if at least one network affiliate remains on the air in full analog service in the market until June 12. If a major network affiliate (meaning ABC, CBS, FOX or NBC [parentheticals mine]) can't attest to that and still wants to pull the plug early, it can do so as long as at least one of the major affiliates is maintaining an "enhanced nightlight" service of news, public affairs and emergency info.

It should be noted that the individual stations can decide to pull the analog service off the air at any time during the day of their transition but must communicate that time to the FCC. The guidelines also require all broadcasters to air a new, long-form (meaning 30 minute) educational program to their viewers which contains updated, locally-specific information, at least one time before June 12.

Stations are allowed to shut off analog transmission beginning April 16th, except for non-commercial stations which are claiming financial hardship. Those stations can shut off as early as 13 days from today. Those stations include the Kentucky Educational Television network, which will go April 15 as we reported previously.

And we've just remembered Gray Television-owned CBS affiliate WKYT-TV 27/Lexington.

That station has said in public for weeks they would go on April 13...which is three days before the earliest allowed deadline for commercial TV stations. We wonder if the FCC will still allow this...it shouldn't be much of an issue, as the NBC affiliate already said it would not go before June 12.

MTV "Taking the Stage" at SCPA

MTV finally has a website up for its new show "Taking the Stage", which is set in Cincinnati at the School of Creative and Performing Arts, which is in Over-The-Rhine.

The show follows five SCPA students as they pursue their dreams of stardom, much the way Nick Lachey, Sex and the City's Sarah Jessica Parker, actor/director Todd Luiso (High Fidelity, Love Liza), and actor Rocky Carroll of NCIS did.

There are five main characters, according to the website, they are as follows:

* Jasmine is a prima ballerina who dreams of dancing with the famed Alvin Ailey dance troupe. "I want to be one of the best professional dancers of my generation," she says. Jasmine hopes to attend New York performing arts conservatory Juilliard after graduating from SCPA.

* Malik -- Jasmine's best friend -- leads the school's only hip-hop dance group, The Definition. "When I dance," he says, "people notice. I want to inspire." In addition to his formidable dance skills, he is also a talented choreographer and a singer/songwriter.

* Shaakira is a dancer and aspiring actress. "I want to be an all-around entertainer. I have really big dreams," she says. "I will do whatever it takes to be famous." Shaakira is an accomplished ballet dancer -- one of the best SCPA has ever produced -- but prefers hip-hop dance and is an integral member of Malik's team.

* Mia is a singer-songwriter whose talent is matched only by her drive. "My whole life I've had the same goal, to make music and get a record contract by the time that I'm 18," Mia says. "I know I have what it takes to make it happen."

* And, finally, there's Tyler, a gifted hip-hop dancer. Along with his little brother, Chris (also a dancer), he's new to the School for Creative and Performing Arts, and he's about to shake things up. "Dancing is my world; it just comes out of me," he says. "I am hip-hop dance. Hip-hop dance is me."

In a news-related twist, the school is currently dealing with a tragedy in its midst after one of their students was killed. 13 year old Esme Kenney was murdered sometime Sunday. SCPA held a very emotional memorial Tuesday night. It's unclear as to how, or even if, this affected production of the show.

Thomas Goldsmith Dead at 99

More sad news to report nationally today, that actually happened yesterday. (Hat Tip: Rich Emery)

Dr. Thomas T. Goldsmith, one of the pioneers of the Du Mont Television Network, has died at age 99, reports the Olympian out of Olympia, Washington.

Here's a link to an interview Dr. Goldsmith did a couple years ago with the Archive of American Television.

It should be noted that WTTG-TV in Washington, DC, which Goldsmith started as an affiliate of the Du Mont network, carries his initials.

Quinlivan Update...More personalities/stations on Twitter

A couple of Tuesday items...

Quinlivan to run for Cincy Council: The former WCPO-TV 9 I-Team reporter currently suing the station over her termination, has announced a bid for Cincinnati City Council.

Laure Quinlivan, who also did some special reports for WLWT-TV 5, announced her plans today at a press conference, according to WLWT today.

Her website has this statement:

Hello and Welcome to my campaign web site. I'm just getting started, having announced for City Council on March 10.

Be sure to check back in a couple weeks for video reports.

I am running to bring a new energy and fresh perspective to Cincinnati Council. My 15 years of investigative reporting has resulted in positive changes for our community. I stand up for taxpayers and average citizens.

People may know me for “Visions of Vine Street” documentaries, investigating Paul Brown Stadium construction and proposing solutions for Ohio’s side of the Purple People Bridge.

I can research important issues, make decisions and communicate with the public. I have the passion, experience and tenacity to be effective on City Council.

We wonder how her bid will affect the lawsuit which we previously reported on...

More Radio, TV Personalities on Twitter: We have a few more personalities and stations to add to the list of Cincinnati Radio/TV people on Twitter.

Much of FOX19 WXIX-TV's staff now tweets, including reporter Sara Gouedy, meteorologist Frank Marzullo, and Morning News anchor Rob Williams.

Over at WKRC-TV, the entire Good Morning Cincinnati team tweets. And meteorologist John Gumm just got his own Twitter account. Otherwise, the station's Chief Meteorologist, Tim Hedrick, tweets from the station's main twitter account.

WLWT and WCPO's weather department tweet, too.

Even a couple of Bonneville's radio stations get into the act, with WKRQ-FM 101.9 and WSWD-FM 97.3 having their own twitter pages.

And, to round out, WKRQ's Brian Douglas is also a tweeter, as he and Laura Powell announced yesterday on-air.

And of course, we can't end this part of the update without a quick reminder to follow OUR tweets at twitter.com/tristatemedia.

WLW Has Lost XM Carriage!

A hat tip to my friends up in Northeastern Ohio at Ohio Media Watch for this bit...as I received it from them via email this evening!

Seems WLW-AM 700 is no longer carried on XM Satellite Radio channel 173 as of this past Friday. WCPO has the story here.

Of course, WLW has a blowtorch signal anyway, at 50,000 watts, so much of the eastern US won't lose The Big One. But, this means anybody that can't get the station over air, no longer has the Satellite Radio option available to them and now has to listen on the station's website.

It sounds to us as if the Clear Channel pursestrings may have had something to do with it...stay tuned, if we get any information, we'll let you know!

Wrapping up the week...

OK...let's finish off the week...

WNNF Stunting: We had never gotten any reports of stunting on WNNF-FM 94.1, but listening to it ourselves, we can confirm that indeed, they are promising that they are "renovating your radio station". It's not known what 94.1 will flip to...but it's been speculated that they could flip to anything from AC to rock to a country station. We'll know sometime down the line.

They are, however, taking opinions...log onto radio941.com to weigh in...

WKRQ-FM Girlfriend Getaways: From Bonneville Mountain, the home of the number 9 Hottest Woman in US Radio, Holly Morgan comes Girlfriend Getaways.

The station is giving away a few trips to Florida's Emerald Coast, which include airfare and hotel.

Log on to WKRQ.com for more...

Concert To Benefit Komen for the Cure: And while we're electronically at Bonneville Mountain and in the WKRQ studios, we're finding out about a concert the station is going to hold at Newport on the Levee on the 12th.

The station announced that Natasha Bedingfield will perform at Jefferson Hall at 8pm that night, and all door proceeds will benefit Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

Again, log on to WKRQ.com for those details. The station will also have a contest, where the winners can get engaged LIVE on stage after Bedingfield performs.

A little Pre-Friday Fun

We found out, via the facebook page of Q102's Holly Morgan, that she's been named one of the country's 50 hottest women of radio, according to Popcrunch.com. Women from Indianapolis, Columbus and Cleveland also made the cut. Morgan ranks at number 9!

Click here to see the top ten, or here to get to the front page of the list!

Congratulations to Holly and the other 49 who made this list!

And no, we realize this isn't exactly news...but it's a little fun, news-type bit that relates back to local media (plus, Your Tri-State Media Watcher is definitely a straight male)! So, enjoy!

Some FOX19 Quick Hits

A couple quick items, all relating to FOX19:

ThisTV: As we reported, the station's second digital subchannel is being carried by Time Warner Cable, on channel 920. That carriage is one of two major cable deals, the other being with Insight to air ThisTV Cincy on digital channel 194.

FOX19 Morning News Rewind: Connected to ThisTV, is this item we saw while up early this morning.

FOX19 will use ThisTV to carry 1 hour of the station's morning newscast from 9-10am. That's already started, and again, we saw the promo for this right as the morning newscast ended on FOX19.

FOX19 News Right Now...Starting Monday?: And finally, the station will start carrying very quick (maybe 60 to 90 second long) news updates every hour at the top of the hour from 10am to at least 4pm. That will begin on Monday, March 9th. (This move was also promoted this morning.) The station has already done quick, 45 second weather updates at the top of every hour during the daytime.

We wonder how 5, 9, and 12 will react to FOX19's move to broadcast both a later version of the morning news, and 60 second updates every hour...

New Station Beginning on 8/1/09

UPDATE 5PM: The kind folks at WVQC were good enough to give us the myspace and facebook links. Those are here for Facebook and here for Myspace users! Thanks WVQC and we'll be keeping tabs on you guys for sure!

As most everyone who's read this blog knows by now, we have our very own twitter presence (twitter.com/tristatemedia for those wondering). Earlier this week, someone from a new radio station started following us on there.

The station, which carries a license to the calls WVQC-LP and is currently calling themselves Radio Free Queen City, will begin broadcasting at 95.7FM on August 1, sharing time on the frequency with Forest Hills School District (in Anderson Twp) and Holy Spirit Center. Their website/blog is at http://wvqc.wildapricot.org/news. Their twitter page is twitter.com/WVQC. As soon as we locate their myspace/facebook pages, we will have those links put in this post, too.

Getting this quick hit in...

We forgot about this happening because Life Intervened (tm by OMW), plus the sad news regarding both Paul Harvey and Al Lewis, but it became official at 12 midnight Saturday night.

WMUB-FM 88.5/Oxford signed off as a Miami University-produced station, en route to becoming a repeater of WVXU-FM 91.7 full-time.

I'm told by Rich Emery (no mistake with the name this time, Rich!) that the station's PD, John Hingsbergen (who does read this blog) did the honors with the signoff of the station, thanking the listeners for their loyalty. (PERSONAL NOTE: Mr. Hingsbergen is a class act, who once stopped by my Personal Thoughts/Observations blog to comment on a personal decision I made after the first of this year. I can't think of anybody better to do the sign-off of WMUB than him. By the way, if you'd like to read some thoughts from him, we're planning to link his blog later today assuming he plans to keep one up.) Unfortunately, I a) am not within range to get WMUB over the air, even as a repeater of WVXU, and b) had, as noted above, forgotten in the midst of the craziness that is Life As Your Tri-State Media Watcher Knows It (tm) to get on the web and find an online stream.

BREAKING TONIGHT: Beloved Local Icon "Uncle Al" dead at 84

CORRECTION 8:15AM 3/2: Ummm, oops.

We misspoke as far as the date of his funeral. It's SATURDAY, not Friday.

We'll correct the information in the original item:

=====================================================================================

We just received word at 10:00pm that "Uncle Al" Lewis, a beloved children's TV show host in Cincinnati for over 35 years, has died.

Lewis, 84, entertained Tri-State area kids and parents from 1950 to 1985 on WCPO-TV 9. The station's website says that Lewis started the show as a call-in, where viewers could request songs for Lewis to play on his accordion. The show quickly became popular with children across the Tri-State, and was eventually christened "The Uncle Al Show".

Here's WCPO's report. Also here's a report from WLWT-TV 5, and here's one from WKRC-TV 12.

Lewis' wife, Wanda, survives her husband. Wanda Lewis became part of the show in 1956, and was dubbed "Captain Windy".

A statement issued by WCPO-TV reads: "Wanda Lewis wants the community to know how happy she and Al were to be a part of children's lives for 35 years."

In lieu of flowers, the Lewis family has asked for donations to be made to Cincinnati Children's Hospital. Services will be held in Hillsboro, Ohio on Saturday, March 7.

We at Tri-State Media Watch extend our heartfelt condolences to the Lewis family in this difficult time.

A Few Musings About Paul Harvey

This is where the opinion part of blogging comes into play, is moments like these.

Your Tri-State Media Watcher was on the way to Taco Bell in Florence, Kentucky this evening, and as I went along, I thought about Paul Harvey's death yesterday. (see previous post below)

These thoughts took me back all the way into elementary school at Collins Elementary (part of the Boone County, KY school district), when Paul used to do his "Rest of the Story" commentaries in the afternoons if I recall correctly. This would be between 1992 and 1996.

I remember that the last thing I heard on the bus' radio every day was, "And now you know...the rest of the story. I'm Paul Harvey...Good day!"

After 1996, I couldn't listen to him because my bus route no longer had me coming home in time to hear that segment, nor for that matter did I get up early enough when it moved to weekday mornings. (I always woke up at 6:30, and his commentaries aired at 6:25am.)

Back in 2004, I re-discovered "The Rest of the Story" and began to listen to it mornings while getting ready for college. Then, when I became too sick to continue my schooling in 2006, I started listening to his "News and Comments" radio commentary at 12:05pm weekdays.

Tonight, I sit here, wondering if Paul Harvey's commentaries touched the millions of others who listened to them, the way they did me.

And now you know, as Paul would say...the rest of the story.

For Tri-State Media Watch, this is Jeremy Moses. Good night!

BREAKING TONIGHT: Paul Harvey Passes Away.

We have just learned courtesy of our friends at OMW that Paul Harvey has passed away. He was age 90.

ABC News has an extensive story on Harvey here.

ABC Radio Networks, which syndicated Harvey's "News and Comments" and "The Rest of the Story" radio programs, has done an extensive tribute to Harvey tonight, which will re-air at 12 noon tomorrow. That will be heard on Harvey's Cincinnati affiliate, 700 WLW-AM, along with his other affiliate stations.

ABC Radio Networks has turned his page on the site into a page containing statements from the network's president, Jim Robinson, his son Paul Harvey, Jr. and former President George W. Bush.

Stay tuned for more on this story...