Enough to Run - Barely

Yes, we've been around. We just didn't have too much that NEEDED to be reported as breaking news. But we do have a FRESH item just reported by our friends and colleagues at OMW:

Arbitron PPM's Here Soon: Yep... the long talked about Portable People Meters are coming at last!

If you're wondering, the PPM is the newest ratings technology in terms of getting radio ratings. They're one reason that a lot of places don't have smooth jazz stations anymore...and one reason CBS Radio has been loading up on a LOT of sports radio and top 40 stations. And, they've been rumored in quite a few markets, INCLUDING Cleveland, in the territory of our friends at OMW, for a few weeks. (We didn't hear those rumors in the Tri-State.)

Well, they will soon be in Cincinnati, according to AllAccess as well as OMW this morning:

On DECEMBER 31st, 2009, ARBITRON plans to commercialize the PPM radio ratings service in PORTLAND, OREGON, SACRAMENTO, CINCINNATI, CLEVELAND, SALT LAKE CITY-OGDEN-PROVO, SAN ANTONIO, KANSAS CITY and LAS VEGAS with the release of the DECEMBER PPM survey report (NOVEMBER 12th - DECEMBER 9th).

What does this mean for Cincinnati? Well...right now, not much. Not until December 31, anyway.

After that, it means that the information gathered by the PPM's are "money" when it comes to ratings. And the diaries people have recorded radio ratings by for years? Well...those are consigned to history, or the scrap heap.

Either way, it'll be interesting to see how it impacts things in this area.

NFL Net Picking Up Ravens/Bengals Replay: We're sure most of our readers already know of the Bengals, which are quickly becoming known as the "Cardiac Cats" for the nailbiting finishes to...every single game this YEAR, and how they had yet another near-miss on Sunday.

If you want to relive it, we heard yesterday, courtesy of the Kiese Blog, that the NFL Network will replay last Sunday's game against the Ravens tonight at 8 PM in a 90 minute format called "NFL Replay". NFL Replay is basically the game, condensed into 90 minutes, with the halftime and other things that don't affect the outcome edited out, and sideline and on-field sound added in. Also, fans will get to see snippets of the post-game pressers.

We mused to a personal friend of ours, Mike Taylor, that we can't take too many more of these close games. We think it's taken 5 years off our lifespan, at LEAST. Heh.

By the way, STILL no deal between Time Warner Cable and NFL Network... which means those subscribers won't be able to see the replay of the game, unless a last-second deal is reached today, OR they get satellite. On Insight, it's channel 547 for SD, or 926 for HD...

Insight Adds New HD Channels: And we couldn't have come up with a better segue than that, because our next item is about the HD side of that cable provider's offerings.

The Kiese Blog reports that subscribers in Northern Kentucky are getting NINE HD channels following some new additions last night.

The new additions are (channel positions are in parentheses, taken from the updated online lineup on page 2 of this PDF):

Big Ten Network (920)
ESPN News (927)
Bravo (991)
CNBC (905)
Fox Business (903)
Speed (969)
ABC Family (982)
WGN (940)
Lifetime (985)

This is a good move - but, it doesn't go as far as they'd like with restoring their goodwill with those people left somewhat in the dark when they took the WCPO-DT2 Weather Tracker off basic cable, along with the Univision Network earlier this year...

And looking at that lineup...something isn't making sense here.

Specifically: We went back to that lineup and looked CLOSELY at the little marks at the end of some of the channel listings.

And we noted that BOTH WLWT and WCPO's weather channels are noted as being "Provided with Basic Service, additional equipment may be required".

Last time we were able to check, we were pretty sure that THOSE two channels, ESPECIALLY WLWT-DT2, were NOT on basic cable in any position near or after channel 69. Maybe we need to go back and look, but, we're pretty sure on the living room TV here at TSMW's World HQ in Eastern or Northern Boone County, you WON'T find WCPO-DT2, much less WLWT-DT2...update will come sometime before we need to leave this afternoon...

UPDATE 11:30 AM: Well, THIS is odd to us.

We just looked at channels 71-75. And indeed, WCPO-DT2 IS on basic, but ONLY if you have the converter box.

But the odd thing isn't that it's on channel 71.

In fact, if you move UP to channel 75...IT'S THERE, TOO.

Are they about to move WLWT-DT2 to that slot? Maybe. Maybe not.

It's something to check on with the good folks at WLWT...BUT, we know for a FACT that what's trimulcasting on channels 71, 75, and 432, IS WCPO WeatherTracker...