BREAKING: Cumulus Acquires Radio 94.1, 92.5 The Fox

Cumulus Media, Inc. will acquire WNNF-FM (Radio 94.1) and WOFX-FM (92.5 The Fox) later this month, in a deal signed last week and announced yesterday, according to John Kiesewetter's latest blog.

It's reported that the deal also involves five stations in Green Bay, Wisconsin and should be finalized by month's end.

You'll recall that Clear Channel was ordered to sell either these two or WKFS-FM 107.1/WLW-AM 700 in order to prohibit a monopoly, as Bain Capital and Thomas H. Lee Partners control Cumulus Media Partners, the privately held company operating the 3 Cincinnati Cumulus stations (WGRR-FM 103.5, WRRM-FM 98.5, WFTK-FM 96.5 are the Cumulus stations currently). So Cumulus will now control 5 FM's while Clear Channel will have 2 FM's and 4 AM's, and Bonneville controls 4 FM stations.

Anticipate some DJ's not making the transition from CC to Cumulus, and expect changes on 92.5 and 103.5.

FCC Chair In Town Tomorrow

WKRC-TV/DT 12 reported on their noon news just minutes ago that FCC Chairman Kevin Martin will be in Cincinnati tomorrow, trying to help educate people about the Digital Transition.

Martin and the other four FCC Commissioners will be at the Cincinnati-Hamilton County Community Action Agency on Langdon Farm Road at 9:30 AM. The FCC is visiting several TV markets, especially those in which more than 100,000 households or at least 15% of the households rely solely on over-the-air signals for television reception, according to Local12.

Viewers of course have until 2/17 to get cable, satellite, or a converter (or brand new TV) to continue getting programming.

Here's the link to the story from WKRC and Local12.com.

Leading off the first full week of '09!

UPDATE: 7:37 AM: We are hearing a few ideas from Tim Gorman. Click here to read his thoughts. He draws some interesting comparisons, but his ideas are very sound. And by the way, he has us linked, so we shall give him the same courtesy. We thank Cliff (74WIXYgrad) for linking us to that information - had no idea we were linked over there.

Original posting below:

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We're leading off the first week of 2009 with a quick note about local radio, and an administrative announcement:

Clear Channel Meetings in Dallas This Week, Layoffs Coming?: Clear Channel, which last we checked A) still hasn't sold WOFX-FM or WNNF-FM (or anything else locally) yet, and thus B) is still in control of its radio clusters, is about to finalize its budget for the year. And that means meetings with local cluster managers this week.

These meetings will happen in Dallas, Texas, and according to our friends and colleagues at Ohio Media Watch, MAY result in layoffs across the nation. That's unconfirmed though.

Regardless, we'll be watching to see what happens here. Kenwood Tower is actually overdue for major cuts, which have usually happened pre-Christmas. We guess the CC bosses decided to have a heart this year, and not cut folks before the holiday.

And the Administrative Announcement Is: Recently, I told you that starting after the New Year, I would be moving all TSMW emails to a separate email address that I set up specifically for that purpose.

Effective today, that change goes into full effect.

As a reminder, the email address is tristatemediawatch@gmail.com.

EDITOR'S NOTE: And by the way, if you look at my profile, you of course will note I have a separate blog for personal thoughts. That blog is NOT impacted by the change in emails, and you'll see that on that blog.

Carl Nichols to retire from WDTN next week

Chief Meteorologist Carl Nichols, of WDTN-TV/DT 2 in Dayton, will retire on January 9, according to the Dayton Daily News.

The station doesn't have any information on who will replace the 66 year old Nichols, who has been in Dayton since 1977.

Nichols called the Blizzard of 1978 and the Xenia tornado of 2000 two of his career highlights.

We here at Tri-State Media Watch wish Mr. Nichols a happy retirement.

The Axe at 19 WXIX

Finally, we have news about the WXIX-TV cuts, but...this wasn't a station initiated move! We missed this only due to computer troubles that were going on much of the week, or we would have posted this before Tuesday...

Jack Atherton, the anchor of the station's two evening shows since their inceptions, left the station on Tuesday night following the 10pm newscast. This was his decision, according to WXIX officials.

Those same WXIX officials will not comment more on the departure, BUT it's being reported that it's a contract dispute that resulted in Atherton's departure.

Furthermore, there's a rumor floating around that he will go to WLWT-TV/DT 5.

Our best wishes to Mr. Atherton...

2 days late, but here's our end of year message

In the tradition of our friends at Ohio Media Watch, I've decided to have an end-of-year personal message from me to my readers, so, here it is.

Dear Tri-State Media Watch Readers,

This blog hasn't been in existence for too long. But in the short time, we've all become like family.

Some of you have shared small tips about your favorite stations. Some have just read to tell me I've done a good job. And others haven't jumped in yet. (I don't bite, promise!)

But regardless of whether you have or have not commented...I am glad you joined me on the journey so far.

2009 looks to be another down year for most media. If any medium survives, I believe it will be radio. TV and papers have been hit hard by the recent crisis. The fact is, media outlets across our nation are having trouble.

Here at Tri-State Media Watch, I and all my friends and family hope that there's a lot more positive to report than negative in 2009.

Thank you again for joining me on this journey.

Sincerely,

Your Tri-State Media Watcher
Jeremy S. Moses, Editor

After Hiatus...

We are back, and I am posting from in front of my BRAND NEW monitor. It is an Acer X163W, 15.6" wide flatscreen :).

That being out of the way, we have two items to kick off the 2009 blog:

TWC/Viacom Deal Reached: Apparently, the last minute deal we speculated on Wednesday, was indeed taking place. Yesterday, it was revealed that Time Warner and Viacom agreed to a 23 cent per subscriber, or 36 million dollar fee increase. More details are to be released today or Monday.

WCPO Weather Tracker Off Insight?: Apparently, the WCPO-TV/DT Weather Tracker subchannel will soon be wiped off Insight's Basic service. In other words, it looks like it'll be moved exclusively to digital channel 432 next Thursday, going by the crawl on the channel. We'll confirm, but this looks like a bad idea to us...taking the ONLY local weather tracking channel off the basic cable side (no, we don't count NBC-owned The Weather Channel as a LOCAL channel). More on this as we get it.

Thank you for following us into the New Year...