BREAKING NEWS: Miuccio Out At WARM

We just learned this via the Cincinnati Enquirer's John Kiesewetter. And it's a big one.

WRRM-FM 98.5/Cincinnati has dumped Dean Miuccio, only a month after deciding to put the entire WARM 98 Morning Show on his shoulders. They let Randi Douglas go a month ago.

Miuccio posted this to his Facebook account this morning:

"Hi to all my friends! I want to let you know that WARM 98 just fired me. Hey if you know of an opening that fits my line of work...which is pretty much anything...."

That's it. We assume he wants them to let him know through a message.

WRRM is going with a "more music in the morning" show with a fill-in host until a new host is named, says Kiese. We'll know who the fill-in will be Monday, but we presume it'll be another WARM 98 staffer.

We don't know what prompted his firing. On the surface it would seem to be a ratings move - WRRM had lost ground since the Portable People Meter debuted a few months back. (Tom Taylor's Radio-Info reports that WRRM slid from 5.2 to 4.9 June to July, but then rebounded in August to a 5.3...for what it's worth. As you know, we don't typically talk ratings.)

Insight Going All Digital - An Update

We were up early (or maybe it should be late) this morning, and were able to get more information on the upcoming transition to all-digital for Insight Cable.

It looks as if that transition is going to take place over the next couple of months, from having some TV's that are hard-wired to the wall, to having "mini-boxes" for any TV without a larger converter.

In fact, we caught an instructional video on Insight Cable channel 19. That had been C-SPAN's old channel number. (That video is now available on a newly launched website. Click here to see it.)

We had heard that the timeline for the upgrade here would be the end of the year. As far as we know, that's still active.

Stay tuned, we're going to have a lot more on this story as the upgrade date gets closer...

The 4:30 AM Birthday Follow Up

As we're celebrating a birthday today, we've got a couple things to pick up.

Your Editor is 25 years old today, something that didn't seem possible for us personally 10 years ago.

With the pleasantries out of the way, it's time to focus on a suddenly VERY crowded 4:30 AM news race...

WCPO Hops Into the Fray: Yes, the only station that had NOT declared entry into what was, when we left for Missouri, a 3 horse race at 4:30 AM, did so last week.

This entry from the Kiese Blog details why WCPO-TV 9/Cincinnati decided to hop in. ABC has given affiliates permission to, if they choose, take over the 4:30-5 AM time block, and Channel 9 has decided that with WKRC-TV 12/Cincinnati jumping in, they didn't want to be the odd station out.

With ABC getting out of the way at 4:30, ABC will move "America This Morning" to 4:00 AM. (We presume that in cities where affiliates choose not to take over at 4:30 AM, ABC will still give those affiliates a 4:30 AM lead-in to local news.) Katherine Nero, Larry Handley, and the entire crew of "Good Morning Tri-State" will lead an expanded news block at 4:30 AM.

WKRC Plans Updated: Across I-71 at 1906 Highland, it looks like the current "Good Morning Cincinnati" team at WKRC will also extend their working hours.

But we saw advertisements this morning touting that the newly expanded newscast will start not at 4:30 AM - but at 4:25 AM. And both traffic anchor Bob Herzog and AM meteorologist John Gumm posed questions to fans of their respective facebook pages to see what their fanbase thinks of the new move.

By the way, it also looks that Kit Andrews will continue to anchor the now-expanded 4-5 PM block, as well. (By the way, the above link also explains the disposition of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" - it jumps over to WXIX-TV 19/Newport.)

FOX 19 Expanding, Too...: But WXIX is planning to go the OPPOSITE direction, expanding later into the morning hours.

Kiese reports on this one too, saying that Frank Marzullo will be paired with a still-to-be-hired new anchor for a new 9-10 AM hour of what looks like a newscast geared to the stay-at-home parent. (Kiese said stay-at-home moms, but we know some dads stay home with their children, as well.) And it appears that another meteorologist will be hired to help 4:30-9 AM, too, while Rob Williams and Sheila Gray will have a limited presence in that new hour.

One has to wonder if FOX 19 News Director Matt Miller saw something he liked in Marzullo's recent stint as replacement anchor, and decided to give him a shot at a regular position...

Wheeling's "Big One" Off The Air

This is well outside our coverage area, but we're going to note this one anyway...

At this hour, WWVA-AM 1170/Wheeling, WV is still off the air due to a tower collapse. Sometime around 4:00 PM yesterday, a line of severe thunderstorms that contained winds of upwards of 70 miles per hour tore through the St. Clairsville, Ohio area, which is where WWVA's tower array is. WTRF-TV 7/Wheeling-Steubenville has more here, where they report that the National Weather Service confirms a downburst hit that area.

Those winds somehow did the damage you see in video on the webpage of WEGW-FM 107.5/Wheeling PM Driver and CC/Wheeling OM Chad Tyson.

At this point, it's unclear exactly when WWVA will get back on the air on 1170. For the time being, regular WWVA programming is being aired on sister WBBD 1400/Wheeling, except overnights and during Pittsburgh Pirates baseball games.

We'll attempt to update you as warranted, even while off on hiatus. You can also follow friend of TSMW Cindy Detro at twitter.com/cdetro who may also have updates, and for official info straight from WWVA itself, visit twitter.com/WWVA.

Mid-week Update

As we clear our plate before our (hopefully stress-free) vacation, a few notes and news pieces...

Russo Out, but is Holmes In?: We're now able to confirm what we spoke of Friday morning.

The Enquirer confirmed that Regina Russo does indeed leave FOX 19 WXIX-TV/Newport on the 21st, to take the new marketing job at the Art Museum across town. (And it literally IS across town...just on the other side of downtown from the FOX 19 studios.)

John Kiesewetter also reports that WXIX is looking at Kimberly Holmes to fill Russo's seat at 10 PM on weekends, but that she is just one candidate.

You may remember that last week we speculated that Sara Celi could be tapped...and we still think that's possible. But Holmes would also be a good choice. She did weekends in Salisbury, MD, from which she came to FOX 19.

Anyway, any speculation is just that...speculation...until we hear definite news from FOX 19.

Furman Moves Up The Dial: Also today, it's reported that Andy Furman, the host of WQRT-AM 1160/Florence's "Furman Factor" is not on this week - but yet is still on the air in Cincinnati.

Why? Well, Kiese reported this morning that Furman was asked to fill in on Fox Sports Radio for the week. He's doing 3-7 PM on WSAI-AM 1360/Cincinnati this week filling in while FSR searches for a replacement for Sean Farnham, who just quit FSR to do ESPN. Furman was scheduled for vacation from 1160 this week...but when he was asked Saturday, he jumped at the chance to do a national show.

Openly, Furman's bosses at WQRT are supportive, it seems, of him doing the national show, saying they'd miss him but "the radio station is not built around Andy".

We'll have to see, but for now, Furman says he's still scheduled to return to WQRT on Monday...

Another Reds Game Taken For National FOX TV: With the Cincinnati Reds now in a very interesting pennant race in the National League Central, FOX is cashing in with yet another national broadcast, having just done one this past Saturday night.

This time, the game will be a pivotal one in the aforementioned pennant run, as the Reds' tilt with the current NL Central leaders the St. Louis Cardinals on September 4th will now be on FOX nationwide, and NOT on Fox Sports Ohio.

FSO has decided to pick up next Wednesday's game between the two teams, instead. It'll air at 12:30 next Wednesday, August 11th with the usual "Reds Live" pregame at 12 noon. That game is a home game for Cincinnati. FSO didn't say, but we'll assume it'll be in High Definition.

We'll be on hiatus next week, but will make sure we can tweet the reminder...

Sloan Confirmed to Replace McConnell: We confirmed this item Friday night in a tweet, but some closure.

Scott Sloan does indeed move up the schedule to replace Mike McConnell, whose Chicago show debuts next Monday morning. FOX 19 had the story Friday night, before we were aware.

That, of course, still leaves a hole 9 pm to midnight...but we don't know who will air in that slot. And we can't imagine WLW going syndicated at all...it's just not them...

Columbus "Rewinds": And an item or two from markets we don't typically cover wraps up this super large update.

We were able to confirm that WODB 104.3/Richwood, Ohio and WJZA 103.5/Pickerington, Ohio paired up Friday afternoon to do 80s oldies as "Rewind 103.5/104.3".

Sound familiar?

That's because WREW 94.9/Fairfield currently does much the same thing as "Rewind 94.9".

We had thought that WODB and WJZA would somehow go talk. It fooled our cross-state colleagues at Ohio Media Watch as well as RadioInsight's Lance Venta, who had pegged the new coming format as FM talk.

But let's face it...even if Saga had wanted to do FM talk, who's out there that Saga could use for content?

Louisville No More for Cumulus: And just in to TSMW via the aforementioned RadioInsight.com, comes word that Cumulus has left the Louisville market altogether.

The move out of the market leaves WLCL-FM 93.9/Sellersburg, Indiana and WQKC-AM 1450/Jeffersonville, Indiana completely dark. At this moment, the websites http://www.classichits939.com/ and http://www.1450theticket.com/ both redirect to the Cumulus homepage.

Both signals weren't very good...WLCL was, according to RadioInsight, a Class A licensed with 2650 watts, while WQKC was 1000 watts non-directional, and both transmitters were north of Louisville.

What does this mean? At the moment, we're not sure, other than the loss of ESPN Radio from the 1450 signal, and classic hits from 93.9.

Stay tuned...this could be interesting...

A Few Catchup Items

Here's just a couple items to catch up on, as we end the very busy (both personally and otherwise) month of July...

Russo To Leave FOX19??: We find this word from the Cincinnati Art Museum on the Kiese Blog this morning...even as Kiese himself takes a vacation.
Fill-in Tasha Stewart posts word from a press release sent out last weekend that Regina Russo, who has been with WXIX-TV 19/Newport, KY for the past 15 years, will (most likely) be leaving the station to take a new position with the museum in Cincinnati's Eden Park area:

Cincinnati Art Museum announces Regina Russo as new Director of Marketing and Communications

The Cincinnati Art Museum is pleased to announce that Regina Russo will be joining their staff as the new Director of Marketing and Communications. Ms. Russo comes to the Art Museum from WXIX-TV FOX19, where she worked for 15 years as a news reporter and anchor. She has over 20 years of combined experience in print, online and televised media.

Ms. Russo is an active member of the Cincinnati community serving on various boards including, STOP AIDS, Race Relations Council of Greater Cincinnati, Y.W.C.A. L.E.A.R.N. and Contemporary Dance Theatre of Cincinnati, is a member of Cincinnati Black Ambassadors and NAACP Cincinnati, and is a former member of the Queen City Women’s Club. She brings industry experience, knowledge of the community and media expertise to her new role at the Art Museum.

“We are thrilled to gain Regina as a member of the Art Museum team. Her knowledge and experience with a variety of media formats will be invaluable in furthering our mission to bring people and art together”, said Director Aaron Betsky.

Ms. Russo will report to Deputy Director of Institutional Advancement David Linnenberg and will oversee all marketing and media communications. Additionally she will serve as a representative of the Art Museum to the media and work with Director Betsky to develop opportunities to enhance its presence in the Greater Cincinnati community as well as manage all internal and external Art Museum communications. Ms. Russo will work closely with the Marketing Committee of the Art Museum’s Board of Trustees to develop and implement successful communications strategies. She is looking forward to joining the Art Museum team on September 1.

Still unclear, is who will be promoted to Russo's current position as weekend 10 pm anchor. We're pretty sure Tricia Macke and Dan Carroll may not want to work 7 days a week.

Our (purely speculative) guess as to who will be tapped: Sara Celi.

Why? We happened to see her a few weeks ago anchoring the 10 pm on a weekend, and thought she did a decent job. She does a good job in the mornings at the update desk.

We admit: This guess is far fetched. There may be other candidates that FOX 19 is looking at. But that's our guess, and unless we see something different, we're sticking with this.

"Big Willie", Yes...But Not Till '11: And yes, we mean 2011.

In a story we broke Wednesday evening, Tribune confirmed that they will indeed give 700 WLW/Cincinnati midday talker Bill Cunningham a long-term shot at daytime talk television.

But, says Tom Taylor, it won't be until Fall... Fall of 2011 that is.

Why 2011? It has to do with another Chicago-based talk show host: Oprah Winfrey.

Yep, Tribune is looking to fill the syndication hole created by Oprah's decision to end distribution of her show to local affiliates (including WCPO-TV 9/Cincinnati) and go cable-only next year.

We're not clear if, or maybe more appropriately WHO, will get the rights in Cincinnati. But we'd have to guess it's FOX 19's to lose. After all, he bumped ratings by some 38%, week to week, over "America's Funniest Home Videos" when he did his 4 day trial a couple weeks ago, according to the Nielsen ratings, beating shows like "Let's Make A Deal" and "Dr. Phil".

Anyway, our best guess says FOX 19 keeps this one. Besides, they can get some cross promotion, with Willie still on 700 WLW, which is FOX 19's radio partner...

A Note: We hope to be back to a more normal posting schedule next week...but here's a heads up for the week after.

The TSMW Headquarters will be packing up and heading out of town for a week beginning August 8th (one week from Sunday). We'll be in Branson, Missouri, spending time with family... and more likely than not will not have much if any internet access during the week.

If we hear anything pressing, we'll tweet about it from the Cricket Twitter-Phone as soon as humanly possible. But we're not making guarantees, and we're pretty sure we WON'T be doing long-form updates. Heck, we can't even guarantee cell phone service out in the Ozarks of southwest Missouri. Heh.

Nonetheless, you have the heads up on that. After that, we should be back in northern Kentucky for the rest of the year...and posting a bit more frequently...

Wrapping Up Our Hiatus

As we pick up another piece or two that we missed during our hiatus to attend the Spina Bifida Association of America conference, we've also got a couple of new news items to tell you about...

Former Taft Broadcasting Reporter, Executive Dead: And we're talking about two separate people here, so it's doubly sad news for the folks involved with Taft Broadcasting back when it was its own entity in the 70s. These were reported by John Kiesewetter at the Enquirer today.

Carl J. Wagner, who was an executive for Taft/Great American, died last Monday, June 28, at age 76. He was the number 2 executive for the broadcasting group, which owned WKRC-TV/AM here. He'd retired in 1991, after spending some 17 years as its Vice President. He'd also worked with WTVN-AM/FM in Columbus and what would become WKRQ-FM 101.9 here, along with a station in Birmingham, AL.

Bill Crafton died last Friday. He had been diagnosed with Pulmonary Fibrosis in 2008, and had written a blog called "What It's Like to be Told You're Terminally Ill". That blog (click here) hasn't been updated since last Tuesday. He was the anchor on air when the Beverly Hills Supper Club burned to the ground in 1977. He also worked for stations in South Bend, Indianapolis, and West Palm Beach, among others.

TSMW extends our condolences to both families as they deal with their losses...

Harris Back In Cincy: Steve Harris has landed back here in Cincinnati, after a stint as Senior Program Director at ESPN Radio.

He'll take over Radio One operations here, following the termination of GM Lisa Thal and regional VP Rick Porter back in May, according to our colleague Tom Taylor at Radio-Info on June 29.

Harris was the PD at WCIN-AM here 25 years ago, the Kiese Blog reported the same day.

We wonder what brought him back to the Queen City...but wish him luck...

Radio Station Launch: We go back to Friday now - and that radio station launch that happened in Cincinnati.

Yes, we're talking about WVQC-FM 95.7/Cincinnati, which kicked off live FM broadcasts at 6 PM Friday night.

"Producers", as WVQC program hosts are called by Media Bridges, rotated in and out of the studio sharing their feelings on the new FM signal broadcasting from atop the Essex Studios building in Walnut Hills. At one point around 6:45 PM, if you were within 3-5 miles of the launch or listening on the WVQC website, you may have even heard Your Editor on air for a quick sit-in. We didn't ask to be put on air, but were asked by Katie Finnigan if we wanted to say a few words, which we took the opportunity to do. (By the way, if you did hear the interview and are taking a look at us for the first time, welcome!)

I'm not sure if that interview is archived on WVQC's end (I'd guess they may have recorded it for historical purposes), but yours truly was nervous. As I tweeted, this was my first interview ever on a terrestrial radio station...in studio anyway. (Yes, I've called into radio stations in the past.)

Nonetheless, the atmosphere at the Media Bridges headquarters on Race Street in Cincinnati was very festive - as was that at Hoffner Park in Northside where a festival was being held and WVQC hosts were also broadcasting.

TSMW congratulates Media Bridges...as we noted, it was about time...

And Finally, A Personal Note: I don't do this often here, if at all, but I wish to extend my personal appreciation to Mr. Tom Taylor at Radio-Info.

I've received an email from him over the last few hours, where he addresses our prologue to Friday's post, saying that I handled my absence from This Space well.

I'd like to say this in public, as I did in private: Spina Bifida is very much a part of my life that I have made zero effort to hide. In fact, if you meet me on the street and ask the right question, I'll literally talk your ear off about it, and about how to prevent it.

In that respect, I don't ever plan to hide this portion of my life. My personal YouTube and Twitter spaces are places where I will talk about my life - very publicly. Spina Bifida is a part of that, and will be for the rest of my life.

As I said Friday: Spina Bifida has come a long way in my 25 years of life and longer. 50 years ago, it was such that a lot of children didn't live to see their 30th birthdays. Today, my generation is, at the very least, one of the first if not THE first to make it that far.

My personal hope is that the research done now continues to move forward over the next 50 years.

I hope you'll forgive the personal nature of this portion of today's post...but I felt I needed to share a little more about this...