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WTAM

Interesting that Youngstown can support local in afternoon drive, while Cleveland cannot.
I realize this is about Ohio...but how's this for perspective: Bismarck (North Dakota) is live in afternoon drive! Some markets are, some aren't. Some have the good fortune of maintaining live brands that were in place.
 
WJR is in market 13, while WTAM is in market 33. WJR bills nearly twice as much as WTAM, and that allows them some programming luxuries that a Cleveland station can't even consider.
As it stands, I am actually surprised WTAM has the amount of local programs it has currently!

Most news talk stations just plug Mark Levin in that evening time slot (see WJR) while WTAM typically had a local show when it's not a ball game of some kind

The one odd thing is that they end it at midnight, instead of going live til 1am. But currently you get to hear the last hour of yesterday's Coast to Coast AM show, so I can't complain either.
 
WTAM aired a new local program called “The Contest Show” with Jeff and Pat today.
Contests were "Guess how long we can stay on air without dead air" and "Guess how many commercials we'll run this week. Extra points if you can guess exactly how many of the exact same ads for "Balance of Nature" run during the week." "Wheel of Hosts! See if you can predict if any of the personalities take a day off. Extra points if you guess all the hosts appearances and if they appear in the correct order of your guess AND if they don't appear, guess who will be the substitute host for that day*." *[Disqualified if you pick Superhost, Gary Dee, Michael Stanley, Barnaby, Mr. Jingeling or any other dead former on-air personality.] All contestants receive a decades worth of Joebees Bee Pollen. Grand prize winner will receive whatever 45s are left in our vault from when we played records, complete with actual cue burns.
[Above contests are to be taken with a grain of salt and with tongue planted firmly in cheek.]
 
You forgot the promos of “The best of Bloomdaddy”. I wanna know who’s his agent. That guy is hired.
 
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The Contest Show came back? I didn't know it went away.
Was a weekend staple on WTAM for awhile.

Then Covid happened and it disappeared.

A lot of the prizes they give away are concert and sports tickets, so when those events went away, the show did as well.

This is really the first year The Gund...err...The Q...err...Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse has had a full slate of concerts and events in the post pandemic era, so now was as good a time as any to resurrect the Contest Show, as there is now stuff to actually give away.
 
Despite all the discussion about its shortcomings, it is interesting to note WTAM is the only Cleveland station to be named a finalist for the 2023 NAB Crystal Awards.
Really? If that's the best to be named as a finalist, how god-awful is/are the rest of the AM stations?
 
I realize this is about Ohio...but how's this for perspective: Bismarck (North Dakota) is live in afternoon drive! Some markets are, some aren't. Some have the good fortune of maintaining live brands that were in place.
Knoxville TN has live and local 6am-6pm except for the corporate cramdown of Bongino. Between the time they dropped Rush reruns and Bongino started, they were live 6am-6pm. Their sports talk sister is live 6am-7pm and some hours on the weekends
 
Doing a little extra digging, WTAM also won it in 2019.

No other Cleveland station has ever won it (going back to 1987), and the only other stations from "the neighborhood" to win were WAKR 1590 Akron and WHBC (both AM 1480 and FM 94.1) Canton in 1990.
 
Knoxville TN has live and local 6am-6pm except for the corporate cramdown of Bongino. Between the time they dropped Rush reruns and Bongino started, they were live 6am-6pm. Their sports talk sister is live 6am-7pm and some hours on the weekends
Plenty of Vols and Titans talk to keep the sports station busy.
 
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