9/11 - Ten Years Ago - Coverage

[CleveFan]

With today being such a milestone (a sad one to be exact), I was just remembering what I saw on local TV and heard on radio ten years ago today.

Pretty much everyone in radio was airing national news updates, except for 107.3 (I think) back when they were smooth jazz and 95.5 which was just two months into its Christian music format. That was a nice alternative to those who didn't want non-stop news.

All the Cleveland TV stations had coverage. 3, 5, and 19 had their network news, 8 had Fox News (I think), 43 had CNN and 55 had WPIX from New York. 23 had 3's local coverage, which didn't necessarily come in very well in Cleveland.

I still remember that day like yesterday.

 

[Rusty Muck]

WDOK was one of the few stations that still played music most of the day, then - along with then-WXTM, WNCX and WQAL - flipped to a total relay of WCBS/880 in New York during the late night. I want to say that the other three went to CBS Radio coverage earlier in the afternoon. (WCBS, for those who don't know, is CBS Radio's flagship station.) Also note that WQAL was still up in the Keith Building on Euclid and hadn't moved in with WDOK at One Radio Lane yet.

WAKS/96.5 actually had a live call-in show with Dan Mason and Kasper after 11pm into the wee hours, after relaying WTAM's feed until 10pm (which for the most part was ABC News Radio's coverage, save for a few local breaks with Tom Moore or Darren Toms).

WEOL/930 went straight to ABC News Radio at 9:15AM that day until 6:00AM the next morning (by virtue of being next door, WNWV shared WEOL's news staff and had their hosts update throughout the day). WOBL/1320, still a standalone station at the time, aired AP All News Radio's coverage all day long.

It was a bit chaotic for the Clear Channel stations, as WMMS and WMVX were (AFAIK) still at Tower City, and were the only two not at Oaktree yet. As Tower City was (understandably) evacuated because of the terrorist acts, both dumped to relay WTAM very quickly.

WKNR also went to airing CBS Radio coverage right at 9:00AM (it was still a CBS/WW1 affiliate at the time before Salem let both affiliations lapse). Kendall Lewis [9a-12p], Greg Brinda [12p-3p] and Kenny Roda [3p-7p] each did live cut-ins. And for the next three weeks or so, Metro sportscasters Jeff Thomas and Ryan McNaughton actually did straight-up newscasts on the station instead.

 

[vjm]

With today being such a milestone (a sad one to be exact), I was just remembering what I saw on local TV and heard on radio ten years ago today.

Pretty much everyone in radio was airing national news updates, except for 107.3 (I think) back when they were smooth jazz and 95.5 which was just two months into its Christian music format. That was a nice alternative to those who didn't want non-stop news.

All the Cleveland TV stations had coverage. 3, 5, and 19 had their network news, 8 had Fox News (I think), 43 had CNN and 55 had WPIX from New York. 23 had 3's local coverage, which didn't necessarily come in very well in Cleveland.

I still remember that day like yesterday.

A little correction...

Channel 43 carried CBS along with 19 at the start due to them being a UPN affiliate (UPN was owned by Viacom with CBS at the time). 55 carried CNN due to the WB being an (at the time) AOL-Time Warner corporate cousin of CNN. on 9/12, 55 went back to normal programming, and 43 then picked up CNN on their own.

TV 8 did indeed pick up Fox News (technically FOX broke into programming and just hooked up with their cable cousin).

23 actually picked up NBC's coverage, as at the time NBC had a stake in the Pax Network (now Ion Television).

 

[HHH]

I remember that Lanigan and Malone on WMJI stayed on taking phone calls and featuring news updates until about noon.

 

[DToTheJ]

As did another morning radio host - you might have heard of him, Howard Stern.

They replayed Stern's 9.11.01 show on Sirius over the weekend. Does anyone remember how, in the final hour, a caller reported a terrorism situation in Cleveland? And at one point, Stern had reported that either his Cleveland station or his Detroit station had went local due to whatever situation in their area, but later came back.

 

[Rusty Muck]

As did another morning radio host - you might have heard of him, Howard Stern.

They replayed Stern's 9.11.01 show on Sirius over the weekend. Does anyone remember how, in the final hour, a caller reported a terrorism situation in Cleveland? And at one point, Stern had reported that either his Cleveland station or his Detroit station had went local due to whatever situation in their area, but later came back.

Indeed. The Halle Building (where then-Stern station WNCX has always been located at) and Tower City/The Terminal Tower (where WMMS and WMVX, IIRC, were still at - WAKS already moved to 6200 Oaktree) were evacuated. WMMS and MIX simply took WTAM's audio outright. Also evacuated were the Key Tower and the then-BP Tower.

The caller to Stern was right, perhaps unintentionally: the hijacking of Flight 93 took place over the Cleveland skyline, not far away from Air Traffic Control in Oberlin. Completely understandable as to all the confusion that followed; the evacuations were probably the best thing to have been done.

By noon, most people had already begun to leave for the day. Cleveland was pretty much quiet in the late afternoon hours. WTAM(/CC Cleveland) ran a traffic report or two during the 2pm hour, with Rick Abell either at Oaktree or in the Metro compound.

One other interesting tidbit: the previous day, IIRC, WTAM/1100 quietly dropped Dr. Laura to try out some afternoon zoo host out of Tampa... a guy named Glenn Beck. WTAM was either the second or third station outside of WFLA/Tampa to air his then-new midday show. By the end of September 2001, virtually all of the CC-owned talkers throughout on the Eastern Seaboard would drop Dr. Laura for Glenn Beck.

 

[DrC]

As did another morning radio host - you might have heard of him, Howard Stern.

They replayed Stern's 9.11.01 show on Sirius over the weekend. Does anyone remember how, in the final hour, a caller reported a terrorism situation in Cleveland? And at one point, Stern had reported that either his Cleveland station or his Detroit station had went local due to whatever situation in their area, but later came back.

I was actually flipping between Stern's Detroit and Cleveland stations that morning to get a clear signal (there was some tropo interference in the area and I lived south of Toledo, about 80 miles from each of the stations at the time). Both of those stations stayed with Stern all morning. I still have the tape somewhere of Bill Louis coming on 'NCX saying they had to update the satellite feed because the show went past 12pm (the show was off the air for about a minute as a result, but came back).