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AAR Loses Northeast Ohio Affiliate July 5th

O

OldAkronite

Akron market daytimer WJMP/1520 Kent, charitably described by me in another post as an "east suburban rimshot", is reportedly dropping Air America Radio in favor of Fox Sports Radio on July 5th. (Source: AllAccess.com)

FSR, by the way, is what new liberal talk station WARF/1350 Akron used to run.

Before we get into the usual fight back and forth about what this means for either A) liberal talk or B) Air America, consider that it's basically CC's launching of the libtalk format on the much more powerful full-market 1350 signal that led to WJMP dropping the format. The station's owner has a history of reacting to market changes on that rather anemic frequency...before liberal talk, they ran standards solely because a Cleveland outlet initially dropped the format in 2001. And WJMP can barely be heard in even parts of the Cleveland market!

There's no word on if WARF ("Radio Free Ohio") will move to carry any of the now-departing-from-WJMP AAR programs. If they do at all, I'd guess it'd only be Al Franken and Randi Rhodes, the latter sliding into a currently-mostly-preempted evening slot (Akron Aeros baseball runs most nights).

There's no indication at this time that WARF is even considering picking up any AAR programs, tho.

-OA
 
> There's no word on if WARF ("Radio Free Ohio") will move to
> carry any of the now-departing-from-WJMP AAR programs. If
> they do at all, I'd guess it'd only be Al Franken and Randi
> Rhodes, the latter sliding into a currently-mostly-preempted
> evening slot (Akron Aeros baseball runs most nights).
>
> There's no indication at this time that WARF is even
> considering picking up any AAR programs, tho.
>
> -OA
>
I went to the WARF website and there is nothing there at all...Pure speculation but it all sounds like at least a couple of shows from AAR might show up on that station. This is all too convenient for WARF...
 
Do you see any AAR programming migrating to 1350?<P ID="signature">______________
I'll get back to you when I think of a cute quote</P>
 
> Do you see any AAR programming migrating to 1350?

Well, come visit the Cleveland board, where the question's been thrown out to CC Akron/Canton operations manager and board regular Keith Kennedy. Come to the source, as it were! :)

He just says "Hmmm", for now. But as I noted in a reply to that thread, he does seem to know the exact circumstances on how WJMP dumped AAR just weeks after it took the network. He says the call was made by WJMP just 2 hours before WARF debuted!

Though Keith isn't saying yet, if I had to guess, I'd say they pick up Franken live 12-3 PM, and perhaps Randi Rhodes delayed 6-10 (?) PM. The latter means a lot of Akron Aeros pre-emptions of the last 3:15 of her show, but after July 5th, she won't have a local affiliate at all. WARF has the weak Thom Hartmann show noon-3 right now, and has nothing but Ed Schultz repeats scheduled in nights when the Aeros do not play.

(Not that WJMP, with its lightbulb-power directional signal from near a trailer park between Kent and Ravenna, had any chance of getting ratings...with this or any other format.)

-OA
 
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