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Cleveland Morning Shows

V

vjm

I'm gonna take a little stock of what the Cleveland airwaves give us.

So here is a list of all the morning shows in Cleveland radio:

WKNR 850 - Mike and Mike (syn-ESPN)
WTAM 1100 - Wills and Snyder (local)
WWMK 1260 - Wake up with Blake (syn-Radio Disney)
WJMO 1300 - Yolanda Adams (syn-Radio One)
WHK 1420 - Morning in America w/ Bill Bennett (syn-SRN)
WERE 1490/WZAK 93.1 - Tom Joyner (syn-Citadel/ABC)
WWGK 1540 - Munch in the Morning (local)

WCCD 1000 and WHKW 1220 are religious stations with no set daily morning show.

WCPN 90.3 - Morning Edition (syn-NPR)
WFHM 95.5 - Len and Brooke (local)
WAKS 96.5 - Elvis Duran (syn-Premiere)
WNCX 98.5 - Maxwell (local)
WGAR 99.5 - Tim and LeAnn (local)
WMMS 100.7 - Rover (local)
WDOK 102.1 - Trapper Jack (local)
WQAL 104.1 - Toohey and Fee (local)
WCLV 104.9 - Jacqueline Gerber (local)
WMJI 105.7 - Lanigan and Malone (local)
WNWV 107.3 - Mike Gallagher (local)
WENZ 107.9 - Ricky Smiley (syn-Radio One)

WKRK 92.3 and WHLK 106.5 don't use on air DJ's
WCRF 103.3 is a religious station with no set daily morning show

Good, bad, indifferent?

How can things get better?

Feedback should be interesting.
 
I'd say good for the part that there are less syndicated shows on FM, compaired to a few years back when WKRK (when Rover was in Chicago), WZAK (Tom Joyner), WAKS (Valentine), WMMS (Bob and Tom) and WENZ (Russ Parr) all had shows piped in from elsewhere. Then what was WMVX was syndicated in the AM too. Now its mainly local, which is good.

I'd say bad since AM still seems to have more syndication as usual, and more so nowadays after "Basheer Jones and Company" was cancelled at WERE. WTAM is the only one with a true local morning show on AM. WWGK doesn't count since their signal not strong enough to cover NE Ohio. (If you guys want to count WWGK, that's fine.) AM seems to be more of a throwaway band on the radio than FM unless its WKNR and WTAM.

There seems to be a variety of morning shows for everyone's taste, and that's a good thing. What I wish we had was a locally-based morning show targeting teens and young adults since WAKS and WENZ, the top stations in Cleveland for young listeners, both have syndicated shows. If they had a show that entertaining and not trying too hard for attention, then there would be more listeners who want a local show as opposed to another show from New York or Los Angeles or anywhere else.

Oh, and WCRF has somewhat of a regular morning show hosted by Mark Zimmerman, but its paired with different religious segments spread out through out Zimmerman's show.
 
Jacqueline Gerber is bland on WCLV. Classical hosts are supposed to have a certain degree of sophistication, but also a friendly side. They are the sort you want to ask a question of at a lecture so hear their witty reply. Gerber can't pronounce some of the tougher composer names. Reading stories hot off the AP wire ina monotone is sad. Other classical stations have peppy informed sorts on the morning show. We have the cleaning woman they pushed in front of a microphone. The only one worse than Gerber is Nicole LaCroix on WETA Washington. (Nicole can't get through a sentence without uh uh uh - and that's with the introductions pre-printed for her).
 
Not sure how it is these days, but WCRF's Zimmerman has hosted the morning show there from about 5:15-9..The slot occupied by Bob Devine for close to 30 years..
 
I noticed that you missed many of the non-commercial stations.

AIR-ONE 91.9FM (Cleveland) and 90.9 FM (in Huron, I think) - (EMF-repeaters) has the same people, Sean and Mandy on every morning so in that way they have a morning show, but there is no local content.

WBWC 88.3 FM has a morning show that's on weekdays from 6:00 until 9:00 am called "The Morning Buzz". For the past couple of years Ryan Radke (pronounced "RAD-key") has been the leader with Jason Sokol often doing the local news.

The blocked programmed College stations don't have morning shows, except for maybe WJCU which has a mix of AAA during the day, and block programming in the evening and night, but I'm not sure.
 
And then, there are the Akron stations which get into much of the Cleveland market:

WQMX/94.9 - Scott Wynn and Sue Wilson (local)
WONE/97.5 - Tim Daugherty and Christi Staples (local)
WKDD/98.1 - Keith Kennedy and Jenn Ryan (local)

WHLO/640 - Jim Albright (local)
WARF/1350 - Zakk and Jack (FSR)
WAKR/1590 - Ray Horner (local)

Plus stations like WEOL/930 Elyria (Jeff Thomas, local), WHBC/1480 Canton (Fred Chenevey and Pam Cook, local, Fred's leaving next Friday to be replaced by Matt Fox), etc.
 
And if we're gonna include WWGK/1540, Munch is only on two hours (7-9 AM, well, sign-on to 9 AM in the winter).

I believe 1540 would run Zakk and Jack before 7, on the stream and on-air before Munch when the station's daytime hours would permit, and that last hour of ESPN's "Mike and Mike" 9-10 AM.
 
I hate listing the female hosts second, always, but that's how the stations promote the shows - even with WQMX's Sue Wilson, who is PD...
 
OhioMediaWatch said:
And if we're gonna include WWGK/1540, Munch is only on two hours (7-9 AM, well, sign-on to 9 AM in the winter).

I believe 1540 would run Zakk and Jack before 7, on the stream and on-air before Munch when the station's daytime hours would permit, and that last hour of ESPN's "Mike and Mike" 9-10 AM.
Click to expand...

KNR2 does do Zakk and Jack for an hour at 6, before Munch at 7.

I'm suprised GKB still putzes around with FSR to be honest.

Outside of Rome's noon hour, 1540 goes local from 7-9 (Munch), and runs ESPN from 9a-4p (Mike and Mike's last hour, Colin Cowherd, Scott Van Pelt), and call themselves ESPN 1540 KNR2.

The only time FSR gets any real play is with the Loose Cannons in the afternnons, and in the evening (when the sun permits) with Petros and Money. Plus whatever little squeeze of Z & J in the morning.
 
The last time I checked... over a year ago... WJTB had a morning show. It was a syndicated Gospel music based offering. During local commercial avails, WJTB usually played or plays instrumental Jazzy music because they don't have spots, I would presume. Their main source of income must be the poor people who buy brokered time, which over there is a waste of time, not to mention money.
 
johnbasalla said:
The last time I checked... over a year ago... WJTB had a morning show. It was a syndicated Gospel music based offering. During local commercial avails, WJTB usually played or plays instrumental Jazzy music because they don't have spots, I would presume. Their main source of income must be the poor people who buy brokered time, which over there is a waste of time, not to mention money.
Click to expand...

WJTB runs the Sheridan Gospel Network off the bird (if Sheridan actually heard how their product was being aired, the contract would be automatically voided). I guess they still have a local host or two, but I can't remember any of them off the top of my head. Henry Dunn (yes, the same Sunday morning host on WARF/1350 for 30+ years) had done twice-weekly shows or something to that effect; I presumed he left a long time ago, but they still air many of his old IDs and promos. The one show that definitely still exists is an urban talk show on Saturday mornings, "Speak Up and Speak Out," naturally, it's co-hosted by owner James Taylor (the horror stories I've heard about him are something else). Along with a smattering of brokered Hispanic religious services and whatnot.

Everything about WJTB is run-down and decrepit - from the studios (which, from the outside looking in, deserve to be condemned) to the lowly transmitter. Part of the bad air quality comes from being too poor to have an STL signal... it's phone lines. The mixing board likely never was cleaned up after the 1989 fire, and always sounds over-modulated. And I betcha they aren't even operating with half of their licensed 5,000 watts during normal hours, let alone during critical hours.

And that's their GOOD points. I'd be curious as to how bad WJTB is in comparison to the "legendary" WSAY in Rochester, New York.
 
I assume that parked domain linked above was purchased on WJTB's behalf, but probably never was used for a website.

And I was actually with Scott for that tour of the 1370 site! He's not kidding about the carpeted walls in that converted house.
 
dannykewl said:
Since WJTB was brought up, and Nathan Obral mentioned a similar scenario at WSAY, I found this interesting page with photos about WSAY:

http://www.fybush.com/sites/2007/site-071005.html

I couldn't find anything there about WJTB, but they do have a great page about the Cleveland antenna farm, in which I'll start a new thread.
Click to expand...

WJTB's transmitter is off of Root Road in North Ridgeville, just south of the Turnpike. It's not that hard to find during the day; however, they have no tower beacons whatsoever at night (presumably, either the power is cut off completely to the site at sunset, or it's outright negligence).

Their studios are in downtown Elyria off of Lake Road. From Google Street view:

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=wjtb+...n&ved=0CBcQ2wU&sa=X&ei=QtNhTYr7B6XozASW55SlAQ

And another shot from Bing (select "bird's eye" to really get an idea of the miserable state that building is in):

http://www.bing.com/maps/default.as...13&FORM=MIRE&qpvt=105+Lake+Avenue,+Elyria,+OH
 
Ha! A thread about the legendary WJTB and their notorious owner, The "Reverend" James Taylor.

Here are so high points:

* Every so often, they have a fire, and the station moves to a new location, often operating out of a van parked outside the damaged studio for a few weeks.

* Equipment is literally falling apart. There is loud hum, distortion and crackles throughout the broadcast day. The station runs very low modulation for some reason. Probably, as was suggested, if they turned it up they would distort even more or maybe pop something at the transmitter and go off the air.

* One day, my scan hit their dial spot, and all I heard was a loud whistle with the programming somewhere buried way off in the background. It was like that for--I kid you not--three days.

* The owner wanted to open a record store in the front of the station which would sell all the DJ copies of discs that the station receives.

* Even though he is a "Reverend", there are often mysterious girls hanging around. Maybe he is healing their sins by laying hands on them, who knows?

* There have been numerous reports of the ole Reverend hiring someone, then, after two weeks, refusing to pay!

I could go on and on. This station is not even bottom of the barrel. It is UNDER the barrel.

Every once in a while I put it on, just so I can experience a new electronic noise or buzz.
 
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