Courtesy Ohio Media Watch

(January 21, 2011) As it turns out, all those rumors about Good Karma sports WKNR/850 Cleveland “ESPN 850″ midday host Tony Rizzo being heard in the afternoon were true.

But…not in late afternoon, as expected in a Facebook status update by Clear Channel talk WTAM/1100 afternoon drive host Mike Trivisonno and/or his staff.

As OMW tipped minutes before a “big announcement” on WKNR, Rizzo’s “Really Big Show” is not moving…it’s expanding.

Starting Monday, Rizzo, Aaron Goldhammer, Chris “Negative Ned” Fedor and the gang will host 9 AM-1 PM on “ESPN 850″.

Wait, you ask…isn’t Premiere’s Jim Rome, a station mainstay, on from noon to 1 PM on WKNR?

Not anymore, as the station announced that Rome’s first hour, much like ESPN Radio show “Mike & Mike”‘s last hour, will be banished to Radio Siberia…sister station WWGK/1540 “KNR2″ (the last two hours of Rome will continue to be heard on 850).

Hope you liked the first hour of Rome, Bay Village, Avon and Lorain County…you’ll now have to struggle to hear it on Clear Channel sports WDFN/1130 in Detroit.

Listeners closer to Akron will be able to pick up “The Jungle”‘s first hour on Clear Channel sports WARF/1350 Akron “Fox Sports 1350″, which is already heavily promoting that fact.

WARF aims a pretty nice little northern lobe towards much of the Cleveland area, and acted as a defacto country station when Cleveland had no such outlet, back in the days of the late Jaybird Drennan on the old WSLR “Whistler”.

Also announced Friday: Station utility player Mark “Munch” Bishop adds a daily live, local show on “KNR2″ from 7-9 AM. We assume he’s keeping “Munch in the Morning” on 850 from 5-6 AM.

The station has announced that owner Craig Karmazin will host a special “Ask The Owner” program, 3-4 PM Tuesday on WKNR, to talk about the changes. We sincerely hope he brings a flak jacket to the Galleria.

Here’s the bottom line, as we see it:

* Karmazin gets an extra hour, 12 noon-1 PM, to sell local spots. This will overcome, somewhat, his own announcement that the station will air 2 fewer minutes of spots each hour. (OMW hears that such a move, a reduced spot load, could be temporary.) Again, in commercial radio, it’s All About The Revenue.

* WKNR gains that at a very big cost. Jim Rome’s status on the station is pretty much iconic.

Romey has come to Cleveland numerous times, and has frequently expressed his pleasure at Cleveland being one of his first big market affiliates.

“C-town” enjoys a special status in “The Jungle”…not any more…and Rizzo himself noted on the air that his fill-in opportunities on Rome’s show have likely come to an end.

And Karmazin also noted on-air that Rome is “not happy” with the decision, and that Premiere is “not happy”, though they’ll deal with it.

When we first heard of what would happen, just 10 minutes before it was unveiled on the air, we almost discounted the information…why in the world would WKNR mess with Rome, who at last check, does very well for the station?

* A big winner in this is the aforementioned WARF, the Akron sports station which carries Rome’s full 3 hour live show.

Like sister talk WHLO/640 when it picked up Premiere’s Glenn Beck – when Cleveland’s WTAM dropped Beck for Jerry Springer – expect a Cleveland ratings bump for WARF…and certainly an Akron bump, as it picks up Akron area listeners used to hearing Rome on WKNR at noon.

And it may be a bigger bump than WHLO got…WARF is the best Akron AM signal in the Cleveland market. It’s by far not a “perfect” replacement for WKNR in the entire market, but close-in western and southern Cleveland suburbs can likely get WARF much clearer than they can get WWGK.

WWGK has a 3,000 watt construction permit that is still valid until later this year (August).

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