By Tim Cuprisin Media Columnist Published Jan 26, 2010 at 11:00 AM
Watch Tim Cuprisin's On Media on Time Warner Cable's Wisconsin on Demand Channel 411, with new episodes posted Fridays.
When WLDB-FM (93.3) -- better known as B-93.3 -- picked up veteran Milwaukee radio morning voice Jane Matenaer to join CV (Carol Vonn) on its morning show, the word was that former co-host (and program director) Stan Atkinson would be doing some weekend shifts.

But with Matenaer signing on Monday morning, the station shuffled things again this week, axing afternoon drive-time voice Cindy Huber, another familiar Milwaukee radio voice.

In Huber's place in the 3 to 7 p.m. shift is Atkinson, who retains his program director duties.

"I think program directors should be on the air," says general manager Bill Hurwitz. "It keeps them in touch with the audience."

Huber was philosophical about the situation.

"No regrets," she told me, via Facebook. "I loved the station, still love everyone there. And honestly, it's not a life changing call in the middle of the night. It's, at the end of the day, a job, and one I'm glad I had.

"But honestly, I should have taken my mom's advice 25 years ago and gone into nursing!"

B-93.3 is operated by Milwaukee Radio Alliance, as is WMCS-AM (1290), which replaced its live morning programming this week. Hurwitz said no personnel changes are coming at the third MRA station, WLUM-FM (102.1).

Charlie on WMCS-AM: On his Monday morning show, WTMJ-AM (620) talker Charlie Sykes took on the issue of WMCS dropping the local morning show hosted by Joel McNally and Cassandra Cassandra in a pretty even-handed way.

You can listen to the segment here.

WYMS focuses on arts community: WYMS-FM (88.9) has started an eight-week on-air campaign called "Make Milwaukee,"  to spotlight the creative side of Milwaukee.

The station, known to listeners as "88Nine RadioMilwaukee,"  is promising four to six audio pieces a week focusing on the city's arts community. Each of the segments will be led by a "tour guide."

On TV: Milwaukee's 78-year-old Dr. Basil Jackson got substantial -- and well-deserved -- face-time on Monday's "NBC Nightly News" for the volunteer medical work he's doing in Haiti. "It's life-changing -- even for an old guy who doesn't have much life left," he said in this "Making a Difference" segment.

  • Friday's "Hope for Haiti Now" telethon pulled in a total of 83 million U.S. TV viewers and has raised more than $61 million" for earthquake relief.
  • In a few more ratings tidbits from Brett Favre's Sunday night season finale on Channel 6, only Minneapolis and New Orleans posted better ratings for Sunday night's game. Nielsen numbers show the NFC Championship Game had a better Milwaukee rating than 9 of the last 11 Super Bowls, according to Nielsen numbers. Nationally, the audience averaged almost 58 million for Fox.
  • CBS has ordered two more installments of "Survivor" and one more run of "Amazing Race." This season's second edition of "Survivor" begins Feb. 11, pitting two teams of returning players against each other as "Heroes vs. Villains."
  • CBS has also ordered a sixth season of "How I Met Your Mother."
  • Jimmy Kimmel marks the seventh anniversary of ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live" tonight at 11:35 on Channel 12.
Remembering Ken Matz: Former Channel 6 anchor Ken Matz has died at the age of 64 after battling cancer for the past two years.

He anchored here in the 1970s. Matz spent five years anchoring evening newscasts on WCAU-TV in the 1990s, then a CBS-owned station.

Here's a promo Channel 6 used when it hired Matz (with a special guest appearance by Albert the Alley Cat):

Tim Cuprisin Media Columnist

Tim Cuprisin is the media columnist for OnMilwaukee.com. He's been a journalist for 30 years, starting in 1979 as a police reporter at the old City News Bureau of Chicago, a legendary wire service that's the reputed source of the journalistic maxim "if your mother says she loves you, check it out." He spent a couple years in the mean streets of his native Chicago, and then moved on to the Green Bay Press-Gazette and USA Today, before coming to the Milwaukee Journal in 1986.

A general assignment reporter, Cuprisin traveled Eastern Europe on several projects, starting with a look at Poland after five years of martial law, and a tour of six countries in the region after the Berlin Wall opened and Communism fell. He spent six weeks traversing the lands of the former Yugoslavia in 1994, linking Milwaukee Serbs, Croats and Bosnians with their war-torn homeland.

In the fall of 1994, a lifetime of serious television viewing earned him a daily column in the Milwaukee Journal (and, later the Journal Sentinel) focusing on TV and radio. For 15 years, he has chronicled the changes rocking broadcasting, both nationally and in Milwaukee, an effort he continues at OnMilwaukee.com.

When he's not watching TV, Cuprisin enjoys tending to his vegetable garden in the backyard of his home in Whitefish Bay, cooking and traveling.