The caramel popcorn balls and candied apples had hardly had time to go stale when WLND-FM 98.1 made the switch from playing country to playing Christmas music all the time earlier this week.

I'm not sure if the Legend's switch to holiday melodies says more about us as a consumer-driven society or about the state of radio.

There have been national reports about Clear Channel's plan to move all or most of its stations to what one critic calls "repeater radio." Reportedly, Clear Channel is installing monitoring devices that will allow stations in Chattanooga, for example, to be monitored and/or controlled by someone in, say, Cincinnati.

Locally, US101 continues to be the ratings leader, and maybe that might allow them to continue to do things on a local basis, with real people doing local radio.

It's hard to know exactly what Clear Channel corporate has planned, but Daniel Wyatt has joined Bearman & Ken in the mornings on US101. Maybe that's a good sign.

Meanwhile, over at Bahakel Communications, Chris Goforth is back, or will be Nov. 9, at WDOD-AM 1310 and WDEF-AM 1370. According to operations manager Danny Howard, Goforth will "be a jack of all trades looking at programming and sales."

Howard said the stations, both of which carry Fox Sports Radio programming, will be looking at adding more local sports.

Also this week, Randy Smith and Bert Caldwell were let go from WALV-FM 105.1. Nick Bonsanto is now the host of the ESPN Radio 3-6 p.m. time slot.

* "The Conference Room," a comedy video created by students at Berry College, recently won Best Comedy in a national contest.

The film was produced by Viking Fusion, Berry's student-operated multimedia Web site. The award, which was sponsored by College Broadcasters Inc., was presented during the National College Media Convention in Austin, Texas, according to a news release.

"The Conference Room" focuses on three young producers who are trying to develop a television show that never seems to get off the ground. Each episode focuses on a different aspect of producing a show, such as demographics, publicity and budgets. The 15-minute episodes can be viewed online at http://vikingfusion.berry.edu/entertainment/the-conference-room/.

Alex Middleton, Thomas Yungerberg and Steven Walker produced and starred in the movie. Cameron Carter served as cameraman.

"We're very happy," said Middleton. "It hasn't really sunk in that we won a national award, but it's pretty awesome, and it's definitely a cool feeling to know that we won."

CBI received more than 440 submissions in a variety of categories, according to the release. Entries came from colleges and universities of all sizes across the nation.

E-mail Barry Courter at bcourter@timesfreepress.com.