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March 10, 2003
Big Apple Circus: Sales, New Towers, and More Confusion at
WNEW
By SCOTT FYBUSH
*What a busy week it's been in NEW YORK!
We'll start with two station sales, one expected, the other a
surprise: Disney won approval this week to convert its LMA of
WEVD (1050 New York) into a $78 million purchase from the Forward
Association. Since Disney took over in September 2001, WEVD's
been the New York flagship for ESPN radio - and even made a slight
showing in the latest Trends there. We hear that sale will close
on or about May 1.
The surprise sale was Mega's announcement that it will sell
WLXE (1380 New York) back to Arthur Liu's Multicultural Broadcasting,
which sold the station to Mega three years ago for $33 million
($24 million in cash and two Washington DC AM outlets.) 1380
was leased-time WKDM then; Mega spent quite a bit of cash relaunching
the facility as Spanish all-news WNNY. That didn't last, and
most recently 1380's been doing regional Mexican as WLXE, "La
X 1380."
With this sale, we expect the regional Mexican to end and
leased time to return to 1380, for which Liu is paying $37 million.
The deal gives Multicultural four leased-time AM outlets in New
York: WPAT (930 Paterson NJ), WNSW (1430 Newark NJ), WZRC (1480
New York) and WLXE, along with religious WNYG (1440 Babylon)
out on Long Island.
 Liu still doesn't
have a monopoly on leased-time AM in New York, though; Sporting
News Radio has pulled still more of its own programming off "flagship"
WSNR (620 Jersey City NJ), which is now leased to ethnic programmers
from 6 AM all the way to 2 AM. (Sporting News Radio's overnight
show is the last remnant of the network to be heard weekdays
on WSNR.)
On the FM side, it was another strange week in the long bizarre
saga that is Viacom's WNEW (102.7), now in its second month of
stunting with a short playlist of top 40 tunes. After weeks of
leaks about an ambitious entertainment-talk format with plenty
of synergy from Viacom's MTV and VH1 divisions, New York's tabloids
lit up this week with talk that Viacom suddenly had cold feet
about the whole idea. Steve Kingston, program director of Viacom
rocker WXRK (92.3 New York) was reportedly seen making the rounds
of the (nearly empty) WNEW offices - but then came word that
he won't be the operations manager there after all. What in the
world is going on there? Nobody knows - and those promises of
a "spring" relaunch at 102.7 are looking as remote
as spring itself here in the frigid Northeast.
 Down the street
(Seventh Avenue, in this case) from WNEW's studios, things are
moving forward in a very definite way up on one of the city's
highest rooftops.
We hear a construction derrick went up late last week atop
the skyscraper at Broadway and 43rd Street, signaling the start
of construction on a new rooftop tower (replacing the existing
FM antenna shown here) that will have room for all of New York's
FM and TV stations - analog and digital! Much more on
this big project in the weeks to come...
Out in Queens, a Long Island radio station has applied for
a synchronous booster to bring its Korean programming to an area
that doesn't get much signal right now. WGSM (740 Huntington)
wants to run 250 watts day, 40 watts night from a very short
(8-meter) antenna near the corner of Sanford Avenue (42nd Avenue)
and Union Street in Flushing, just a block or so from the Flushing
subway station. The application filed this week calls for the
calls WG2XSM for what would be the first "experimental"
synchronous operation in New York state.
Moving upstate, "Wakin' Up With the Wolf" added
a Hudson Valley affiliate last week, as the Bob Wolf morning
show (based at Albany's WPYX) picked up a simulcast on WRKW (92.9
Saugerties), where it replaces Bob and Tom. Wolf is a familiar
voice in the valley; he was on WPDH (101.5 Poughkeepsie) until
moving north to Albany five years ago.
The Connecticut-based "Broadway's Biggest Hits"
show added a Hudson Valley affiliate as well; it's being heard
on WBNR (1260 Beacon) and WLNA (1420 Peekskill) beginning next
Sunday from 1-3 PM.
Albany's newest TV station will have a familiar address: 1400
Balltown Road, Schenectady. That's the longtime (as in fifty
years) home of WRGB (Channel 6); the CBS affiliate has signed
a deal to provide services for new WNYA (Channel 51) when the
Pittsfield, Mass.-licensed station signs on later this year.
WNYA is expected to be a UPN affiliate, which spells the end
of "WEDG," the cable-only outlet that was seen on Time
Warner's channel 4 in the Capital District.
Bill Keeler, recently ousted from mornings at WRCK (107.3
Utica), is heading over to the TV dial; beginning April 1, he'll
host "The Bill Keeler Show," weeknights from 11-11:30,
on Fox outlet WFXV (Channel 33) in Utica.
A well-known voice in central New York radio and TV has died.
Gary Kennerknecht began his broadcast career at Utica's WOUR,
then spent the seventies as news director at Utica's WRUN and
WTLB before moving into TV at Utica's WUTR. Kennerknecht came
to Rochester in the eighties as assistant news director of WHEC-TV
(Channel 10), then moved to New York City to work at CBS News.
He was just 52 when he died on February 24 in the Bronx.
In Syracuse, WCNY-TV (Channel 24) has been granted its long-pending
application to move from the WIXT (Channel 9) tower in Pompey
to the new WSTM (Channel 3) tower at Sentinel Heights; we've
heard that WCNY is already testing the new facility, which is
also home to new WCNY-DT (Channel 25).
Digital radio came to Syracuse this week as well; Radio Disney
outlet WOLF (1490 Syracuse) is reportedly now running the Ibiquity
digital system, the first station upstate (and only the second
in the state, after New York's WOR) to do so.
(And those who are passionate about Syracuse radio history
will want to check out the WOLF tribute site at www.wolf1490.net,
newly commercial-free and always a fun read!)
 Rochester's "98PXY"
(WPXY-FM 97.9) is losing its night guy to Pittsburgh; "Busta"
begins a new gig next week doing afternoon drive at the relaunched
"93-7BZZ" (WBZZ 93.7), an Infinity sister station.
Could Family Life Ministries' radio network soon be getting
a real Rochester signal? We're hearing a lot of talk about a
certain religious FM station in western Monroe County changing
hands - and frequencies - soon...
Over in Buffalo, that's an AM stereo pilot light we've been
seeing illuminated when we've been listening to WWKB (1520) the
last few days - and it sounds like there's even some stereo music
being played there now. It's nice to hear...
And down in Binghamton, Citadel's WHWK (98.1) wants to move
away from the WBNG-TV (Channel 12) transmitter site on Ingraham
Hill that it's called home since it signed on all those decades
ago (when it was WNBF-FM and channel 12 was WNBF-TV.) The station
has applied to move to a directional antenna on the new tower
nearby on Ingraham Hill that will be home to WSKG-TV/DT and WSKG-FM
(89.3); from there, it will run 6500 watts at 401 meters above
average terrain, with a sharp null to the south.
*Why a directional antenna in Binghamton?
For that, we look across the state line to PENNSYLVANIA,
where Citadel also owns WBSX (97.9 Hazleton), which has long
been short-spaced to Binghamton (as well as to WOGL 98.1 in Philadelphia,
WSKQ 97.9 in New York and WIYY 97.9 in Baltimore!)
WBSX currently transmits from a tower about halfway between
Hazleton and Wilkes-Barre, but now Citadel wants to move it north
about six miles, which would land the station on the tower of
WMGS (92.9 Scranton) at "Electronic Heights," aka Penobscot
Mountain, the primary TV/FM site for Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. WBSX's
new facilities would be 6300 watts at 407 meters, with a null
to the north protecting WHWK.
(We also hear that crosstown competitor Entercom wants to
move its WDMT 103.1 Freeland to a new city of license of Avoca,
which would bring that class A signal from the Hazleton area
north into the heart of Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. We'd expect the
"Mountain" simulcast with WAMT 102.3 Pittston to end
if that happens, with 103.1 taking on a new format.)
 Heading down the
road to Allentown, there's a new slogan at WLEV (100.7), which
ditched its "My 100.7" image last weekend to become
"Soft Rock 100.7." (It'll always be WFMZ-FM in our
heart, anyway...)
Philadelphia listeners will soon have Paul Barsky back in
the morning. The veteran Philly personality (we still remember
him from a seventies-era gig at the old WAXC here in Rochester,
even) just signed a five-year deal to do mornings at Beasley's
WPTP (96.5 the Point), where he'll also be operations manager.
 Jimmy Stewart's home
town of Indiana, Pennsylvania has a new radio station. WFSG-LP
(103.7) signed on there on February 24, licensed to a group called
"Godstock."
That's the good news (or should that be the Good News?) -
the bad news, at least for proponents of localism in LPFM, is
that nearly all of the programming on "Fish 103.7 FM"
appears to be coming from the Nashville-based Christian Hit Radio,
part of the Way-FM network that's been growing by leaps and bounds
down south. NERW wonders how this squares with the FCC's apparent
intent to ban satellite-fed LPFMs (and isn't "Fish"
a Salem trademark, too?)
*There's a new station on the air in NEW
JERSEY this week, too: WVBH (88.3 Beach Haven) is the latest
link in the chain of contemporary Christian outlets based at
WXHL-FM (89.1) in Christiana, Delaware. The southern Ocean County
signal is fairly limited (it doesn't get quite far enough south
to hit Atlantic City), but has already been widely reported by
listeners near the Ocean-Atlantic county line. (Hey, what else
is there to do at the Jersey shore this time of year?)
Up the coast just a bit, WADB (1310 Asbury Park) has switched
morning shows; it's now simulcasting Bob Levy's show from sister
WOBM (1160 Lakewood Township). Former WADB morning host Larry
Brennan moves to afternoons - and his show will be simulcast
on WOBM, too.
Pax has changed the calls on its LPTV in East Orange, turning
W34CP (Channel 34) into WPXO-LP. Those calls were on Pax's channel
14 in the Virgin Islands, which was recently sold.
 And we're very sorry
to report the death of Ed Bold, the longtime owner of WSNJ (1240/107.7)
in Bridgeton and one of the last of the dying breed of engineer-owners.
Bold had been involved in South Jersey radio since just after
World War II, and had owned WSNJ since 1971.
He retired to Florida last year, but had returned north to
run the station for a while while its impending sale goes through
(it has a pending application to move the FM side to Pennsauken,
just outside Philadelphia, as a class A outlet on 107.9). Bold
died Tuesday (March 4) at South Jersey Hospital in Bridgeton;
he was 82.
*Just as NERW was going to press last week,
a southeastern CONNECTICUT station was changing calls
and format - again.
Stonington's 102.3 has been through many calls and formats
in its quarter-century or so of life - WFAN, oldies WVVE, rocker
WAXK and classic rock WUXL. As of last Monday, it's on to yet
another phase, as the classic rock and Bob & Tom morning
show give way to AC as "Mix 102" WXLM(FM). Can "Mix"
compete against the bigger signal and established presence of
WBMW on 106.5? We'll see...
 In Bridgeport, Fred
Ebert is out as afternoon host at WICC (600), apparently unable
to come to terms on a contract renewal with the station.
Inbound to replace him in a week or two is "Citizen Smith,"
and in the meantime WICC listeners are hearing Kathy Taylor (of
the morning show on sister station WEBE 107.9) handling the 4-7
PM shift.
*It's not hard to hear Howard Stern in RHODE
ISLAND - he's carried on WWKX (106.3 Woonsocket) and its
South County simulcast WAKX (102.7 Narragansett Pier), and he
can be heard pretty well from WBCN (104.1) up in Boston and even
WPXC (102.9 Hyannis) from Cape Cod, too. But just in case, there's
now another Stern outlet in the Providence-New Bedford market:
he's been added to the lineup on Citadel's WKKB (100.3 Middletown
RI), a move that apparently became possible when Citadel bought
WWKX/WAKX.
*A familiar Ocean State voice is now gracing
the central MASSACHUSETTS airwaves. Tom Holt, former
program director at Citadel's WWLI (105.1 Providence), has landed
at Clear Channel's WSRS (96.1 Worcester), where he replaces Ned
Smith in afternoon drive.
The revolving door of talent has claimed WQSX (93.7 Lawrence)
night guy Joe Rosati; the New York veteran has been replaced
at the Boston-market urban AC by former Hartford star Mike McGowan,
who had been doing weekend and swing at "Star 93.7."
Down the hall at the Entercom cluster, the engineering folks
at WAAF (107.3 Worcester) have applied again to move their transmitter
from Mount Asnebumskit in Paxton, on the far side of that city
of license they'd like to forget, to the WUNI (Channel 27) tower
on Stiles Hill in Boylston, 10 miles or so closer to their target
audience in Boston and 'burbs. WAAF was granted a CP to make
that move, with 9600 watts at 335 meters and a directional antenna,
back on March 3, 2000 - but Entercom asked the FCC to dismiss
that CP on February 28, just shy of its three-year expiration
date, thus clearing the way for a new application to be filed
the same day to restart the clock on that proposed move. (WAAF
also has a pending application to change city of license to Westborough.)
 One station that
doesn't mind being associated with Worcester is WORC (1310 Worcester)
- and it'll be the home of the New York Yankees this summer,
thanks to a bet that GM Brian Jakusik lost to weekend sports
guy Nick Manzello. WORC (which is also holding an open call for
a liberal talk show host) will carry more than 100 Yankees games
this season; another 28 games will air on sister station WGFP
(940 Webster).
And out on Cape Cod, the WMPX calls that disappeared from
MAINE when Waterville's channel 23 was
sold and became WFPO are being warehoused on the former W67BA
in Dennis, newly renamed WMPX-LP.
 *In
NEW HAMPSHIRE, Meegan Collier (known on air just as "Meegan")
is out as midday host on Clear Channel rocker WGIR-FM (101.1
Manchester), where she was also the station's music director;
no word yet on a replacement for either part of her job.
*Up in VERMONT, Pete Powers has stepped
down as morning jock and music director at WEQX (102.7 Manchester);
down the road in Bennington, Ed Garcia is the new PD at Bennington's
WZEC (97.5 Hoosick Falls NY).
And Nicole Sandler starts next month as director of programming
for Steve Silberberg's Northeast Broadcasting, which owns the
"Point" AAA network based at Montpelier's WNCS (104.7),
Middlebury's "Alice" (WXAL 93.7 Addison/WLKC 103.3
Waterbury), WXRV (92.5 Haverhill) north of Boston and a few AM
stations in New England as well. While Sandler may not be familiar
to New Englanders, she's well known out west, where she programmed
AAA stations in Los Angeles and New Mexico.
*One of CANADA's largest broadcast
groups is getting a new management team. CHUM Ltd. named Paul
Ski, general manager of its Vancouver radio stations, as the
new executive VP for all of CHUM Radio; Stephen Tapp moves up
from VP/GM of CHUM's Citytv in Toronto to executive VP for all
of CHUM Television.
In Kitchener/Waterloo, they're mourning Valerie Corcoran,
who did promotions for nearly three decades there, first at CHYM
and for the last eight years at CKKW (Oldies 1090) and CFCA (Kool
105.3); she died March 7, just a few days short of her 49th birthday.
Corcoran was married to Paul Cugliari, general manager of CKKW/CFCA.
The Universite de Sherbrooke will soon have its own FM station;
its student association was granted 490 watts on 88.3.
And out in Moncton, N.B., religious station CKOE wants to
move from 100.9, where it runs just 50 watts, to 107.3 with 2800
watts.
 *Have
you ordered your Tower Site Calendar 2003 yet? That spiffy
image of the WBEN transmitter site on Grand Island is this month's
image...and it's accompanied by more than a dozen others (including
Providence's WHJJ; Mount Mansfield, Vermont; KOMA in Oklahoma
City; the legendary WSM, Nashville; WGN, Chicago and many more),
more dates in radio history, a convenient hole for hanging -
and we'll even make sure all the dates fall on the right days!
This year's calendar is currently shipping! Calendars
are in stock, and orders placed now will ship within 24 hours!
And this year, you can order with your Visa, MasterCard, Discover
or American Express by using the handy link below!
Better yet, here's an incentive to make your 2003 NERW subscription
pledge a little early: support NERW/fybush.com at the $60 level
or higher, and you'll get this lovely calendar for free!
How can you go wrong? (Click here
to visit our Support page, where you can make your NERW contribution
with a major credit card...)
You can also order by mail; just send a check for $16
per calendar (NYS residents add 8% sales tax), shipping included,
to Scott Fybush, 92 Bonnie Brae Ave., Rochester
NY 14618.
International orders: Calendars are US$18 to Canada,
US$20 to the rest of the world, postage included. Send checks/international
money orders (in US dollars) to the address above, or e-mail
for credit-card ordering information.
*And we're also happy to announce that
our good friends at M Street have released the 11th edition of
the M Street Radio Directory. With the disappearance
of the old Vane Jones log and the declining accuracy of the Broadcasting
Yearbook, the M Street directory is widely regarded as the most
accurate, most comprehensive source of information on the US
and Canadian radio scene - and we're thrilled to be able to offer
it to you at a substantial discount!
The directory includes power, frequency, ownership, key personnel,
formats, ratings and much more information for every radio station
in the U.S. and Canada, and now runs almost 900 pages in an 8.5"
x 11" softcover book. List price is $79 (plus $7 shipping/handling),
but if you order through fybush.com/NorthEast Radio Watch, you
can get this invaluable resource on your shelf for $69 (plus
$7 s/h) - a $10 savings! And your purchase benefits the continued
publication of NERW and Tower Site of the Week, so everybody
wins!
You can order in either of two ways: to order by major credit
card, call 1-800-248-4242, ask for Irene, and tell her
you want the "NorthEast Radio Watch" discount. Or,
send check or money order for $76 ($69 + $7 s/h) to Scott Fybush,
92 Bonnie Brae Ave., Rochester NY 14618. Either way, you'll put
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in print today on your bookshelf.
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2003 by Scott Fybush. |