|
June 1, 2004
WRKW Gets "Cool"
*Oldies music has returned to the FM dial
in NEW YORK's Hudson Valley. Clear Channel dropped the
rock at WRKW (92.9 Saugerties) on Friday, replacing it with oldies
as "Cool 92.9." The slogan and the format were last
heard in the valley on Cumulus' WBPM (94.3 Kingston), which flipped
to country as "Kix" WKXP last year - and sure enough,
Clear Channel has even applied to pick up the WBPM calls for
the 92.9 signal.
Vox Media continued its sell-off this week: it's unloading
its Jamestown cluster to Jim Embrescia's Media One Communications
for $4.5 million. Embrescia already owns WJTN (1240) and WWSE
(93.3) in Jamestown, and this deal will add oldies WKSN (1340),
country WHUG (101.9) and classic rock WQFX (103.1 Russell PA)
to the cluster, giving Media One a huge lock on the Jamestown
radio audience.
It took 17 years, but William H. "Bud" Walker now
has a construction permit for channel 14 in Bath. The CP, granted
in late April, calls for 1 megawatt of visual ERP at 318 meters
above average terrain, using a tower in Savona. Bath is in the
Elmira/Corning TV market, and the new channel 14 will join commercial
WETM-TV (NBC), WENY-TV (ABC) and WYDC-TV (Fox) there. (NERW notes:
many of these recently-granted CPs are bypassing analog television
completely and signing on as DTV-only facilities, depending on
cable carriage to reach most viewers.)
As we go to press late Monday night, the expiration of Gregg
("Opie") Hughes' and Anthony Cumia's contracts with
Infinity is just hours away, and speculation is running rampant
about what the pair will do now that they're allowed back on
the air for another owner. Opie and Anthony had been collecting
paychecks from Infinity ever since the fallout from that "Sex
for Sam" stunt took them - and eventually the talk format
they anchored - off WNEW (102.7 New York), and the pair have
been dropping hints that they'll reappear on satellite or even
broadcast radio soon. We hear they'll show up on Don Imus' WFAN
(660) show Tuesday morning; stay tuned.
 Former
Imus sports sidekick Warner Wolf lost his main job, as lead sportscaster
of WCBS-TV (Channel 2), after Friday night's newscasts. The 66
year old Wolf had been with WCBS since 1997, and he had previous
gigs there as far back as 1980 (and at WABC-TV from 1976-1980,
too.) Wolf's contract at WCBS-TV was up in August.
The perennial (and perennially excellent) "WABC Rewound"
wasn't the only bit of radio nostalgia on the Big Apple airwaves
this Memorial Day weekend; down the dial at WOR (710), veteran
New York (and San Francisco) DJ Alex Bennett was filling in as
a talk host Sunday and Monday nights.
More New York radio memories: it's just a few weeks now until
the big WNBC/WYNY reunion being organized by Big Apple Airchecks'
Matt Seinberg. Matt and his co-hosts are still looking for some
"missing" WNBC/WYNYers, including Bruce Bradley; if
you can help them out - or if you're
interested in attending - get in touch with him at wnbcwynyreunion@wpljmail.com.
The reunion will take place June 20 from 6-11 PM at the Hard
Rock Cafe in Manhattan; $35 admission includes a commemorative
CD as well as food.
Radio People on the Move: Jeremy Neuman is the new night jock
at WBEE-FM (92.5 Rochester), heading to the Entercom country
giant next week from Dallas, where he's been doing part-time
work. Meanwhile, Crawford's religious WRCI (102.7 Rochester)
loses afternoon host Gina Jones to Metro Networks. And in Binghamton,
Selena has departed WMRV (105.7 Endicott), where she was morning
co-host and assistant PD; she's moved down I-81 to Scranton to
be morning co-host at WGGY (101.3).
On the translator front: Mike Celenza's new W284AZ (104.7
Selden) out on Long Island will reportedly be extending the reach
of every radio junkie's favorite station, WLNG (92.1 Sag Harbor),
when it signs on soon. Educational Media Foundation gets W224BF
(92.7 Colonie), to relay WJIV (101.9 Cherry Valley), while Europa
Communications gets W226AP (93.1 Hornell) to relay WMTT (94.7
Tioga PA). River Vale Media Foundation was granted two new translators
downstate: W253AN (98.5 Poughkeepsie) and W268AN (101.5 Plainview),
which claim to be relaying Sound of Life's WLJP (89.3 Monroe)
over the air. (NERW notes: There are some
remarkable feats of DX in many of these translator applications...)
And Clear Channel's application for 105.9 in Hudson, relaying
WPYX (106.5 Albany), was accepted for filing.
 *In CONNECTICUT, talk show host Ken "Citizen"
Smith is out of a job. Smith was fired by WICC (600 Bridgeport)
last Monday, apparently after making some sort of racist or anti-Semitic
remark on the air. No replacement's been named, and the station
is conducting a contest now to find one.
Joe Limardi's moving on up from his PD gig at Danbury's WDBY
(105.5 Patterson NY); he's staying within the Cumulus family
but moving down to Nashville to be PD of WRQQ (97.1 Goodlettsville
TN).
A familiar set of RHODE ISLAND call
letters is now in place in southeastern Connecticut, as John
Fuller grabs the WWRX calls that used to be on 103.7 Westerly
RI (now WEEI-FM) and puts them on 107.7 Pawcatuck, formerly WHJM.
No format change is in the works at "Jammin' 107-7";
the calls are simply being warehoused there.
On the translator front: W252AV (98.3 Meriden) signs on, rebroadcasting
WSGG (89.3 Norfolk) via its 89.7 translator in the Hartford area.
Three Hartford-market DTV stations won six-month extensions
from the FCC. WVIT-DT and WFSB-DT have been beset by zoning problems,
while WTIC-DT was embroiled in a fight with New York's WNYW about
its DTV allottment on channel 5. WTIC-DT eventually ended up
on channel 31, but not without several long delays in its construction.
(The FCC also granted extensions to New York's WABC-DT and WNBC-DT,
still recovering from the destruction of the World Trade Center.)
And congratulations to Tom Zarecki, indefatigable PR man for
RCS software and weekend jock at WDRC-FM (102.9 Hartford): he
just got his MBA from Western Connecticut State University after
eight years in the classroom!
*In MASSACHUSETTS, WRKO (680 Boston)
added a new weekend host - he's Jay Diamond, New York talk veteran,
and he'll be heard Saturday nights from 10 until midnight.
Out west, we hear Vox didn't keep news director Ron Plock,
a 35-year station veteran, when it took over at WMNB (100.1)/WNAW
(1230) in North Adams.
Three translator grants: W260AS (99.9 Lawrence) to Edgewater
Broadcasting of Twin Falls, Idaho, which claims it will get WMSJ
(89.3 Freeport ME) over the air there; and W264BA (100.7 Harwich
Port) and W230AW (93.9 Centerville) to Nantucket Public Radio,
which will use them to relay WNCK (89.5 Nantucket), which has
itself turned into a simulcast of WGBH (89.7 Boston) most of
the day.
*Boston's WBZ-TV (Channel 4) is now simulcasting
its 6 PM news audio on WSNH (900) up in Nashua, NEW HAMPSHIRE,
apparently as a way to reach commuters who don't make it all
the way home to southern New Hampshire before the local news
is over at 6:30.
In Concord, Embro Communications made the official filing
last week to sell WKXL (1450) to Humphrey-Stevens Communications,
with partners Gordon Humphrey (the former senator) and George
Stevens. Purchase price: $830,000.
And Saga has two new CPs for translators: W227AW (93.3 Peterborough)
will relay WKNE-FM (103.7 Keene), while W276BJ (103.1 Concord)
will relay WQLL (96.5 Bedford).
*In VERMONT, Ken Squier's Radio Vermont
gets a CP for W273AM (102.5 Montpelier), which will relay WDEV-FM
(96.1 Warren), while Vermont Public Radio's applications for
94.3 Warren, 106.9 Manchester, 94.7 Bolton and 101.9 and 99.5
Island Pond are approved for filing.
*Congratulations to WPOR (101.9) in Portland,
MAINE, which won Saga's internal Marconi Award, the company's
"station of the year" honor.
*In PENNSYLVANIA, four new translators
were granted last week. W259AJ (99.7 Galeton) will relay WNBT-FM
(104.5 Wellsboro), W283AO (104.5 Carbondale) will relay WYCY
(105.3 Hawley), W231AQ (94.1 Mcsherrytown) will relay WJTL (90.3
Lancaster) and W297AL (107.3 Tunkhannock) will relay WEZX (106.9
Scranton). In addition, an application from He's Alive for a
translator at 97.9 in Jeannette was approved for filing.
*In CANADA, Pat Marsden is out as
morning host at CJCL (Fan 590) in Toronto, where he'd been on
thin ice ever since making what was perceived as an anti-Arab
comment earlier this spring. Marsden was dismissed after his
show last Friday. He'd been at the Fan for eight years.
Around the Golden Horseshoe, Hamilton's CHCH-TV (Channel 11)
turns 50 on June 7. Canada's first independent commercial TV
station, now owned by Global, will mark the occasion with a special
that night. (And congratulations to Hamilton's CIWV 94.7, as
well, which just increased its power from 3600 to 11,390 watts
and raised its antenna, significantly improving its signal toward
Toronto.)
Over in Simcoe, CHCD (106.7) has been testing its new transmitter
at 98.9; when the new signal is ready, 106.7 will go dark.
In Ottawa, Milkman Unlimited reports that Kent Newsom adds
PD duties at CKKL (Bob 93.9) to his PD job at CJMJ (100.3 Ottawa),
while Dave Mitchell is the new PD down the hall at CFRA (580)
and CJMJ (Team 1200).
*Finally this week, a few words about e-mail and why
it's becoming an increasingly unreliable way to reach us here
at NERW, or anyone else for that matter.
On Saturday night, your editor went to download his e-mail
for the first time in just over a day, only to be confronted
by just under 2000 new messages, more than 1850 of which were
either spam or worms/viruses. That wasted more than an hour just
in downloading and deleting the garbage to get to the handful
of useful or important messages, decidedly not what
we wanted to be doing on a Saturday night.
Now, the e-mail address of this column is quite liberally
spread around the web; it has to be in order for
you to communicate with us. That's made it fodder for spammers.
And it's clear from all the viruses and worms we receive that
our address is also in many, many Outlook address books out there,
which is a mixed blessing at best, since it means an awful lot
of viruses heading my way and even more going out into the world
with spoofed "@fybush.com" FROM addresses.
(If you ever get an e-mail that purports to be from any @fybush.com
address that's not "scott", or if the sending IP address
doesn't resolve to either RoadRunner in Rochester or Pair Networks
in Pittsburgh, the ISPs we use, then it's not from us.)
In an effort to prevent another 2000 e-mail night, we've had
no choice but to substantially crank up the processing on our
anti-spam software, which is Spam Assassin running on the Pair
Networks servers that handle our incoming mail. That's substantially
reduced the amount of e-mail coming in to NERW Central, which
is a good thing...unless you're sending us mail that we
want to read and it's getting eaten by Spam Assassin.
Why would that happen? Well...
- You sent us mail that's in HTML, or contains an executable
file. We're now dumping all incoming HTML mail and anything with
an .exe attached to it. If you don't know how to set your mail
software to send in plain text, please find out and
make the switch. There is very little mail that needs to be sent
in HTML for any reason.
- You sent us mail with no subject line, or without a real
name attached to your e-mail address. These are triggers for
Spam Assassin, and we won't disable them, because they're working.
There are a few things we won't do - at least not yet
- to reduce the flood of spam. Some mail servers are using a
variety of blacklists to block incoming mail from certain ISPs
or IP addresses. After much deliberation, and a good deal of
practical experience, we've concluded that many/most of those
blacklists are worse than useless, since they seem to block many
innocent users (of dynamic IP addresses on large ISPs, for instance)
and are unresponsive (if not downright hostile) to attempts to
remove blacklisted addresses. We won't go to a challenge-response
system, because we don't care for them (and we won't answer challenges-and-responses
from anyone with whom we're trying to correspond, either.)
And we won't send bounce messages to you if your e-mail is
bounced by Spam Assassin. While this may be frustrating for you,
since you won't know whether or not your mail has bounced, it's
for your own good, really. Here's why: Spam Assassin, and any
other e-mail program, has no way of knowing whether the e-mails
it's bouncing are really from you or whether they're from a forged
"from" address. So if it bounces a message back to
you that you didn't send, it's only adding to the junk e-mail
problem, not solving it. (This problem applies even more to anti-virus
software; there are still some brain-dead mail administrators
out there who have their anti-virus software set to send bounce
messages on incoming mail that's laden with viruses that are
known to spoof "from" addresses, which is the height
of pointlessness.)
So if you send us e-mail and you don't get a response, you
know why - and if a repeated e-mail still yields no response,
check out the Contact page linked above and try another method.
(Carrier pigeons are still spam-free, last time we checked...)
Sorry about that!
 *We
still have plenty of 2004 Tower Site Calendars still
available for your enjoyment!
Just as in past years, the calendar features a dozen spiffy
8.5-by-11 inch full-color images of tower sites from across the
nation - everything from Washington's WTEM to New York's WCBS/WFAN
(shown at left) to Los Angeles' KHJ to WCTM in Eaton, Ohio.
Other featured sites include Cedar Hill in Dallas, Lookout
Mountain above Denver, CKLW Windsor, WELI New Haven, WPTF Raleigh
NC, WBT Charlotte NC, WAJR Morgantown WV, WMT Cedar Rapids IA
and the mighty 12 towers of KFXR (the old KLIF 1190) in Dallas.
Unlike last year, this year's calendar features heavier paper
(no more curling!) and will be shipped shrink-wrapped on a cardboard
backing to make sure it arrives in pristine condition.
If you haven't ordered yet, what are you waiting for? Order
now and help support NERW and Tower Site of the Week. Better
yet, place your subscription for 2004 at the $60 level by using
the handy buttons below, and you'll get your 2004 Tower Site
Calendar absolutely FREE. What more could you want? (Local news
on the weekends, maybe?)
Don't want to order by credit card? You know the drill by
now - make those checks payable to "Scott Fybush,"
be sure to include sales tax ($1.32 per calendar) for New York
state calendar orders, and send them along to 92 Bonnie Brae
Avenue, Rochester NY 14618. (Sorry - we can't take orders by
phone.)
Thanks for your support!
NorthEast Radio Watch is made possible by the generous
contributions of our regular readers. If you enjoy NERW, please
click here to
learn how you can help make continued publication possible. NERW
is copyright
2004 by Scott Fybush. |