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June 21, 2004
A Reprieve for WHHS?
*The move of WSNJ-FM (107.7 Bridgeton NJ)
to 107.9 in Pennsauken, just across the Delaware River from Philadelphia,
was supposed to have silenced one of PENNSYLVANIA's oldest
noncommercial stations - but there's still life in high school
station WHHS (107.9 Havertown) after all, it seems.
With some help from well-known Florida-based engineering consultants
DuTreil, Lundin and Rackley, WHHS applied last week to move down
the dial to 99.9, lowering its power to 9.5 watts from 14 watts
and lowering its antenna from 113 meters to 49 meters. The station
tells the FCC that 99.9 is the last possible spot it can call
home on the crowded Delaware Valley FM dial - and in its new
home it would still need waivers from WJBR-FM (99.5 Wilmington
DE) and WPLY (100.3 Media PA) for the tiny amounts of interference
it would cause in a block or two around the school. Both stations
have already given WHHS letters in support of those waivers (and
we note that WPLY is owned by Radio One, which is buying WSNJ-FM
once it's moved in to the Philadelphia market.)
WHHS traces its history back to 1948; it lived most of its
life on 89.3 before moving to 107.9 in the great displacement
of the Class D non-comm stations a couple of decades ago (passing
up, in the process, the chance to increase power to 100 watts
and gain protection from encroachment by new stations.)
There's still no word on what will become of WWPH (107.9 Princeton
Junction NJ) or of several Philadelphia-area translators on 107.9
once WSNJ-FM completes its move-in.
*In other Keystone State news, Alex Langer's getting very
close to the expiration date of his construction permit to move
WVFC (1530 McConnellsburg) all the way east to King of Prussia,
near Philadelphia, and down the dial to 1180. With the CP to
diplex on the WWDB (860 Philadelphia) towers due to expire in
August, Langer says he can't get the complicated filtering and
phasing systems finished in time - so he's now asking the FCC
to instead let him use a Valcom fiberglass whip antenna at a
new site on Swedeland Road in Upper Merion Township, with just
510 watts instead of the 2300 watts he would have used at the
WWDB site.
 Out west - in the
Youngstown, Ohio market, in fact - Forever Broadcasting has replaced
"The Cat" (WICT 95.1 Grove City) with its "Froggy"
country format, with new calls of WWGY now in place.
Lots of translator news this week: Four Rivers Community Broadcasting
has been granted all of these - W226AS (93.1 Carlisle), W227BA
(93.3 Bear Creek), W230AX (93.9 Middle Spring), W235AP (94.9
Radnor), W250AP (97.9 Carlisle), W275AN (102.9 Lees Crossroad),
W291BD (106.1 Bloomsburg), W291BC (106.1 Zullinger) and W296BL
(107.1 Coatesville) - to relay WBYO (88.9 Sellersville) or another
link in its "Word FM" network. Four Rivers also gets
its application for 99.9 Wilkes-Barre approved for processing.
Meanwhile, Bux-Mont Educational Broadcasting gets a grant for
W300AA (107.9 Levittown) to relay WRDV (89.3 Warminster) - but
that won't last long, with WSNJ-FM taking over that frequency
soon.
On the LPFM front, the FCC issued licenses to cover this week
to WMES-LP (107.7 Altoona, from the Lay Stewardship Educational
Association) and to WXCS-LP (92.9 Cambridge Springs, to the Cambridge
Community Radio Association), and granted a CP to the Harrisburg
Area Media Information Corporation for 93.1 in Granteville.
*In NEW JERSEY, WWZY (107.1 Long Branch)
applies to go non-directional, modifying its facilities slightly
from the current 4.7 kW/113 meters (with a mild reduction in
power to the southwest) to a full 5 kW/110 meters.
Burlington County College has been granted translator W264BH
(100.7 Mount Holly) to relay WBZC (88.9 Pemberton).
And we're sorry to have to pass along word of the death of
Don Kelly, who died last Wednesday (June 16). Kelly was a partner
(with Dr. Jerome Koeppel, who died last November) in K&K
Broadcasting, which owned WWZY's predecessor WZVU (as well as
WXKC/WRIE in Erie, Pennsylvania.)
*We'll start our NEW YORK report
with yet another installment in the long, slow return to normalcy
for New York City's TV stations in the wake of 9/11. Two and
a half years after losing its licensed site at the World Trade
Center, WNBC (Channel 4) has applied for a license to broadcast
from the Empire State Building, where it's been operating under
Special Temporary Authority since shortly after the attacks.
WNBC's new permanent (as long as analog TV lasts, anyway) facility
will be 30 kW visual ERP at 439 meters above average terrain.
WCBS-FM (101.1 New York) is searching for a new program director
for the first time in 23 years, now that Joe McCoy is out of
that job. McCoy, who guided CBS-FM through its high points as
an oldies station in the eighties and early nineties and through
its struggles of the last few years as it's tried to freshen
up its sound, will stick around with Infinity as VP/special programming,
at least for a while.
WBLS (107.5 New York) is looking for a new morning show after
abruptly pulling the syndicated Doug Banks show off the air last
week. Meanwhile, veteran New York jock Freddie Colon is back
in town to do overnights at Infinity's WNEW (102.7 New York),
where the betting is that he'll be in a better shift before long.
(Freddie had been out in Tucson, doing afternoons at KGMG.)
 There's
a full airstaff now in place at Pamal's "Peak," WXPK
(107.1 Briarcliff Manor): Rob Arrow (aka Rob Lipschutz) in morning
drive, PD Chris Herrmann 10-3, veteran New York jock Jimmy Fink
from 3-7 PM and Paul "Mars" Marszalek from 7-midnight.
Sorry to report the passing of Gary Stevens - not the former
WMCA "Good Guy" who did well for himself as a station
broker, but the 87-year-old former radio writer and producer
for NBC and CBS. This Gary Stevens produced "20 Questions,"
and later in life hosted a talk show on WVOX (1460 New Rochelle).
He died May 17.
What's this about WGY-TV in Albany? Those heritage calls never
appeared on TV, amazingly enough - the sister station to WGY
radio was WRGB, whose calls came from GE executive W.R.G. Baker
- but we hear that they may surface soon. Clear Channel now owns
WGY (810 Schenectady), and we have it on pretty good authority
that the company's ready to change the calls of Fox affiliate
WXXA (Channel 23) in Albany to something similar to "WGY."
We'd heard WWGY, but those calls just got grabbed in Pennsylvania,
and while it's been a while since the FCC's been asked to issue
a new five-letter call (a three-letter base call plus "-TV"),
we suspect an application to flip channel 23 to WGY-TV would
probably be granted. Stay tuned...
Syracuse's "K-Rock" (WKRL 100.9 North Syracuse/WKRH
105.9 Minetto) has a new morning show, as Marcus Witt comes in
from WXTM in Cleveland to take the place of "F'n Kevin,"
who's off to New York City.
Here in Rochester, we've thought we've been noticing a one-bay
FM antenna up there on the roof of the HSBC Bank building that's
home to Infinity's four FM stations, and we weren't imagining
things: WZNE (94.1 Brighton), WCMF (96.5 Rochester), WPXY (97.9
Rochester) and WRMM (101.3 Rochester) have 1000-watt auxiliary
facilities up there now. (WPXY's was just granted this week,
which means one fewer silent channel during shutdowns of its
main site on Pinnacle Hill...)
 Bill
Nenno, longtime host on WGVA (1240 Geneva) and WFLR (1570/95.9
Dundee), died June 9. He was 85.
Family Life Network gets another translator: W205CB (88.9
Cayuga Heights) will give the regional religious network a stronger
signal in the Ithaca area.
And in Buffalo, Maria Genero's gone from WKBW (Channel 7),
where she had been out sick from her morning anchor job since
April. The station has also cut loose assistant news director
Nancy Sanders, and the Buffalo News' Alan Pergament reports
that consumer reporter Mary Travers is also headed out.
*In MASSACHUSETTS, Matt Ellis is the
new news director at WBZ-TV (Channel 4) in Boston, where he had
been acting ND since the departure of Peter Brown. (NERW had
prematurely reported a few months back that former WHDH-TV ND
Jacques Natz would be returning from Indianapolis and WTHR-TV
to take the gig; while we hear negotiations with Natz were ongoing
until just recently, the two sides just couldn't reach a satisfactory
deal and Natz is staying put.)
 Up
in Newburyport, they're mourning the passing of WNBP (1450) GM
Al Mozier. He began his radio career at the old WMEX, moved to
WNBP (then a daytimer on 1470) way back in 1957 when the station
was brand new, then got out of the business for a while to join
the Army and teach at a Catholic School. Mozier came back to
WNBP in 1998 as its GM when his old friend "Doc" Fuller
bought the station, and he stayed there ever since. Mozier died
last Tuesday (June 15) at age 63.
Where are they now? Former WBZ (1030 Boston) PD Tyler Cox
has been in Dallas for quite a while now, first at WBAP, then
at KRLD, where we visited him a couple of years ago. Now he's
leaving the PD chair of KRLD to take over talk programming for
Salem Communications, replacing Tom Tradup, who's now co-hosting
Salem's morning show with Bill Bennett (heard in Boston on WTTT
1150.)
*In CONNECTICUT, Marshall Miles leaves
WKZE (1020 Sharon) to focus his energy on Tri-State Public Communications,
which operates the public access cable channels in northwestern
Connecticut (where "Marshall in the Morning" is seen
every weekday.)
Over at WICC (600 Bridgeport), news guy Eric Levy is leaving
after a year and half, headed to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Across the
hall, WEBE (107.9 Westport) is losing morning co-host/traffic
reporter Cathy Taylor.
And we hear Pete Salant, one of the geniuses behind "Nine!"
back in the day, has a new gig programming WDBY (105.5 Patterson
NY) in the Danbury market. (Speaking of "Nine!," we're
keeping a close eye on the new "Nine-FM," WRZA 99.9
Park Forest, in the Chicago market...)
*A few translator grants in VERMONT:
Vermont Public Radio gets W255AY (98.9 Montgomery) and W298AR
(107.5 Sharon), and its application for 99.5 Newbury is cleared
for processing.
*In MAINE, Light of Life Ministries
is granted a CP for W264BG (100.7 Benedicta), which will relay
WWWA (95.3 Winslow).
*And in CANADA, Jeff Brown moves
from MD/afternoons at Q107 (CILQ 107.1 Toronto) to PD of Ottawa's
CHEZ (106.1).
*Finally this week, we know it's already
June - but perhaps a bargain price will convince you that you
still need a 2004 calendar. After all, the 2004 Tower Site
Calendar is more than just a bunch of boxes with dates
in them - it's also a collection of some of the niftiest broadcast
transmission facilities in North America.
 Still
on the way for later this year are WMT Cedar Rapids IA, WPTF
Raleigh NC, WAJR Morgantown WV, the mighty 12-tower night site
of 1190 in Dallas (KFXR, at least this week), Lookout Mountain
in Denver (shown at left), CKLW in Windsor and WBT in Charlotte,
not to mention lots of fun anniversary dates for stations large
(Channel 9 in New York) and small (WFAR Farrell PA).
And as we get ready to put the 2005 edition of the calendar
into production, we're offering a special deal to clear out our
stock of 2004 calendars. For just $8 postpaid (New York
orders add 66 cents sales tax for a total of $8.66), you can
still own a 2004 Tower Site Calendar.
Maybe you need an extra for the office, or you've marked up
your copy and you'd like a pristine one to stash away, or perhaps
you've been meaning to get one as a gift for that special someone.
Or perhaps you're just cheap (hey, this is radio, after
all!) Doesn't matter; the point is, this is your best chance
to get a 2004 Tower Site Calendar at a bargain price.
Order this week, and we'll even throw in a third calendar,
free, if you order two. (That's $16 postpaid, $17.32 in
New York State!)
We'll also throw in an extra calendar, free, for anyone
who subscribes to NERW at the $60 level. Remember, your support
is what keeps NERW coming to you week after week.
Now what more could you want? (A live jock at 3 AM, 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 ($0.66 per calendar) for New York
state calendar orders only, and send them along to 92 Bonnie
Brae Avenue, Rochester NY 14618. (Sorry - we can't take orders
by phone.)
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2004 by Scott Fybush. |