December 6, 2004
WAQX-Stern Feud Escalates
 THURSDAY
UPDATE: WBZ's David Brudnoy
died this evening at Massachusetts General Hospital, less than
24 hours after saying a final farewell to his listeners in a
recorded interview with Gary LaPierre.
David was a friend, a colleague, a teacher,
and one of the most interesting people ever to sit behind a microphone
anywhere in the business.
We'll have a full remembrance of him
in Monday's NERW.
TUESDAY UPDATE: We're saddened to report the death yesterday
of Bill Coffey, veteran morning man at Rochester's WBEE-FM (92.5).
Coffey suffered a heart attack shortly after ending Monday's
show, which he did by ISDN from his suburban Philadelphia home.
Bill was just 56. Much more next week in NERW...
*Howard Stern has, as his website
reminds us daily, just over a year left on his contract with
Viacom - but his prolonged departure for his new gig at Sirius
Satellite Radio just seems to get more and more tortured, especially
for listeners in central NEW YORK. Syracuse Stern affiliate
WAQX (95.7 Manlius) was the flashpoint last week of a dispute
that had been brewing ever since Judy Ellis, COO of WAQX's parent
company, Citadel, complained during the NAB Radio Show in early
October about Stern's show turning into a non-stop ad for Sirius.
So it was that 95X - along with Citadel-owned Stern affiliates
in York PA (WQXA-FM 105.7), Providence (WWKX 106.3 Woonsocket/WAKX
102.7 Narragansett Pier) and New Bedford (WKKB 100.3 Middletown
RI) - last week began cutting off the Stern show at 10 each morning
and getting on with their usual weekday programming.
"It became too much," wrote 95X music director/midday
jock Ryno on the station's website, saying Stern's show had,
in effect, become a lengthy infomercial for satellite radio.
And Stern, inevitably, turned the whole incident into his latest
cause celebre, making Citadel's decision the focus of
several shows later in the week - and announcing that he'd begin
a $20,000 giveaway contest that would depend on clues that he'd
only announce after 10 each morning.
At least at press time Sunday, Citadel was sticking by its
decision, even as Stern threatened legal action; NERW suspects
this is a fight that will drag on for however long as Stern keeps
doing his broadcast show, as stations that have been loyal Stern
affiliates begin to consider how they move on to whatever comes
next.
 *For
Infinity's WBUF (92.9) in Buffalo, the post-Stern future appears
to involve still more talk: last Monday, the station dropped
most of the remaining active rock from its schedule and reimaged
itself as "Buffalo's FM Talk," adding Tom Leykis in
the evening and some weekend programming (including All Comedy
Radio) to a schedule that already includes Stern, Brother Wease
from Rochester's WCMF, Don & Mike and Loveline. (Speculation
is that Wease will eventually slide into WBUF's morning slot
once Stern is gone.)
WBUF has had a rocky road over the last few years, flipping
frantically from smooth jazz WSJZ to modern AC WLCE ("Alice
@ 92.9") to active rock, then adding increasing amounts
of talk in recent years. Will this be the format that works there?
Stay tuned...
 Up in
Saranac Lake, listeners to WNBZ (1240) had a hard time staying
tuned last week, thanks to a windstorm that hit the North Country
hard on the weekend of Nov. 27-28.
WNBZ's tower fell victim to the winds, as you can see above
(there are more pictures to be seen on WNBZ's
own website), leaving the station silent for the early part
of last week. By later in the week, engineers had strung up a
longwire antenna and restored the station to the air at low power;
they're now trying to get a replacement tower erected before
the really nasty weather kicks in up there.
In the Albany market, the impending move-in of WNYQ (105.7
Queensbury) from the Glens Falls area to suburban Malta will
get a boost from another allocation change across the state line,
about which more in a moment. In any event, when Vox moves WNYQ
south to Malta, it will be not as a class A signal (6 kW) but
as a class B1 (25 kW), providing considerably increased coverage
of the Albany market.
We hear that WRWD (1370 Ellenville) is indeed now simulcasting
country WRWD-FM (107.3 Highland) from the Poughkeepsie market,
for whatever that's worth.
The New York Yankees will begin the 2005 season with a new
voice in the announcers' booth, as Suzyn Waldman takes over from
Charlie Steiner alongside John Sterling. Expect Sterling to handle
all the play-by-play, with Waldman handling color. (And yes,
we're resisting the temptation to say something about Jason Giambi
here, much as we're tempted...)
And out on Long Island, our best wishes go out to Paul Sidney,
the driving force behind the one-of-a-kind sound of WLNG (92.1
Sag Harbor). Paul's had to scale his usual busy on-air schedule
to zero for the moment as he struggles with some health issues.
He's receiving cards and notes forwarded to him from WLNG, 23
Redwood Causeway, PO Box 2300, Sag Harbor NY 11963.
 *The
other half of the WNYQ upgrade we alluded to earlier is in western
MASSACHUSETTS, where Vox won the FCC's permission last
week to move WBEC-FM (105.5 Pittsfield) some 30 miles east to
Easthampton, which will land it squarely in the Springfield market
on the other side of the Berkshires. The buzz in the Pittsfield
market suggests that the "Live 105.5" top 40 format
and the WBEC-FM calls won't disappear when the move takes place,
likely landing at one of Vox's other FMs in the market, either
WUPE (95.9 Pittsfield) or WMNB (100.1 North Adams).
The first of December wasn't covered in snow, as it happened,
but at the other end of the turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston,
the day did bring a format change of sorts at troubled WBIX (1060
Natick). Former station owner Alex Langer reassumed control of
the station, under the supervision of bankruptcy receiver David
Vicinanzo, and that meant the end of the business-talk format
that Brad Bleidt had been programming there. For the moment,
Langer is programming talk from his National Radio Network, largely
the same material being heard on WPYT (660 Wilkinsburg-Pittsburgh)
and WVFC (1530 McConnellsville) in Pennsylvania; the hope, it
would seem, is to restore some financial stability to 1060 so
it can eventually be sold and at least some of Bleidt's debts
(in no small part to Langer, who held the note on the station)
repaid. As for WBIX's staff, they're largely out of work, which
is a shame - there's no reason to suspect that any of them knew
anything about Bleidt's financial misdeeds.
Gregg Daniels returns to WBMX (98.5 Boston) today to reclaim
his old afternoon slot (2-7 PM) after a stint in New York that
included time at WNEW (102.7) as it went through its format throes
of the last few years; his replacement at WBMX, Tom Mitchell,
is headed back to Las Vegas to resume his old shift
at KMXB (94.1 Henderson) out there. (And that Tom Mitchell's
not to be confused with the programming honcho at Syracuse's
93Q, either!)
We're pleased to report that WBZ talk host Paul Sullivan is
not only out of the hospital but even back at work for some light
duty (at the Lowell Sun) after undergoing brain surgery,
but that's tempered by the news that BZ's David Brudnoy checked
himself in to the hospital on Friday to undergo some tests to
see why he's been unable to shake a cold. As always, our best
wishes to both Paul and David for speedy recoveries!
*Up in NEW HAMPSHIRE, Joe Collie (late
of WLNH, WOTX and WZID) has joined the staff of WASR (1420 Wolfeboro)
as operations manager. Joe is hosting the "Morning Report"
every weekday at WASR, and the station has also added newsblocks
from 12-12:30 PM and 5-6 PM to its AC format (which we hear could
itself undergo a shift early in 2005...)
Over at New Hampshire Public Radio, Mark Handley announced
last week that he'll be retiring in October 2005 after 15 years.
Handley came to NHPR when it was just one station, WEVO (89.1
Concord), playing a mix of classical, jazz and NPR news; he leaves
the network as a web of signals that nearly blanket the Granite
State with a much more news-heavy approach. NHPR's board is launching
a search for a replacement, but they're not expected to name
anyone until at least next summer. (Handley, meanwhile, plans
to spend several years - yes, years - sailing across
the Pacific Ocean with his wife, Judy, after his retirement.)
 And while we don't
usually pay much attention to college radio management changes,
here's one that bears noting: WRCU (90.1 Hamilton NY) at Colgate
University has named Jeffrey Smidt '07 as its general manager
for 2005. That's Jeffrey Clark Smidt, son of veteran New
England broadcaster Clark Smidt...and now you know the rest of
the story. (Congratulations to both Smidts!)
*In southern VERMONT, the Brattleboro
Reformer reports that WOOL-LP (100.1 Bellows Falls)
is struggling to get on the air before the winter weather sets
in. The "Great Falls Community Broadcasting Company"
had to relocate its studios to another building after realizing
that the original offices on Canal Street were right below a
printing press - and the volunteers still don't know if they'll
be able to get their antenna mounted on Mount Kilburn while conditions
still permit. If they can't, they plan to sign on with a webcast
and then add the broadcast signal in the spring.
*One little RHODE ISLAND note:
David Maxson has flipped his Newport translator, W243AI (96.5),
to a relay of WMVY (92.7 Vineyard Haven MA), giving the very
cool AAA station a new listener base on Aquidneck Island. (W243AI
had been relaying Boston's WCRB and its Rhode Island sister station,
WCRI, in recent years.)
*Call it NEW JERSEY,
or call it PENNSYLVANIA - in either case, the new 107.9
signal that's licensed to Pennsauken NJ and serves Philadelphia
signed on for real last week. Radio One has already flipped the
callsign again, from the interim WPPZ (which replaced the old
WSNJ-FM calls from its days down in Bridgeton on 107.7) to WRNB.
Those calls come from Radio One's Dayton, Ohio station on 92.1
(which reverts to its old calls of WROU-FM), and they signify
the station's new adult R&B format. The rumor mill suggests,
rather strongly, that the new WRNB will step up its challenge
to Clear Channel's market-dominating WDAS-FM (105.3 Philadelphia)
by making a play for the syndicated Tom Joyner morning show,
which airs on WDAS but is now owned by Radio One.
Meanwhile over at sports WIP (610 Philadelphia), they're mourning
Neal Newman, the station's assistant PD, who died last Thursday
(Dec. 2) of a heart attack. Newman, whose career began in the
Lehigh Valley and included stops at WRAW, WAEB and at FMQB,
was just 49. (And we'll be careful not to confuse this Neal Newman,
whose real name was Neal M. Welsh, with the Neal Newman who engineers
a number of New Jersey radio stations...)
It looks as though the saga of WCBG (1590 Chambersburg PA)
has come to a close. The Verstandig Broadcasting station has
been threatened for several years by the city's construction
of a water tower a few hundred feet from its four-tower array
near I-81. Construction of the water tower had to be halted because
workers kept getting shocks from the high RF field created by
the nearby transmitter (something Verstandig says consultants
to the city should have anticipated), and that prompted city
officials to try to condemn the land on which WCBG's towers sat,
a move Verstandig fought fiercely. Both sides have apparently
come to a settlement after nearly two years of legal tussles,
and WCBG signed off Saturday night for what was apparently the
last time. More on this, no doubt, next week. (WCBG had been
running CNN Headline News.)
Here's something not to do if you work as a reporter for a
radio station: don't call the operators of a political website
and leave voicemail saying, "I wanted to tell you that you're
evil, horrible people. You're awful people. You represent horrible
ideas. God hates you and he wants to kill your children. You
should all burn in hell. Bye." Or if you must, it would
at least be a good idea not to leave your name and your office
phone number, as Rachel Buchman of public radio station WHYY
(90.9 Philadelphia) did when calling the folks at laptoplobbyist.com
over Thanksgiving weekend. Buchman, who had also worked for WILM
(1450) in Wilmington, Delaware, resigned from WHYY last week
after the website made her message public; she had been a part-timer
there, helping to produce the daily Radio Times talk
show.
 And out in western
Pennsylvania, Nick Galli is getting back into broadcasting. Galli
was one of the principals of the old Burbach Broadcasting group,
and now he's paying Al Dame $8 million for his stations in the
Johnstown and State College markets. In Johnstown, Galli gets
rock WQKK (92.1), CHR WGLU (99.1 Ebensburg), oldies WCCL (101.7
Central City) and southern gospel WYSN (1330 Somerset); in State
College, the cluster includes news-talk WBLF (970 Bellefonte)
and WRSC (1390 State College), classic rock WBUS (93.7 Boalsburg),
rock WQWK (97.1 University Park) and rhythmic CHR WJHT (107.9
Port Matilda).
*CANADA? It's still up there - or
at least we can still hear some of its radio stations - but it
was a quiet week indeed on the broadcast scene, with just a few
all-Christmas format flips (CFFX 960 Kingston and CJUL 1220 Cornwall)
to report.
 *It's
not a quiet week here at NERW Central - in addition to some dental
surgery (ow!), we're busy shipping out the Tower Site Calendar
2005 to radio fans from coast to coast and far beyond
(would you believe New Zealand?)
It's getting a little late for trans-Pacific delivery in time
for the holidays, but you can still have your calendar
in plenty of time if you order now. We're shipping them out daily,
and we'd be delighted to set one (or two, or three, or 30) aside
for you.
This year's calendar begins with WSTW/WDEL in Wilmington,
Delaware on the cover, ends with Sutro Tower in San Francisco
on the inside back cover - and along the way makes stops at WNBF
in Binghamton, CFNB in Fredericton, Poor Mountain in Roanoke,
KXNT in Las Vegas, WBBR in New York, Gibraltar Peak above Santa
Barbara, WDEV in Waterbury, Vermont, WRIB in Providence, WOOD
in Grand Rapids, KFJZ in Fort Worth, KYPA in Los Angeles and
the top of Chicago's Hancock Tower.
(You can see some previews of this year's calendar images
at Tower Site
of the Week - this week, it's Miss January, WNBF in Binghamton...)
We're holding the price from last year, notwithstanding increases
in printing costs and PayPal fees - just $16 postpaid ($17.32
including sales tax to New York addresses). And as always, it's
free with your $60 or higher subscription to NorthEast Radio
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And here's an even better deal - We still have
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2004 editions. It's almost like getting an extra calendar free!
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