Air America Moves in Vermont

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August 22, 2005 -

• Nexstar and Sinclair announced that they're entering into a joint services agreement under which Nexstar's WROC-TV (Channel 8) in Rochester, NEW YORK will handle most of the operations of Sinclair's WUHF (Channel 31). NERW has learned some of the key details of the arrangement, and it includes the shutdown of WUHF's quasi-local "News Central" 10 PM newscast. That program will go off the air September 1, with 26 of WUHF's employees (including news anchors Melanie Barnas and Ty Chandler) joining the staff of WROC and 26 more losing their jobs. Later this fall, WUHF will relaunch its 10 PM news as a half-hour broadcast produced by the WROC news staff.
• In CANADA's largest market, the handful of viewers who ever noticed "Toronto 1" (CKXT Channel 52) in its first couple of years of operation will now have to get used to a new name. The independent channel changed hands from Craig to Quebecor earlier this year as part of CHUM's acquisition of Craig. That deal brought the Craig "A-Channel" name to the former CHUM "NewNet" stations across Ontario, and it forced the spinoff of Toronto 1, which now leads to the new identity there. Quebecor, of course, is the owner of the Toronto Sun, and the company hopes that the new "SUN-TV" name for the station will tap into the popularity of the downmarket tabloid paper, much as Quebecor's Journal de Montreal and Journal de Quebec cross-promote with the company's TVA network to great success in Francophone Canada. And it's no surprise at all that the rebranded SUN-TV will focus its programming on sports and entertainment; the station's ambitious news efforts were already mainly history by the time Quebecor took over.
• In MASSACHUSETTS, it's a busy week at the Entercom cluster, where WRKO (680 Boston) program director Mike Elder is the latest executive to leave the talk station. This move doesn't appear to be related to the departure a week earlier of GM Tom Baker, whose job was eliminated in an apparent cost-saving measure; instead, it's a big opportunity for Elder, who heads to New York to become director of talk programming at fast-growing Fox News Radio. Even so, it makes for a big challenge for WRKO, which has been facing tough competition from Greater Media's WTKK (96.9 Boston).
• It was a bad week for a legendary PENNSYLVANIA station. The studios of KDKA (1020 Pittsburgh), along with sister stations KDKA-TV (Channel 2) and WNPA (Channel 19), sit in a prominent spot at Gateway Center, at the "Golden Triangle" where the city's three rivers converge. It's a nice location, but it's also subject to flooding, as the station found out when a 36-inch water main burst just down the street on Wednesday. The TV stations were hit the hardest, as their graphics computers, news cameras and remote trucks were all located in the basement of the complex, where they were more or less ruined by the water. (So, for that matter, were many employees' personal vehicles.) If that wasn't bad enough, on Friday a small fire in an elevator forced the building to be evacuated mid-afternoon, sending KDKA-TV's news outside and leaving KDKA radio afternoon host Fred Honsberger alone in the building. (He was eventually persuaded to leave, too, and he continued his show by cellphone from outside for a while.) It's a good thing KDKA's owner, Infinity, has studio facilities elsewhere in town for its other stations; KDKA was able to set up temporary studios at the Infinity offices in Greentree while it dealt with the issues downtown.

August 20, 2001 -

• It's been a quiet week here in NERW-land...except when it comes to Albany and the rest of NEW YORK's Hudson Valley. On Friday, Tele-Media announced it was exiting the Capital Region with a $7 million sale of its four-station cluster. The buyer? Rival Pamal Broadcasting (doing business in the market as Albany Broadcasting), which will keep only two of the Tele-Media stations, modern AC WCPT (100.9 Albany) and its "Point" sister up in the Glens Falls market, WKBE (100.3 Warrensburg). To stay under the ownership cap, Tele-Media will sell the other two stations, news WABY (1400 Albany) and soft AC WKLI (94.5 Ravena), to Ed Levine's Galaxy Broadcasting for $3.5 million.
• Let's jump into analysis mode here: Pamal already has a solid cluster in the Albany market, led by AC WYJB (95.5 Albany), CHR WFLY (92.3 Troy) and talker WROW (590 Albany), but also including urban WAJZ (96.3 Voorheesville) and smooth jazz WZMR (104.9 Altamont). Where does WCPT, wedged formatically between WYJB and WFLY, fit in? WCPT has been ratings-challenged for a while now, and while Pamal has taken on market-leading country station WGNA (107.7/1460 Albany) before, with the station that's now WAJZ, we'd have to imagine that another attack isn't impossible. What role WKBE will play in this, we can't quite fathom...
• The real wild card in this deal is Albany radio veteran Levine, who served as PD of WPYX (106.5 Albany) in the eighties before building his own set of radio clusters in Syracuse and Utica. (Little-known trivia: Levine's WTKW in the Syracuse market was named in homage to the long-defunct WXKW 850 in Albany.)
• # There's not much news from New England this week: in MAINE, Cumulus ditched adult standards from WFAU (1280 Gardiner) in favor of a simulcast of sports talk from WSKW (1160 Skowhegan), leaving central Maine without a standards station. In NEW HAMPSHIRE, Manchester Radio Partners' application for a new station on 750 in Manchester was dismissed. From MASSACHUSETTS comes word that Entercom's new Brighton studios for WRKO (680 Boston) were officially dedicated today in memory of the late talk host Andy Moes. RHODE ISLAND listeners and viewers are mourning Jack Burns. The former DJ, TV crime reporter (on WPRI-TV from the eighties until 1999) and Amtrak conductor died Saturday (Aug. 18) at age 71. CONNECTICUT saw some revolving doors this week, at least in the southeastern corner. After a couple of years as PD of WKCD (107.7 Pawcatuck), Frank "Franco" Carafano returned to his old job as morning man at WQGN (105.5 Groton), where he spent 14 years before leaving in June 1999; meantime, crosstown WAKX (102.3 Stonington) is looking for a new morning host, now that "Jake" (Bob Mitchell) has left the building. A quick bit of useless TV news: W69CL (Channel 69) in Hartford is changing calls to WHCT-LP, resurrecting the longtime calls of channel 18, before that station became Univision's WUVN last year.
• VERMONT's Brian Dodge found himself behind bars this week after allegedly violating his probation. Dodge, who owns WWNH (1340 Madbury NH) and a string of translators, pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in May to settle a domestic assault charge for allegedly attacking his wife. Under the terms of his probation, Dodge was barred from contacting his wife and was ordered to seek counseling. The Rutland Herald reported this week that Dodge never obtained that counseling, so he's in jail without bail until the matter can be settled.

New England Radio Watch, August 22, 1996

• A well-known set of Boston call letters has quietly returned to town. WROR was 98.5 FM under RKO and later Atlantic Ventures from the late 1960s until 1991. Now Greater Media has laid claim to the calls, using them for now to replace the equally-historic WMEX calls on leased- time ethnic AM 1150. The expectation around town is that WROR(AM) on 1150 is just a temporary move to hold the calls until they can resurface in a few weeks on one of Greater Media's two country FMs, either WBCS on 96.9 or WKLB on 105.7. At least one of the best-known personalities from WROR's glory days as an oldies and later as an AC station is currently available. Joe Martelle was dropped as morning host earlier this year at the former WROR, now WBMX. His non-compete clause expires in December, and after that he's free to move over to what may become the new WROR-FM. No word yet on what calls 1150 will end up with (although it's a good bet that the WMEX calls will be snapped up somewhere else very quickly.)
• Ironically, when ARS changed the original WROR to WBMX, they deliberately tried to get the calls out of town. ARS bought the WBMX calls from AM 640 in Zeeland, Michigan, and in turn sent the WROR calls out there to occupy 640. In the years that followed, though, Michigan's WROR(AM) became first WISZ, "Radio Aahs," and now WMFN, "The Fan," leaving the WROR calls open for a return to Boston.
• More to come, no doubt, as Greater Media keeps dropping clues about where it's going with 96.9 and 105.7 in Boston. The latest rumors seem to add up to 96.9 staying country, although perhaps inheriting the WKLB calls from 105.7, and 105.7 becoming some sort of hot AC, possibly as WROR-FM, on or about September 5. Stay tuned...