January 8, 2007
WNEW Gets "Fresh"
TOWER SITE CALENDAR 2007 - NOW SHIPPING!!!
*The new year brought yet another new format
to one of NEW YORK's more troubled FM frequencies of late,
as CBS Radio made a January 2 (1-02-7, get it?) flip on WNEW
(102.7 New York), ditching rhythmic AC "Mix 102.7"
in favor of "Fresh 102.7" adult contemporary.
By the
time the flip finally happened at 5 AM Tuesday, it was no big
surprise - the entire "Mix" airstaff was already out
the door before the format changed, and the new URL (fresh1027.com)
had already been sniffed out by the usual messageboard crowds.
The new format wasn't hard to figure out, either - after recent
talent changes at Clear Channel's longtime market-leading AC
"Lite" (WLTW 106.7), there's probably as much chance
of stealing some of Lite's audience as there's been in years.
No airstaff has been announced yet for the new "Fresh,"
though we'd be stunned if they weren't at least talking with
ousted Lite staffers such as Bill Buchner and J.J. Kennedy. One
big change, though: after the WNEW calls survived FM talk, two
incarnations of "Blink," and several versions of "Mix,"
they're finally being retired from 102.7 just shy of their fiftieth
anniversary there. Mark down "WWFS" as the new calls
for "Fresh" - and look for the WNEW calls to follow
much of their old audience south to Florida, where CBS Radio
will park them in its West Palm Beach cluster.
Speaking of heading south, that's where a lot of CBS Radio
staffers will be heading in 2008, as the company prepares to
move all of its New York radio stations except WCBS (880) to
the 10th and 11th floors of 345 Hudson Street. The move will
take WINS (1010) and WWFS from their aging studios at 888 Seventh
Avenue, WCBS-FM (101.1) from its digs in the former WLTW space
in the Viacom building at 1515 Broadway and WFAN (660) from the
basement of the old Kaufman Astoria studios in Queens - and it
will put them all in an area that's becoming a hotbed of radio,
including the Emmis stations (WQHT/WQCD/WRKS) just up Hudson
Street, the new WNYC studios under construction a few blocks
away, and the upcoming move of Clear Channel's five FMs to 32
Avenue of the Americas.
(WCBS 880, by the way, is staying put at its 2000-vintage
studios on the eighth floor of the CBS Broadcast Center on W.
57th Street - and it's getting a new anchor/reporter, as Joe
Avellar moves over from Channel 4, WNBC. It also appears that
"Free FM" WFNY-FM will stay put at its fairly new digs
on W. 56th Street.)
New York's big Spanish-language FM stations are staying put
in Midtown, but their biggest air talent is on the move. Luis
Jimenez, "El Vacilon de la Manana," the top-rated morning
man on SBS' WSKQ (97.9), didn't renew his contract when it expired
at year's end. Jimenez has signed a deal with competitor Univision
Radio that will keep him off the radio airwaves in New York until
2008, when he'll join the staff at WCAA (105.9 Newark NJ)/WZAA
(92.7 Garden City). In the meantime, he'll be on the air for
Univision elsewhere in the country - and he may be seen on Univision's
TV networks, too. (His morning crew from WSKQ, meanwhile, is
reportedly staying at that station, as is the "Vacilon"
name for the morning show.)
Eight years after it brought Radio Disney to the New York
City airwaves with a long-term LMA of WQEW (1560) from the New
York Times Company, Disney is turning its management of the 50,000-watt
AM signal into an outright purchase. It's exercising an option
to buy WQEW for $40 million, with the deal set to close within
a few months. The Times Company, which is also selling its TV
station group (more on that in our Pennsylvania section, below),
says it has no intention of selling its last remaining broadcast
property, WQXR-FM (96.3).
Congratulations to Alex Roman - just a few years after coming
to New York from California as chief engineer at WKTU (103.5
Lake Success), he's taking on one of the most prestigious engineering
jobs in the city, replacing Kevin Plumb as chief engineer of
WABC (770)/WPLJ (95.5).
We'll be looking forward to seeing Alex - and most of the
rest of the New York engineering community - on Thursday morning,
when WOR (710) tries again to take down its old three-tower array
in Lyndhurst. An invitation-only viewing party will take place
at WOR's new site a mile away in East Rutherford; we'll have
pictures for you Thursday night on Tower
Site of the Week, and maybe even some video, if we can make
it all work right. Stay tuned!
Moving on to Long
Island, the end of 2006 and the start of 2007 brought some big
changes on the radio dial, most of them having to do with Michael
Metter's Business Talk Radio Network. Just after Christmas, BTRN
announced a purchase of The Morey Organization's three remaining
FMs on the East End of Long Island. While no format changes are
planned for modern rock WLIR (107.1 Hampton Bays) or dance WDRE
(105.3 Calverton-Roanoke), the active rock format at WBON (98.5
Westhampton) is already history, with a New Year's flip to business
talk under new calls WBZB. (Those are the calls BTRN briefly
placed on the former WBET 1460 in Brockton, Mass., before changing
that station to WXBR.)
(We're still trying to nail down the purchase price for the
three stations; thus far, the FCC has only posted transfer applications
for WLIR and WBON/WBZB, at $1.75 million each. And while BTRN's
press release says it's buying all three signals from TMO, its
transfer application for WLIR says it's buying only WLIR and
WBON/WBZB. Stay tuned!)
But while BTRN boosted its reach in eastern Suffolk County,
it's losing its signal in Nassau and western Suffolk. It's been
LMA'ing WLIE (540 Islip) from Stu Henry, but now that AM facility
is getting a new owner. Otto Miller's Principal Broadcasting
Network, which bought WJDA/WESX in Massachusetts last year, is
paying $14 million for WLIE and will flip it to leased-time ethnic
religion upon closing.
Moving upstate, Albany's WAMC is paying a total of $125,000
for W257BL (99.3 Oneonta) and W296BD (107.1 Warwick). WAMC already
has a translator in Oneonta, W205AJ (88.9), but the 99.3 signal
has wider reach to better compete with Binghamton's WSKG, which
operates full-power relay station WSQC (91.7) in Oneonta.
Lots of news out of Albany itself this week: now that ESPN
Radio affiliate WTMM has migrated from AM 1300 to FM 104.5, the
AM signal, as expected, has relaunched as an outlet of Greenstone
Media's female-oriented talk network. The new slogan is "Eve
1300," and the new calls for the Rensselaer-licensed station
are WEEV. (Only the geekiest of radio geeks will note the similarity
to 1300's original calls, WEEE, from back in the early sixties;
yes, we count ourselves as part of that group.)
Longtime Albany talk host J.R. Gach is back on the air - on
the web, at least. He's launched a new afternoon talk show at
jrshowonline.com,
heard weekday afternoons from 3-6.
Albany-area fans of Don Imus will have to tune in to his New
York flagship, WFAN, or catch him on MSNBC; his show has been
dropped from its Capital District affiliate, WOFX (980 Troy),
replaced by Steve Czaban's Fox Sports Radio morning show.
In Syracuse, the "Beaner and Ken" morning show is
history at Citadel's WAQX (95.7 Manlius), replaced by Opie and
Anthony's syndicated show. Beaner and Ken had lost their Birmingham,
Alabama home base when Citadel flipped WRAX (100.5) to sports
as WJOX in late November, and their contract in Syracuse wasn't
renewed when it expired at year's end.
Just days before New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer took
on his new duties as governor, his office settled the payola
investigation it was conducting against Entercom. The broadcaster
will pay $4.25 million - $3.5 million to a music-education fund
and $750,000 to repay the state's costs - to settle the allegations
that it traded airplay for cash and gifts at its stations in
Buffalo and Syracuse. Entercom also agreed to ensure that airplay
on its paid overnight "CD Preview" and "CD Challenge"
programs isn't logged by music monitoring services, and it agrees
not to use independent record promoters' services.
A well-known voice is back on the air in Rochester: almost
three years after leaving WXXI (1370) for the world of government,
news guy Mark Giardina is doing weekends and occasional reporting
for WYSL (1040 Avon).
Speaking of WYSL, it and WHTK (1280 Rochester) will bring
Rochester Knighthawks lacrosse back to the airwaves this year.
After a season that was webcast-only, WYSL will carry 8 K-Hawks
games this year, with 3 more on WHTK.
Digital TV viewers
who'd been watching "The Tube" music-video channel
on Sinclair's DTV stations are out of luck. With the coming of
new digital multicast rules that mandate educational programming
on DTV subchannels and EAS capability on digital TV and radio
subchannels, Sinclair pulled "The Tube" off its stations
(including WUHF-DT in Rochester, WPMY-DT in Pittsburgh, WGME-DT
in Portland and WGGB-DT in Springfield) on New Year's Eve; the
network remains on DTV subchannels of other stations operated
by Tribune (WPIX, WTXX, WPHL, WPMT), Barrington (WSTM), and several
other operators.
Two obituaries close out our New York report this week: Jim
Karvellas was the voice of the Baltimore/Washington Bullets before
moving to New York in the mid-seventies to announce Knicks and
Cosmos games. Karvellas called NBA games for CBS and USA Network
as well, eventually retiring to Tampa, where he died January
1 at 71.
In Rochester, Domingo Carbonell was one of the first Spanish-language
broadcasters, with shows heard on WCMF (96.5) and WROC (1280)
in the seventies. Carbonell died Dec. 28 at 79.
What were
the top 10 radio and TV news stories in the northeastern US and
eastern Canada in 2006? We asked you - and we reviewed a year's
worth of NERW reporting - for our special "Year in Review"
2006. If you missed it last week, click on the logo to read all
about the year that was. |
*Talk radio listeners in eastern MASSACHUSETTS had
to rearrange their schedules as 2007 began, with some big programming
shifts at both Entercom's WRKO (680) and Greater Media's WTKK
(96.9).
At WRKO, Todd Feinburg's evening talk show is history, with
Feinburg moving temporarily into the former John DePetro slot
from 9-noon and Michael Savage filling the 7-10 PM slot, followed
by Jerry Doyle. (On nights when there's Celtics basketball or
- soon - Red Sox baseball in the evenings, Savage will be on
delay following the game.)
WRKO's still looking for a permanent show for late mornings,
though the station says Feinburg may remain part of that solution
when it's launched. It's also still courting former House speaker
Tom Finneran, who pleaded guilty to felony obstruction-of-justice
charges last week, for morning drive.
Meanwhile at WTKK, Michael Graham has also moved from evenings
to mid-mornings as part of a new lineup that cuts Don Imus off
at 9, followed by an hour of Mike Barnicle, then Graham from
10-noon and an expanded three-hour "Eagan and Braude"
show from noon-3. Bill O'Reilly now follows Jay Severin at 7,
and then Laura Ingraham's on from 9-midnight.
All those changes leave WBZ's Paul Sullivan as the last local
talk show standing in the evening hours, at least when the Bruins
aren't on the air. And while we're on the topic of WBZ, our one-week
break from regular NERW duty (you have checked out our 2006
Year in Review, haven't you?) means this is our first chance
to recap the last day on the air for legendary morning man Gary
LaPierre.
Reached
by phone early that morning, Gary sounded more than a little
uncertain about leaving the studios he's called home since 1964,
but with the festivities already well underway, there was no
turning back. Boston Mayor Tom Menino was among the dignitaries
who stopped by in person to wish Gary well, and Governor Mitt
Romney (who declared "Gary LaPierre Day" in the Commonwealth)
and Senator Ted Kennedy were among the callers who made it on
the air. (So did Boston broadcast legends Charles Laquidara and
Jess Cain.)
Behind the scenes (though visible on the WBZ webcast hosted
by Jordan Rich), the studios were packed with current and former
colleagues, including many faces your editor recognized from
his time at 1170 Soldiers Field Road in the early nineties. Gary's
family was there, too, including his wife, Peg, and his children
and grandchildren.
When the last newscast was over a few minutes past 9, Gary
signed off with his usual class, thanking all the managers he'd
worked for over the years (and drawing a huge laugh from the
crowd when he called some of them "idiots") - and finally
ending up in tears as he handed the mike over to his morning
sports partner of many years, Gil Santos. (Gil, in turn, declared
that there was nothing significant in the world of sports to
talk about, then devoted his sportscast to saying goodbye to
Gary.)
And a few minutes later, the entire staff of WBZ lined the
long hallway that leads from the radio/TV newsroom up to the
lobby, giving Gary and Peg a hero's farewell as he headed off
into retirement.
(Meanwhile, the segue to new morning anchor Ed Walsh was seamless;
after keeping an appropriately low profile on the air during
the LaPierre farewell, Walsh was on the air with the 9:30 newscast.)
More Radio People on the Move: Dana Marshall, former program
director at WXRV (92.5 Andover), has surfaced at AAA competitor
WBOS (92.9 Brookline), where she's now music director. Over at
CBS Radio's WODS (103.3), Chris Palermo has departed his production
director post. After almost two decades at WODS and before that
at WBZ, Chris is off to pursue his music and acting career, including
an upcoming cameo in the final season of The Sopranos. On
the TV front, former WLVI meteorologist Mike Wankum is now over
at WCVB (Channel 5) as a part-timer.
The transfer of what's now WKAF (97.7 Brockton) to Entercom
is now complete, after the FCC rejected several petitions from
listeners unhappy about the disappearance of the urban format
former owner Radio One was running as WILD-FM. Holding to its
long-established doctrine that it does not interfere with programming
decisions, the FCC ruled that it has no grounds on which to stop
the $30 million sale.
Out west, Dave Isby moves from afternoons at Vox's WUPE (1110
Pittsfield)/WUPE-FM (100.1 North Adams) to the GM's chair at
sister station WSBS (860 Great Barrington). "Big Mike"
Patrick moves from middays at Vox's WBEC-FM (95.9 Pittsfield)
to Isby's WUPE airshift, remaining operations manager for the
Pittsfield cluster and PD of WBEC-FM, as well.
*In CONNECTICUT, WELI (960 New Haven)
starts 2007 without a local newsroom. On December 30, Clear Channel
pulled the plug on local news at "Radio Towers Park,"
eliminating the jobs of Paul Paccelli and Steve Kalb. For the
moment, we're told WELI is carrying only national Fox News Radio
headlines and short headline updates voiced from WHJJ in Providence,
but it will soon have "local" news from Clear Channel's
Syracuse-based news hub.
Down the shore in Greenwich, Business Talk Radio Network's
WGCH (1490) is saying goodbye to its longtime studio at 1490
Dayton Avenue, now that its lease is up there. The station's
local operations will move to 71 Lewis Street in downtown Greenwich,
while BTRN's network operations will move to a new office at
401 Shippan Ave. in Stamford by the end of this month.
*An on-again, off-again AM facility in RHODE
ISLAND is reportedly off again. Word is that WALE (990 Greenville)
was silenced late last month after electric bills went unpaid
at its transmitter site.
At Clear Channel's WHJJ (920 Providence), afternoon news anchor
Bill Trifiro is out. PD/ND Bill George is handling afternoon
news duties for the moment there.
There's a new morning co-host at Hall's WCTK (98.1 New Bedford
MA), with Chris Reed moving south from sister station WOKO (98.9
Burlington VT) in two weeks to work alongside Chris Whitten.
*The new year brought a new format in NEW
HAMPSHIRE, as WSNI (97.7 Winchendon MA) relaunched with AC
(from ABC's "Hits and Favorites" satellite service)
as "Sunny 97.7."
Sister station WKBK (1290 Keene) shuffled its talk lineup
as well, dropping Howie Carr's afternoon show, moving Eric Scott
from late mornings to Carr's 3-6 PM slot, and moving Glenn Beck
from WZBK (1220) to the 10-noon slot on WKBK.
Up in Concord, Chris Ryan is the new morning news anchor at
WKXL (1450). The former WTPL (107.7) producer is also helping
out with local sports play-by-play, and hosting the weekend "NBA
Life with Matt Bonner" show, featuring Concord's hometown
pro basketball star.
*In
VERMONT, Anson Tebbetts is leaving WCAX (Channel 3) after
more than a dozen years at the station, most of it at the Montpelier
bureau. Tebbetts, who grew up on a dairy farm, will become Vermont's
deputy secretary of agriculture today. He signed off from WCAX
- including one last "Bird of the Week" feature - at
the end of December.
*There's an AM transmitter move to report
in northeast PENNSYLVANIA: Saturday was the scheduled
moving day for WBZU (910 Scranton) to leave its longtime tower
site on Davis Street south of downtown Scranton, diplexing with
WEJL (630 Scranton) on the tower atop the Scranton Times building
on Penn Avenue. (Irony alert: WEJL's predecessor, WQAN, began
as a share-timer with WBZU's predecessor, WGBI, broacasting from
the Davis Street site on 880 and then on 910.)
On the TV side of things, WNEP (Channel 16) is part of the
$575 million sale of the New York Times Company's television
station group. The buyer, Oak Hill Capital Partners, is controlled
by Texas investor Robert Bass. Meanwhile - and not related, as
best we can tell - WNEP executive VP/station manager Louis Abitabilo
is moving over to the competition, joining Nexstar's WBRE (Channel
28) as VP/general manager.
Down the road in Bloomsburg, WHLM (930) applies to double
its day power to 2000 watts. It remains at 18 watts at night,
non-directional.
In Philadelphia, the big news is the ongoing dispute over
Arbitron's attempt to launch the Portable People Meter (PPM)
ratings system. One of the two big holdouts, Radio One, agreed
last week to encode its broadcasts so they can be measured by
the PPM - but the other, Clear Channel, is still refusing to
participate in Arbitron's Philadelphia launch, slated for this
Thursday. Without Clear Channel's stations in the PPM fold, some
ad agencies are concerned that the ratings won't reflect actual
listening in the market, and a few are saying they may boycott
unencoded stations, or even the entire market.
The rest
of the week's Philly news also comes from those two clusters
- at Clear Channel, "Philly's 106.1" (WISX) has segued
to "My 106.1," with no change to its rhythmic AC format.
At Radio One, Monie Love is out of mornings at WPHI (100.3 Media),
with co-hosts Pooch and Laiya holding things down there for now.
In Pittsburgh, more changes at KDKA (1020): Lisa Alexander
is out as morning news reporter, while Paul Rasmussen joins from
Jacksonville's WQIK as co-anchor of the new "Total News
Hour" broadcasts at 5 PM and 6 PM.
*Just one headline from NEW JERSEY: WYGG
(88.1 Asbury Park) has been taken off the air after an FCC inspection
found that the station had moved without notifying the Commission.
WYGG shut down operations from the unlicensed site in late November;
it's since applied to resume broadcasting under an STA, telling
the FCC its licensed site is no longer available for use.
*The last full-power AM station on CANADA's
Prince Edward Island has finally gone silent. CFCY (630 Charlottetown)
spent much of late December broadcasting with an open carrier
after ending its AM programming and moving to 95.1 FM. Now it's
history - and so PEI becomes the first Canadian province to go
all-FM.
A former Canadian AM station is being remembered on the Web:
Montreal's Marc "Mais Oui" Denis has created a tribute
site to the old CFOX (1470), at marcdenis.com/cfox.
Check it out!
And we close this week with the obituary for longtime CBC
Toronto morning host Bruce Smith. He came to CBL (740) to do
mornings in 1947, and remained on that shift until moving to
afternoons in 1972. Smith retired in 1978. He died Dec. 26, at
age 87.
From
the NERW Archives
(Yup, we've been doing this a long time now, and
so we're digging back into the vaults for a look at what NERW
was covering one, five and ten years ago this week, or thereabouts
- the column appeared on an erratic schedule in its earliest
years as "New England Radio Watch," and didn't go to
a regular weekly schedule until 1997. Thanks to LARadio.com
for the idea - and thanks to you, our readers, for the support
that's made all these years of NERW possible!)
January 9, 2006 -
- Ed Levine's two Albany-market FMs relaunched for the new
year, dropping classic country on WEGQ (93.7 Scotia) and reworking
the rock format on WRCZ (94.5 Ravena) into a new simulcast called
"The Bone." JR Gach remains in place on the new station,
and new calls WOOB (93.7) and WBOE (94.3) are on the way.
- Sad news from Syracuse: WSYR (570) newsman Bill Leaf was
killed Sunday morning when his car was hit by another car being
driven the wrong way on I-81 near downtown Syracuse. Leaf, 25,
also did fill-in sports on WTVH (Channel 5). A 22 year old driver
from Rooseveltown faces charges of vehicular manslaughter and
DWI in connection with the crash.
- The big story from PENNSYLVANIA as 2006 dawned was the shakeup
at KDKA (1020 Pittsburgh), which abruptly axed three of its talk
hosts - mid-morning host Mike Pintek, evening sports host Paul
Alexander and night talker Mike Romigh. KDKA-TV reporter Marty
Griffin replaces Pintek in the 9-noon slot, and former PCNC talk
host John McIntire has been filling in on Romigh's former 9-midnight
slot, though he hasn't been formally announced as Romigh's replacement.
The shakeup also ousted reporter Kyle Anthony from the KDKA newsroom.
It did, however, bring in a new face to Gateway Center: Pittsburgh
native Marshall Adams will arrive later this month as KDKA's
news director, the first time that post has been filled in a
few years. Adams comes back to town from WBT in Charlotte, N.C..
January 7, 2002 -
- We'll start this year's news out in Lakeside, NEW JERSEY
- or is it Harriman, New York? In any event, the long-dormant
construction permit for the 550 kHz frequency in that suburban
area northwest of New York City may finally be on its last legs.
Under the call WKNJ, this CP has lingered for years, unable to
find a site on the New Jersey side of the line where a directional
array could be built, and finally resorting to a plan to move
across the state line and diplex with WRKL (910 New City) at
its Rockland County site.
- Just before the holidays, though, the FCC denied WKNJ additional
time to construct the station. Permittee Steven Wendell was granted
a three-year construction permit to replace his expired CP in
December, 1998 (this on a CP that was originally granted back
in 1998), and his request for additional time met with opposition
from WLUX, the Long Island station just down the dial at 540.
WLUX wants to add a second tower for higher power directional
operation, and it appears that task would be easier without having
to protect WKNJ's 250-watt daytime signal up in Rockland. It
doesn't look like this fight is over, though; Wendell filed an
application for special temporary authority, apparently to begin
testing from the WRKL site, and while the FCC dismissed it as
moot, we're fairly certain we haven't heard the end of WKNJ yet.
- More news from NEW YORK: We took a ride out to East Barre,
Orleans County last week just to see whether the Calvary folks
have really built WBJA (102.1 Albion), and the answer is an unqualified
"yes." This brand new tower, complete with two-bay
directional antenna, appears to be all ready to go, but WBJA
wasn't yet on the air when we drove out there December 29. 102.1
was hardly an empty frequency in Albion, though; parked at the
base of the tower, we were getting a city-grade signal from Toronto's
CFNY, just across the lake on 102.1. We know the FCC and CRTC
have decided to abandon essentially all protection for FM signals
across the border, but they can't repeal the laws of physics
- and we suspect WBJA won't be terribly pleased with all the
signal from CFNY wiping its own signal out in much of Orleans
County and beyond. (On the other hand, this was essentially a
throwaway allocation; it began as 95.5A, but then-Jacor, after
applying for and winning the CP, had it moved to 102.1 to allow
WNVE on 95.1 to move its antenna closer to Rochester. With that
accomplished, Clear Channel then donated the 102.1 CP to Calvary.)
One more note on this one before we move on: The FCC seems to
be confused about what channel WBJA is really on; several database
entries put it on 89.9, but we believe that's an inadvertent
typo.
- And up on the North Shore, WUMB has been testing its new
signal. WNEF (91.7 Newburyport) will have its inaugural broadcast
at 3 PM, Sunday, January 13, with special guests Cheryl Hoenemeyer,
Cormac McCarthy and Taylor and Jake Armerding. The transmitter
is located at the Adelphia Cable tower in Amesbury; it'll bring
WUMB's folk signal to an area north of Cape Ann that's never
heard the station before, while protecting co-channel WMWM (91.7
Salem) to the south. The calls, by the way, stand for "We're
New England Folk."
New England Radio Watch, January 8, 1997
- The big news as '97 gets rolling here
in New England is coming from American Radio Systems' flagship
talker, WRKO (680) Boston. Here's what we know for sure: After
decades of weekday work in Beantown, Jerry Williams is about
to be retired to a weekend slot on "The Talk Station."
Williams wrapped up his 10-AM-to-noon show Tuesday by noting
that he'd be on the air the rest of the week...but would announce
on Wednesday what would happen after that. Sources tell NERW
that Williams will move to the 1 to 4 pm spot Saturdays and Sundays,
with the weekday timeslot to be given to Dr. Laura Schlesinger,
who's already heard from 10pm to midnight on 'RKO. Williams has
been a Boston institution for more than 30 years, with stints
on WMEX, WITS, and WBZ, among others, before joinig WRKO. His
stature at WRKO has been slowly diminishing over the last few
years, as he's been shuffled from afternoon drive (displaced
by Howie Carr) to the present two-hour midday spot.
- Meantime, the morning picture at 'RKO
remains hazy. Co-host Marjorie Clapprood walked out on the air
Thursday morning, and WRKO pulled her counterpart, Pat Whitley,
to give both of them a "cooling-off period." Pat and
Marjorie's ratings have been on a steady decline -- and NERW
wonders if this could be a publicity stunt to get them some attention,
or perhaps a sign that Herald columnist Howie Carr (whose PM
drive talk show on WRKO and several other New England stations
has been the lone bright spot for 'RKO lately) will soon be moving
to mornings.
- A death in the family: Alan Okun, the
owner of WGFP (940) and WXXW (98.9) Webster MA and president
of the Massachusetts Broadcasters Association, died on December
31 in his hometown of Rochester NY. Okun was only in his forties.
He bought WGFP about a decade ago, and put WXXW on the air in
the early nineties. No word on what will become of the stations.
- In print: WBZ (1030) talk host David
Brudnoy has been reaping the publicity bonanza with the release
this week of his new autobiography, Life is Not a Rehearsal.
Favorable notices have included a review in last Thursday's New
York Times, as well as numerous TV appearances.
- From the Connecticut bureau: WREF (850)
Ridgefield CT has started simulcasting WLAD (800) Danbury, as
WLAD owner Berkshire Broadcasting prepares to buy WREF for $550,000.
UConn basketball is being seen on Connecticut Public TV (with
former UConn star Rebecca Lobo offering commentary) and heard
on WTIC (1080) Hartford, displacing some Whalers games to WTIC
sister WZMX (93.7).
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*It's here! As seen in the St.
Paul Pioneer Press, the Chicago
Sun-Times, and soon on WCVB's "Chronicle,"
Tower Site Calendar 2007 is not only now shipping - it's
close to a sellout! If you're waiting for the 2007 edition to
go on clearance sale, don't keep waiting - the word from the
shipping department is that fewer than 200 copies remain, and
we expect to sell them all in the next month or two.
This year's edition
features what we think are the finest tower images yet - from
the cover image of WCCO Minneapolis all the way to the back-cover
centerfold of WBZ in Boston, and from KGO San Francisco to KOIL
Omaha to Philadelphia's famed Roxborough tower farm, captured
in a dramatic dusk shot with the lights all aglow.
This sixth annual edition once again contains plenty of historic
dates from radio and television history in the Northeast and
beyond, and as always, it comes to you shrink-wrapped and shipped
first class mail for safe arrival.
You can even get your 2007 calendar free with
your new or renewal subscription
to NERW at the $60 level.
Visit the Fybush.com
Store and place your order today - and be among the first
to get the Tower Site Calendar 2007!
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
2007 by Scott Fybush. |