February 25, 2008
Kane-O Returns to Rochester's WCMF
TOWER SITE CALENDAR 2008 - NOW AVAILABLE!!!
*It's all too common at the moment to hear
about radio stations firing veteran air talents as they seek
to cut costs. It's much more unusual to hear about one of those
veteran jocks getting a new job - and all but unheard of to see
that jock go right back to his old shift at his old station.
 But
then there's nothing normal about the soap opera that's surrounded
upstate NEW YORK's classic rocker, WCMF (96.5 Rochester),
in the year and a half since Entercom announced plans to acquire
it and several sister stations from CBS Radio.
No, Brother Wease isn't back on the air at WCMF (though we
hear he's now working behind the scenes, doing sales across town
at Clear Channel) - but the station is returning ousted midday
host Dave Kane to its airwaves today, not quite three months
after he did his "last show" under the old CBS ownership
before the station changed hands to Entercom.
Since Kane's departure from WCMF, he had been freelancing
at WHAM-TV (Channel 13), contributing bits to the station's morning
newscast. For much of that time, though, Kane had apparently
been negotiating with Entercom about a return to WCMF, which
has been lacking in personalities since the start of the contract
dispute that pulled Wease off the air just before Christmas.
(In addition to releasing Kane, Entercom also chose not to keep
night jock Dino Kay or weekender/production director Marc Cronin,
leaving WCMF with only the Wease-less morning crew and with afternoon
jock Big Marc.
With Kane's return to the station, he'll have a slightly different
shift for his "Midday Mambo" (10 AM-3 PM, rather than
his 11:15 AM-4 PM shift that followed Wease's extended morning
show), and he'll have a new title, adding PD stripes. (And, we
hope, restoring some stability to a station that's desperately
needed some after the turmoil of the last few months.)
*Meanwhile over at what remains of the old CBS cluster (now
operating as the "Rochester Radio Group" in a spin-off
trust from Entercom), the morning man at WZNE (94.1 Brighton)
was in the news in his home market of Cleveland last week. Rover
(Shane French) had been originating at CBS Radio's WKRK (92.3
Cleveland Heights), and apparently pulling very good ratings
there - but he abruptly vanished from "K-Rock" last
week, and will reportedly return to the Cleveland airwaves April
1 at a competing station, Clear Channel's WMMS (100.7 Cleveland).
Rover, you may recall, had been one of three CBS replacements
for Howard Stern in syndication, but while David Lee Roth flamed
out along the East Coast and Adam Carolla slowly built a following
out west, Rover failed to catch fire in most of the midwest markets
where he replaced Stern, most notably in Chicago, where his show
briefly originated. That left only Cleveland, Rochester and Memphis
in Rover's syndication fold, and with Cleveland off the air,
WZNE in Rochester and WMPS in Memphis were carrying best-of shows
last week.
We're told (by our esteemed colleague over at Ohio
Media Watch, who's been following this story avidly) that
Rover will be back on the air today with new shows for Rochester
and Memphis from the Clear Channel studios in Cleveland, and
that that will continue until he's back on the air in Cleveland
in April.
|
GETCHER 2008 TOWER SITE CALENDAR
- BEFORE THEY'RE ALL GONE!
Still haven't ordered your 2008 Tower Site Calendar?
You do realize that it's now...er...2008, don't you? We're already
down to the last 90 or so calendars, and they're going
fast. The 2006 and 2007 editions of the calendar sold out, and
this one will do so as well, possibly as soon as this month.
This year's edition is a particularly
fine one, if we do say so ourselves. From the cover photo of
KAST in Astoria, Oregon to the back cover shot of the Blaw-Knox
diamond tower at WBNS in Columbus, this year's calendar features
14 all-new full-color shots of famous broadcast sites far and
wide. There's KROQ in Los Angeles, KFBK in Sacramento, WESX in
Salem, WGAN in Portland, Black Mountain in Vegas, Mount Spokane
in Spokane, and many (ok, several) more.
The calendar is just $18 with
shipping and handling included - or better yet, beat our move
to mandatory subscriptions later this year and get a free calendar
with your $60 subscription to NERW for 2008. (Remember, the proceeds
from both the calendar and the subscriptions help keep NERW right
here on the web, as we head into our fourteenth year of news
and analysis.)
So click
right here and you can be sure to have your very
own Tower Site Calendar 2008! (And thank you!)
The 2008 Tower
Site Calendar is dedicated to the memory of Robert Eiselen (1934-2007),
whose digital imaging skills made even a bunch of pictures of
radio towers look almost like art. His contributions were essential
to the calendar's evolution from 2003 to the current edition,
and he will be missed dearly. |
*In New York City, the new "Pulse 87" (WNYZ-LP)
is adding to its staff. Starting today, Star and Buc Wild in
morning drive will be followed in middays by Jewelz Lopez, formerly
of WKTU (103.5) - and she'll also be the station's music director.
There's a new operations manager at WBLS (107.5)/WLIB (1190)
in New York, as Skip Dillard moves north from the same role at
CBS Radio's WPGC (95.5) in Washington.
In Binghamton, Clear Channel cutbacks have reduced one PD
position. Bob Taylor is out as PD of CHR WMRV (105.7 Endicott)/hot
AC WMXW (103.3 Vestal), with the WMRV reins going to Jim Free,
who's operations manager at the cluster and PD of rocker WKGB
(92.5 Conklin). Doug Mosher, PD of classic rock WBBI (107.5 Endwell)
and standards WINR (680 Binghamton) takes the PD chair at WMXW.
(More Binghamton notes that we somehow missed in the year-end
tumult: over at Citadel, veteran WNBF 1290 newsman Bernie Fionte
lost his job at year's end. Fionte was named "Living Legend"
at the 2007 Binghamton Broadcasters' Reunion. And Tejay Schwartz
has migrated from mornings at WRRQ 106.7 Windsor to middays at
WLTB 101.7 Johnson City.)
Syracuse University's WJPZ (89.1) has one active alumni association
- they get together every year, and this year is their 23rd annual
reunion banquet. It'll be held March 1, and will feature 1991
SU graduate Craig Carton, now morning co-host at New York's WFAN,
as guest speaker. The event will also include the induction of
the first members of the "WJPZ Hall of Fame." (Lots
more at wjpzalumni.org!)
Speaking of Syracuse - and Utica, and Watertown, and Ithaca
- a familiar URL is back on-line after a long absence. It's been
three years since Scott Jameson shut down the excellent CNYRadio.com
site, and now the site's been resurrected by some fans of the
old version, with updated news from around the dials in central
New York.
 Albany's
WQBK (103.9 Rensselaer)/WQBJ (103.5 Cobleskill) looked south
for its programming on Friday. The stations usually known as
"Q103" reimaged for the day as "Corona 103,"
running commercial-free, but sponsored by the Mexican beer -
and adding a reggae tune at the top and bottom of each hour to
its usual rock format.
Up north, Randy Michaels' RadioActive LLC has picked call
letters for several of its new stations. Mark down WBLH (92.5
Black River/Watertown) and WDYC (107.1 Saranac Lake).
*On the TV side of things, Rochester Fox affiliate WUHF (Channel
31) is expanding its 10 PM newscast to a full hour, beginning
March 3. That will create a 90-minute block of news produced
by WROC-TV (Channel 8), which does the 10 PM Fox news and its
own 11 PM newscast from the same Humboldt Street studio. March
3 is the start date for the hour-long Fox show, followed two
weeks later by the launch of the market's first 7 PM newscast
on NBC affiliate WHEC (Channel 10).
Over in Buffalo, Dennis Williams has disappeared from WIVB
(Channel 4)'s airwaves and its website. Will former WKBW (Channel
7) sports director John Murphy take Williams' place in that seat
over at Channel 4?
*And one more New York note: if you're within traveling range
of Broadway, and you haven't yet caught "The Farnsworth
Invention," Aaron Sorkin's gripping, if historically dubious,
tale of the invention of television and its social consequences
(we reviewed it here January
28), you'd best hurry - the play closes March 2.
 *In MASSACHUSETTS, there's an unfortunate
budget cut at Entercom's WRKO (680 Boston): the talk station
axed veteran weekender Moe Lauzier, and the Herald says
Lauzier learned of his dismissal from a producer 15 minutes in
to what turned out to be his last show Saturday morning. Lauzier,
66, tells the paper he hopes to be working somewhere else (crosstown
WTKK?) within a few weeks - and WRKO will reportedly fill Lauzier's
slot with...infomercials. Lauzier would have celebrated his 25th
anniversary at WRKO this June.
Several Boston TV news anchors are changing assignments,
with the biggest shuffles coming at Boston ABC affiliate WCVB
(Channel 5), as it shifts its main anchors to a Sunday-Thursday
schedule, following the lead of Fox's WFXT, which has been doing
Sunday-Thursday for several years. Heather Unruh, who's been
anchoring WCVB's "EyeOpener" morning show, will move
to the evening newscasts, anchoring Sundays at 6 and 11 and Monday-Thursday
at 5, 5:30 and 11. Liz Brunner will become "senior correspondent"
and retain her 6 PM anchor chair, with Unruh replacing her at
11. (Except on Friday, when Brunner will anchor at 5, 6 and 11
with Bob Halloran; Halloran in turn will anchor Saturdays with
Pam Cross.)
As for mornings, Bianca de la Garza will take Unruh's anchor
seat alongside David Brown.
Meanwhile, over at WBZ-TV (Channel 4), Sara Underwood's contract,
which expires March 4, won't be renewed - and that leaves the
CBS outlet looking for a new anchor for its 5:30 newscast and
for the 9 PM news it produces for sister station WSBK (Channel
38.)
In the Pioneer Valley, Monte Belmonte adds PD duties to his
morning show/MD responsibilities at Saga's WRSI (93.9 Turners
Falls); he replaces Sean O'Mealey, who remains as GM/GSM there.
*In RHODE ISLAND, Tim Staskiewicz
is moving on from WHJJ (920 Providence), where he's been a news
anchor and producer of the Helen Glover show. He's moving to
Washington, but staying with Clear Channel as an online content
director for its stations there.
Where are they now? Dave Barber, former talk host on WPRO
(630 Providence), is now PD of the Capitol TV network, Rhode
Island's statewide version of C-SPAN.
*EMF Broadcasting just keeps buying stations
for its "K-Love" network, and the latest acquisition
is in MAINE, where EMF is buying WCYI (93.9 Lewiston)
from the Last Bastion Station Trust, which is holding the signal
in trust for Citadel.
Since Citadel spun off WCYI (and former sister station WCLZ,
now in Saga's hands) last June, the station has flipped from
a modern-rock simulcast of WCYY (94.3 Biddeford, still with Citadel)
to a simulcast of WCLZ's AAA format to a temporary all-blues
format.
No purchase price has been announced for the deal, which will
give K-Love its first full-power signal in Maine. (EMF has translators
in Bangor and Orono, and it's in the process of acquiring WMEX
in neighboring Farmington, New Hampshire, with a signal that
reaches portions of southern Maine.)
J.J. Jeffrey's WLOB-FM (96.3 Rumford) is on the move: the
talk station has changed city of license from Rumford to Gray,
much closer to Portland. WLOB-FM already relocated its transmitter
not long ago, relocating from Black Mountain to Streaked Mountain
near South Paris, Maine; it's not clear whether WLOB can now
hop even closer to its target listeners in Portland, or whether
this is simply a matter of convenience to allow WLOB's studio
at its AM transmitter site in Portland to also serve as the legal
main studio for WLOB-FM.
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*In south central PENNSYLVANIA, Four
Rivers Community Broadcasting is relocating one of its new construction
permits. WZXF (91.7) was granted in McConnellsburg, but now it's
been relicensed to Hustontown, about eight miles to the north,
which will give Four Rivers' religious network some extra reach
along the Pennsylvania Turnpike west to Breezewood and the I-70
junction.
Fans of the Philadelphia Eagles will have two spots on the
dial to hear the team's games next season. In addition to FM
flagship WYSP (94.1), CBS will also carry the games on its all-sports
signal in Philly, WIP (610) - and just to make it more interesting,
the two won't be in sync. One of the signals (WYSP, most likely)
will be delayed to match up as best as possible with the TV broadcast
of the game (though that, too, can vary widely depending on how
the viewer is getting the TV signal); the other will run with
no delay, for the benefit of the fans in the stands.
There's a Pittsburgh TV connection to that controversial New
York Times report about John McCain's possible involvement
with a lobbyist. As Jason Togyer explains over at PBRTV.com,
lobbyist Vicki Iseman was working on behalf of Lowell Paxson,
who was trying to get the FCC to allow WQED to swap its commercial
WQEX (Channel 16) license with the noncommercial license of religious
WPCB (Channel 40), then sell channel 40 to Paxson for his new
Pax TV network. At issue was McCain's reportely close ties to
Paxson, including rides on his corporate jet; the deal was eventually
scuttled, in any case. (Iseman, a western Pennsylvania native
and Indiana University of Pennsylvania graduate, also worked
on behalf of Glencairn Ltd. to get the FCC to approve the quasi-duopoly
deals that allowed sister company Sinclair to effectively control
two stations in markets such as Pittsburgh, where Sinclair owned
WPGH, channel 53, and Glencairn owned WPTT, channel 22; a subsequent
change in the rules allowed Sinclair to buy channel 22, now WPCW,
outright.)
And PBRTV also reports the death Feb. 5 of Bill Brant, whose
career in Pittsburgh radio and TV included a stint at WWSW (970)
after World War II, some TV hosting early in the life of WDTV
(Channel 3, now KDKA-TV 2), and some time in the 80s as morning
host at WJAS (1320). Brant was 84.
Engineers on the move: Lamar Smith moves from chief engineer
at Entercom's Scranton/Wilkes-Barre cluster down to Austin, where
he'll take over the cluster of stations that Entercom recently
bought from CBS. (We're grateful to Lamar for a nice tour of
several of his Scranton stations a year or so ago, which you
can see documented on this Tower
Site of the Week episode.)
And we're very sorry to report the untimely passing on Thursday
of Pat Kain, whose career included stops at WMAJ and WQWK in
State College, nights at WLAN-FM (96.9 Lancaster), and two incarnations
of WHFS in Washington and Baltimore. Kain was just 35, and he
leaves behind a wife and a new baby.
*In NEW JERSEY, Press Communications
has hired a replacement for exiting WKMK (98.5 Ocean Acres) afternoon
jock Lee Ann Taylor. Brian Moore moves over from WOBM-FM (92.7
Toms River) to take that role, and to serve as WKMK's PD, replacing
Mike Fitzgerald, who's now station manager there.
Here's a good reason to make sure your station's studio doors
are locked at night: a man fleeing a car crash fell asleep in
the lobby of WVLT (92.1)/WMIZ (1270) in Vineland last week, where
a pastor arriving to broadcast the morning sermon found him snoozing
in the foyer. That wouldn't have been such a big deal - except
that the intruder then got up and, to put it politely, made a
mess in the station's bathroom. The police were called, and they
arrested Alexander Ballesteros, 25, on charges of criminal trespassing,
as well as several charges from the earlier accident.
*From CANADA this week comes word
of the grant of a new station in Cobourg, Ontario - at least
on paper.
 In reality, CFMZ
(103.1) has been operating for thirty years with a classical
format, and will continue to do so. But instead of being licensed
as a rebroadcast transmitter of its parent station, CFMX-FM-1
(96.3 Toronto), CFMZ will now operate as a separate license,
offering at least 24 hours a week of separate content aimed at
the local audience in Cobourg, mostly in the form of separate
advertising from the main Toronto feed.
(And yes, there's an oddity here: not only is the Toronto
signal, which came on many years after Cobourg, considered the
"parent" station - but it appears, for reasons unknown
to us, that the calls in Toronto were changed back to CFMX-FM-1
after briefly being flipped to CFMZ-FM-1 when the station was
bought by Moses Znaimer. Could this have had something to do
with the aborted attempt by CKFM 99.9 to change its calls
to CFMX?)
Across the province, after just over two months in afternoon
drive, CHEZ (106.1 Ottawa) has parted ways with afternoon jock
"The Real" Darren Stevens, reports Milkman UnLimited.
|
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!)
February 26, 2007 -
- While the FCC's commissioners spent Friday in Harrisburg,
PENNSYLVANIA talking about media consolidation (and staying longer
than planned, as big public turnout pushed the scheduled 2:30
PM ending time to 3:30 PM), a real-life example of the trend
was playing out up north in CANADA. Just after the markets closed,
Standard Radio and Astral Media, already two of the largest broadcasters
in the country, announced plans for a C$1.3 billion sale that
will put Standard's 52 radio stations in the hands of Astral,
creating the largest privately-owned radio group in Canada.
- For Astral, the purchase will finally take the company's
radio holdings national, expanding beyond its current footprint
in Quebec and the Maritimes. It's a goal Astral has had for some
time, including an unsuccessful bid for CHUM Limited last summer.
For Standard, it marks the end of 22 years of Slaight family
ownership. (The family will retain Standard's other assets, including
a share in Sirius Canada.) The merger gives Astral a toehold
in Toronto, where Standard owns news-talk CFRB (1010), soft AC
"EZ Rock" CJEZ (97.3) and hot AC CKFM (99.9), as well
as a new presence in Hamilton, London, and most of Canada's major
western markets. It also creates new clusters in Ottawa/Gatineau,
where Standard's CKQB (106.9 the Bear) joins Astral's "Energie"
CKTF (104.1) and "Rock Detente" CIMF (94.9), and most
dramatically in Montreal, where Standard's English-language news-talk
CJAD (800), AC CJFM (Mix 95.9) and rock CHOM (97.7) join Astral's
"Rock Detente" CITE (107.3), "Energie" CKFM
(94.3), as well as rimshot "Boom FM" outlets CFEI (106.5
St.-Hyacinthe) and CFZZ (104.1 St.-Jean-sur-Richelieu). Will
the CRTC mandate a sale of some of those overlapping signals?
- Crossing the border to upstate NEW YORK, we can now put a
price tag on the deal between EMF Broadcasting and Galaxy Broadcasting,
which turns out to involve a third Galaxy station. In addition
to the two Albany-market FMs that flipped from "Bone"
rock to EMF's satellite-delivered religious formats last week
(WBOE 94.5 Ravena to "K-Love," WOOB 93.7 Scotia to
"Air One"), EMF's $3.65 million purchase from Galaxy
also includes Syracuse-market WSCP-FM (101.7 Pulaski), which
is heard in Syracuse via translator W267AL (101.3).
- WSCP-FM dropped its classic country format late last week
and flipped to contemporary Christian "K-Love," creating
a network of "K-Love" outlets along the Thruway that
now stretches from Rochester's WKDL (104.9 Brockport) through
Syracuse to WKVU (100.7 Utica) and the Albany stations. And what
of WSCP (1070 Sandy Creek), the erstwhile AM simulcast of WSCP-FM?
When we tuned in Sunday afternoon, it had flipped from classic
country to a simulcast of Galaxy classic rocker WTKW (99.5 Bridgeport)/WTKV
(105.5 Oswego), "TK 99 and TK 105."
- A veteran MASSACHUSETTS program director is heading west.
Max Tolkoff is leaving the PD chair of WFNX (101.7 Lynn) to take
over as PD of Entravision's LA-market "Indie 103.1"
(KDLD 103.1 Santa Monica/KDLE 103.1 Huntington Beach). Tolkoff
will continue to consult WFNX, where APD/afternoon jock Keith
Dakin will take over as PD.
February 24, 2003 -
- The nightclub fire in West Warwick, RHODE ISLAND that killed
nearly 100 people last Thursday night would certainly have been
a big enough story for the area's media outlets on its own --
and will continue to be so for weeks and months to come. But
this tragedy turned out to have an unusual amount of resonance
within the media community, beginning of course with the club's
ownership. Jeff Derderian is a familiar name and face to TV viewers
in eastern New England. Your editor remembers him from his early-nineties
days behind the scenes at WBZ-TV (Channel 4) in Boston (when
yours truly was toiling, equally behind the scenes, across the
building at WBZ radio); later, he would work for WLNE (Channel
6) in the Providence market and then for five years as a reporter
for Boston's WHDH-TV (Channel 7).
- And, as the whole world knows by now, Jeff had just departed
WHDH for a job closer to his Rhode Island home, starting just
weeks ago at WPRI (Channel 12) in Providence. He's been off the
air there since Thursday night (when, ironically, he was working
on a WPRI story about nightclub safety, using his own club as
a source of B-roll video), and we wonder whether he'll ever be
able to work in the region again -- assuming, of course, that
he and his brother don't end up facing criminal charges for the
fire. More on this in the next few weeks, we're sure. As we go
to press Monday afternoon, meanwhile, among the dozens of people
missing and presumed dead is Michael Gonsalves, the WHJY (94.1
Providence) overnight jock known on air as "The Doctor."
- The rest of the week's news: in NEW HAMPSHIRE, WPKQ (103.7
North Conway) finally made it back on the air last Friday (Feb.
21), nearly two weeks after the fire atop Mount Washington that
destroyed the power generators and the transmitter of sister
station WHOM (94.9 Mount Washington). NERW hears that WPKQ is
running at about 80% of licensed power while awaiting a more
powerful replacement generator; its studio-transmitter link was
damaged during the fire, so the signal from parent station WOKQ
(97.5 Dover) is going by ISDN to the North Conway studios and
then by analog microwave to the mountaintop. As for WHOM, we're
told the station's main antenna suffered little damage; a replacement
transmitter and STL could make it to the mountaintop later this
week.
- NEW YORK City has never been good territory for syndicated
morning shows -- just ask Tom Joyner. His show disappeared from
Emmis' WRKS (98.7 New York) this morning, replaced by a revived
"Wakeup Club" with Jeff Foxx and Shaila, about a year
after Joyner was brought in to replace the Isaac Hayes morning
show.
- From NEW JERSEY, a new simulcast to report: WMID-FM (102.3
Cape May) pulled the plug on its simulcast of standards WMID
(1340 Atlantic City) after about a year and a half. Under new
calls of WAIV, 102.3 is now simulcasting the CHR sounds of sister
WAYV (95.1 Atlantic City), which never seemed to have much trouble
covering Cape May County on its own, at least in NERW's experience....
February 26, 1998-
- The folks at Sinclair Broadcasting have been busy this week,
as they prepare to sell off their Rochester radio group -- while
adding TV properties in Rochester and Buffalo. Entercom officially
takes control of the former Heritage Media group in Rochester
Saturday night, when Sinclair closes on its purchase of WBBF
(950), WBEE-FM (92.5), WQRV (93.3 Avon), and WKLX (98.9) from
Heritage, then immediately LMAs the stations to Entercom in preparation
for sale. The official word is the standard "no immediate
changes," but NERW's heard that one often enough...
- On the TV side, Sinclair is buying 14 TV stations from Sullivan
Broadcasting (owned by Boston-based ABRY), including Fox affiliates
WUHF-TV (Channel 31) in Rochester and WUTV (Channel 29) in Buffalo.
Sinclair is already a dominant radio player in Buffalo, with
WGR (550), WBEN (930), WWWS (1400), WWKB (1520), WKSE (98.5 Niagara
Falls), and WMJQ (102.5) under its corporate belt -- and it's
planning to apply for a waiver to keep all six plus the TV.
- More from upstate NEW YORK: The third shoe dropped this week
in the Jacor format shuffle in Rochester, as WMAX-FM (106.7 Irondequoit)
and WMHX (102.3 Canandaigua) put their all-Delilah stunt format
to bed in favor of very soft, gold-based AC as "Sunny 106."
NERW notes that Jacor's new gold-based soft AC in Des Moines,
also "Sunny 106," has taken the calls KYSY; could the
WYSY calls (last seen on 107.9 in suburban Chicago) be in the
Flower City's future? Jerry Reo's handling mornings on Sunny;
Delilah remains on the station from 7 till midnight.
- Majac already owns the largest group of Binghamton market
stations -- WENE (1430 Endicott), WKGB (92.5 Susquehanna), WMXW
(103.3 Vestal), and WMRV (105.7 Endicott) -- and now it's adding
one more, with the granting of a new CP for 107.5 in Endwell,
transmitting from the WMRV site above Endicott. An earlier 107.5
CP, with the calls WRGG, was never built, and the frequency has
been in use by a pirate running right-wing talk programming.
Down the road in Owego, we hear WEBO (1330) is splitting from
its simulcast with soft-rock WGRG (101.7) to go modern rock.
Yep, modern rock on AM. We'll be passing through the area next
month to bring you a complete report on this one.
- Big doings in RHODE ISLAND this week, as Portuguese gets
punted for public in Providence. Boston's WBUR-FM (90.9) is paying
just under $2 million for Neto Communications' WRCP (1290) in
Providence, and (as NERW first reported earlier this month) the
station will become a WBUR simulcast serving northern Rhode Island.
1290 may not be the first public radio outlet in the Ocean State,
though -- Rhode Island Public Radio has applied for a license
to cover for its WBLQ (88.1 Westerly), and NERW can't wait to
hear from our readers in the area about that station's on-air
status.
- If that's not enough, Howard Stern is entering the Providence
market next week. Stern's newest affiliate is rhythmic CHR WWKX
(106.3 Woonsocket)/WAKX (102.7 Narragansett Pier). He's already
heard in much of the market via Boston's WBCN (104.1).
- Moving north: Cumulus Broadcasting continues to gather strength
in MAINE, buying Tryon-Seacoast's Central Maine group. Cumulus
already has WQCB (106.5 Brewer) and WBZN (107.3 Old Town) in
the Bangor market and WTOS (105.1 Skowhegan) in the Augusta market.
Now it's adding WABK (104.3 Gardiner), WKCG (101.3 Augusta),
WFAU (1280 Gardiner), WIGY (97.5 Madison), and WCME (96.7 Boothbay
Harbor) to the group. Tryon-Seacoast owner Jeff Fisher keeps
his New Hampshire properties in Franklin and Moultonborough.
- In NEW HAMPSHIRE, there's a new format at WGXL (92.3 Hanover);
"XL92" is moving from hot AC to full-out CHR.
- Across the Connecticut River in VERMONT, Bruce James' Vermont
Broadcasting Associates is locking up the Northeast Kingdom with
the $630,000 purchase of WSTJ (1340) and WNKV (105.5) in St.
Johnsbury from Northeast Kingdom Broadcasting. James already
owns WGMT (97.7) in Lyndon.
- On the TV side, no sooner is Hicks, Muse's Sunrise Television
Corp. taking control of WPTZ (Channel 5) Plattsburgh and WNNE
(Channel 31) White River Junction than it's trading them away.
Hearst Argyle gets WPTZ, WNNE, and KSBW (Channel 8) Salinas CA,
and Sunrise gets WNAC (Channel 64) Rehoboth-Providence along
with WDTN (Channel 2) in Dayton, Ohio.
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