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December 1, 2008
Bob Grant Out (Again) at WABC
(Editor's note: We didn't plan on putting out a full NERW
issue this week, truth be told - but Thanksgiving week was busier
than we'd expected, so here we are pecking away in the passenger
seat of the NERW-mobile on the way back from a week on the road
in Indiana. We haven't forgotten about our "NERW Holiday
Bookshelf" feature - that will appear next week, and if
you have a last-minute suggestion for a recently-published volume
NERW readers might enjoy hearing about, you have a few more days
to send it in. And read on for our one-day "Cyber Monday"
special on the 2009 Tower Site Calendar, too...)
 *The schedule changes at NEW YORK's WABC
(770) have once again ousted Big Apple talk icon Bob Grant from
a regular spot on the schedule. Grant returned to WABC last year
in the 8-10 PM weekday slot, but never found the same listener
loyalty there that he'd had in many years of afternoon drive
on WABC and later on WOR. Now the launch of fellow WABC host
Curtis Sliwa into national syndication means bigger schedule
shuffles up at Two Penn Plaza, as the tape-delayed Laura Ingraham
show, displaced from the 10 PM-1 AM slot by the new Sliwa show,
slides down to 8-10 PM.
What happens to Sliwa's local slot, from 10-11:45 AM? For
now, Sliwa continues to work that shift as well, but there's
lots of buzz about MSNBC morning host Joe Scarborough moving
into that position - and if that happens, can national syndication
for Joe be far behind?
As for Grant, who's nearing his 80th birthday, he'll still
be heard on fill-in shifts on WABC for now.
Across town at Inner City's WBLS (107.5), budget cuts have
forced two longtime station voices out. Vaughn Harper, who launched
the station's signature "Quiet Storm" evening show
way back in 1976, and overnight host Champaine are both out.
Champaine had been at WBLS since 1983; Harper had returned to
WBLS a few years ago after spending time at several other New
York stations and suffering a stroke.
Who was that filling in on WCBS-FM (101.1) all through the
holiday weekend? Why, none other than Famous Amos, best known
from his stint a few years ago in afternoons on the old WTJM
(105.1). Expect to hear more of "El Famoso" around
Christmas, too, we're told...
Out east, WLIM (1580 Patchogue) is trading Spanish AC "Radio
Formula" for Spanish religion as "Radio Adonai."
WRUN (1150 Utica) will be changing city of license: the central
New York relay of Albany's WAMC has been granted a CP for New
Hartford as part of the reconstruction project that's replacing
its venerable five-tower array with four new towers at the old
Thomas Road site in Oriskany. With the new, more efficient antenna
array, WRUN will go from its present 5 kW days/1 kw nights to
4.6 kW days/370 watts at night. (It originally applied for 480
watts at night, but Canada objected - that forced the power reduction
to 370 watts, which in turn meant WRUN won't cover all of Utica
at night, which in turn led to the city of license change.)
Over at Galaxy's Utica cluster, WUMX (102.5 Rome) has parted
ways with morning man Sam Schrier, who'd just arrived in April
from Rochester's WBEE. "Mix" is running jockless, with
Christmas music, for now.
And down the road in Syracuse, CNYRadio
reports overnighter Spidr Murfee, the last live overnight DJ
on the Salt City's commercial dial, is out at WSEN (92.1/1050),
along with several part-timers.
In Ithaca, WFIZ (95.5 Odessa) promotes morning co-host Stacy
Scott to assistant PD; she just came to the station a couple
of weeks ago from WAKZ (95.9 Sharpsville PA/Youngstown OH) to
replace the departed Heather B. Across town, Citadel's WIII (99.9
Cortland) is looking for an afternoon host after the departure
of Spencer, who's heading for a career in PR.
 In Plattsburgh, WIRY (1340) is getting ready to
move to its new studio home on Route 9 south of the city, now
that its longtime home on Cornelia Street faces demolition and
a new life as the site of a Walgreens drug store. In a feature
story on Burlington's WCAX-TV last week, station officials say
they'll include a museum in the basement of the new studio to
house some of the vintage equipment that's been a hallmark of
the old studios.
*Another Plattsburgh AM station is losing its star talker,
as Rush Limbaugh moves his Burlington-market affiliation across
Lake Champlain from WEAV (960 Plattsburgh) to WVMT (620 Burlington,
VERMONT). WEAV was the last remaining piece of the old
"Zone" talk-radio simulcast with WXZO (96.7 Williston
NY) that was broken up when new owners flipped the FM side to
oldies.
The Burlington/Plattsburgh market also moved closer to having
another full-power TV signal last week, as Jeffrey Loper's Twin
Valleys Television buys WCWF (Channel 40) in Saranac Lake from
Channel 61 Associates, LLC. That group is owned by Floyd Cox,
Donald McElhone and WWBI TV Inc. (which owns WWBI-LP, channel
27 in Plattsburgh) - and there's an agreement in place among
those partners that any sale over $1,000,000 requires the approval
of only two of the three partners. From the paperwork submitted
with the sale, it appears that McElhone and Cox signed off on
the sale - for a non-coincidental $1,000,001 - without the approval
of WWBI.
(WCWF, incidentally, is presently off the air after having
operated, apparently briefly, in analog on channel 40; it tells
the FCC it's building out a conversion to digital on the same
channel.)
Where are they now? Steve Hammel, whose career as a TV news
director included stops at Rochester's WHEC and Syracuse's WSTM,
as well as at WHTM in Harrisburg, recently moved from KPHO in
Phoenix, where he was VP/general manager, to the same position
at WRAL-TV in Raleigh, N.C.
*WKZE-FM (98.1) from Salisbury, CONNECTICUT
has been targeting its marketing at the Hudson Valley, across
the New York state line, for the last few years - and now it's
edging into the area with a translator signal. WKZE's owner,
Willpower Radio, is paying Digital Radio Broadcasting $55,000
for W255BX (98.9) in Hudson, NY.
|
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*Bill Drake spent most of his career out
west, but the wizard of streamlined top-40 radio had a huge influence
on the sound of the MASSACHUSETTS airwaves, where his
corporate consulting work for RKO General made the early WRKO-FM
(98.5 Boston) a mid-sixties cult favorite before the company
pulled the trigger in 1967 and put Drake's top-40 format on WRKO
(680), creating one of the Hub's legendary radio stations.
Drake, who died Saturday in California at 71, was criticized
almost as often as he was imitated - his creation, a format that
emphasized tight segues and shotgun jingles over lengthy DJ patter,
was viewed at the time (and is still seen by some) as removing
personality from the airwaves. In some of its extreme forms -
at WRKO-FM, and for a time at its New York sister station WOR-FM
(98.7) - the Drake format was combined with total automation
to create radio that anticipated today's increasingly jockless
dial.
 But
in other venues, including WRKO in its heyday, Drake's tight
formatics allowed talented "Boss Jocks" to shine in
a fast-paced environment of hit music, killer jingles, and must-listen
specials such as Drake's masterpiece, "The History of Rock
& Roll," setting a standard for music radio that remains
unmatched forty years later.
And even if the northeast was never as fertile a territory
for Drake as were the midwest (CKLW) and the west (KHJ, KFRC,
and the list goes on), there's still no question that Drake's
influence lives on here, as close as the nearest oldies station,
where the Drake sound lived on (thanks, in part, to his Drake-Chenault
music automation systems) long after its inventor had retreated
to California, where he all but disappeared from public view
in the decades before his death.
 *For
more than half a century, the self-supporting tower that crowned
Boston University's College of Communications building was an
icon along the Charles River, but as of Saturday morning, it's
history.
WBUR-FM (90.9) hadn't used the tower in many years - it moved
its transmitter across the street to the top of the Law Building
in the seventies, then out to Newton in the eighties, and its
studio moved out Commonwealth Avenue to new digs a few blocks
west in the nineties. And as taller buildings surrounded the
Communications building, the old tower became something of a
liability.
Still, it was something of a surprise to see Communications
dean Tom Fiedler quoted in the BU Daily Free Press as
saying the tower "speaks of old technology" - and we
hope there was more context to his comment that "in 2008,
radio is old, the technology of our grandfathers" than appeared
in the
article. (After all, BU is still very much the licensee of
WBUR, which at last check was still thriving as one of Boston's
top-rated stations.)
*Another analog TV station has left the air early: WGGB (Channel
40) in Springfield went dark over the weekend, clearing the way
for WGGB-DT to move from channel 55 to 40 before the February
deadline.
*On the NEW HAMPSHIRE seacoast, midday
jock/music director Dan Lunnie is out at WOKQ (97.5 Dover)/WPKQ
(103.7 North Conway) due to budget cuts; PD Mark Jennings is
handling the airshift at the moment.
*Half of the midday team at "NEW
JERSEY 101.5" is out, as Judi Franco departs the "Dennis
and Judi Show" at Millennium's WKXW-FM (101.5 Trenton)/WXKW
(97.3 Millville). The station is moving Michele Pilenza from
nights to be Dennis Malloy's co-host - and that moves Michelle
Jerson from fill-in duties into the evening hours.
 *A veteran PENNSYLVANIA programmer is heading
west. Jim McGuinn, who defined modern rock radio in Philadelphia
in his years at the helm of WDRE (103.9), WPLY (100.3) and most
recently the "Y-Rock on XPN" stream on WXPN (88.5),
is moving to Minnesota to program "The Current," Minnesota
Public Radio's modern-rock/AAA hybrid heard on KCMP (89.3 Northfield
MN). McGuinn, who'd been doing afternoon drive on WXPN, started
his career in the eighties at WEQX (102.7 Manchester VT/Albany);
he starts in Minnesota in January.
When the Community Radio Collective gets its new noncommercial
signal, WFTE (90.3 Mount Cobb), up and running in the hills east
of Scranton, it will have a translator signal just south of Scranton
as well: Community is buying translator W289AU (105.7 Moosic)
from Digital Radio Broadcasting.
On the TV side, another of the increasingly small fraternity
of 40-year, one-station TV veterans is retiring. Dick Hoxworth
came to WGAL radio (now WLPA 1490) in Lancaster in 1968 out of
the Air Force, but soon moved to WGAL-TV (Channel 8), where he's
been ever since, most recently as morning and noon anchor. Hoxworth
will anchor for the last time on Christmas Eve.
Up the road in Scranton, WSWB (Channel 38) will shut off its
analog signal next Monday (Dec. 8), allowing construction of
WSWB-DT to get underway.
*Just across the state line in DELAWARE (which always
seems to fall into the cracks between NERW and our friend Dave
to the south at DCRTV.com), high school station WMPH (91.7 Wilmington)
is in danger of being exterminated by budget cuts. The Wilmington
News Journal reports that the Brandywine School District
is eyeing the $70,000 budget for the station (which includes
the salary of WMPH's lone employee, Clint Dantinne) in hopes
of cutting costs. While Brandywine officials tell the paper they're
hoping to rework the station as part of an academic program,
they say it could go dark in the meantime, a fate that wouldn't
sit well with its student staff or fans of its increasingly rare
dance-music format.
Edited by NERW's own Scott Fybush - on sale now as
an e-book or printed volume!
*In CANADA, Rogers Broadcasting is
buying out its partner in Kingston, where John Wright had owned
the majority share in CIKR (K-Rock 105.7), CKXC (Kix 93.5) and
the LMA of cross-border WLYK (102.7 Cape Vincent). Rogers invested
in Wright's KRock 1057 Inc. back in 2000, helping him to put
CIKR on the air in 2001 and CKXC on the air last year; there's
no word on how much Rogers is paying to buy the stations outright.
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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!)
December 3, 2007 -
- The NEW YORK morning radio dial is spinning this week, in
ways both predictable and not.
- The predictable first: this morning marks the return of Don
Imus to the radio, with flagship WABC (770 New York), radio syndication
through WABC parent Citadel Broadcasting, and TV coverage via
RFD-TV, which is still chiefly available to viewers with direct-to-home
dishes, though the network is working on expanding its cable
footprint. (With Imus coming to WABC this morning, last Friday
marked the finale of the station's very successful "Curtis
& Kuby" morning show, albeit without Ron Kuby, who was
sent packing from WABC a few weeks earlier. While the station
had made noises about keeping Curtis Sliwa on its schedule in
another slot, Sliwa didn't sound all that certain about his future
in the Friday broadcast.)
- Almost as inevitable as Imus' return was the eventual demise
of Whoopi Goldberg's syndicated morning show. "Waking up
with Whoopi" made an initial splash with big-market affiliates
that included Chicago's WLIT, Philadelphia's WISX and New York's
WKTU. But the show failed to catch on in most of those markets,
disappearing from both Chicago and Philadelphia earlier this
year. Last week, Whoopi lost her New York flagship, when WKTU
abruptly pulled the show after its Wednesday airing, with no
replacement in place. Syndication of the show (which actually
originated from a studio at sister station WWPR in Manhattan,
rather than at WKTU's Jersey City studios) continues for now,
but it's hard to imagine that Goldberg, with other committments
that include a co-host role on ABC's "The View," will
continue to do the show for very long for a network that now
numbers fewer than a dozen stations, the largest in Norfolk,
Virginia. (In NERW-land, Whoopi is also heard on Binghamton's
WMXW and Utica's WUMX.)
- What will KTU do next? Whoopi's co-host, Paul "Cubby"
Bryant, is a versatile talent who loyally gave up his afternoon
slot on Clear Channel's WHTZ (Z100) to smooth Goldberg's transition
to radio. That should make him a strong candidate for the KTU
morning slot - or for afternoons there, if former KTU morning
guys Hollywood Hamilton and Goumba Johnny return to mornings
there.
- And then there's the biggest surprise in the New York morning
arena: Star and Buc Wild, ousted from WWPR in a blaze of negative
publicity in May 2006 after Star (real name: Troi Torain) engaged
in a nasty on-air feud with jocks at rival WQHT, are planning
a January return to the city's airwaves. In itself, that's not
all that surprising - but it's where they plan to return that's
of particular interest. That's WNYZ-LP, the low-power TV station
broadcasting from Long Island City on channel 6. As we've reported
previously here on NERW, it's not WNYZ's video signal that's
of interest to Star. It's the audio carrier at 87.76 MHz (which
migrated, briefly and not necessarily legally, up to 87.88 MHz),
right at the bottom of the FM broadcast band. The signal's been
on the air for more than a year now, broadcasting in Russian.
Last week, Mega Media, which is leasing WNYZ from owner Island
Broadcasting, announced that it will relaunch the frequency on
January 15 as "Pulse 87," an English-language top-40
station, with Star and Buc Wild and the rest of their crew in
morning drive.
December 1, 2003 -
- It looks as though WSNJ-FM (107.7 Bridgeton NJ) has a buyer.
AllAccess reports this morning that Radio One will pay $35 million
for the station, building out its CP to move to 107.9 as a class
A facility licensed to Pennsauken NJ and operating from the WKDN/WTMR
tower in Camden, just across the Delaware River from Center City
Philadelphia. NERW expects this move to really heat up the battle
for Philadelphia's urban listeners - Radio One already has its
WPHI (103.9 Jenkintown) in the hunt against Clear Channel's top-rated
WUSL (98.9 Philadelphia) and urban AC WDAS-FM (105.3), and it
looks as though Beasley is in the race to stay with the urban
CHR at "Wild" 96.5, which just changed calls Monday
from WPTP to WLDW.
- For more than 80 years, CKAC (730 Montreal) has been the
undisputed radio behemoth of French CANADA, dominating the news-talk
audience not only in Montreal itself but in much of the rest
of Quebec, thanks to the network that carries much of its programming
to the rest of the province. Now CKAC is about to get a serious
competitor, with an airstaff that includes CKAC's own veteran
morning man, Paul Arcand. CKOO (98.5 Longueuil) dropped its French
rock format over the weekend and began playing nonstop Christmas
tunes - and when it returns to regular programming in January,
it'll be with French news and talk. The move represents a big
gamble for Corus, the broadcaster that's put together a large
station group in Montreal (CKOO, French CHR CKOI, French all-news
CINF, English AC CFQR, English all-news CINW and rimshotters
CIME and CFZZ) but hasn't made much of a French ratings dent
beyond the huge numbers CKOI consistently runs up year after
year.
- CKOO is making some big moves to launch its new format, and
the hiring of top-rated morning personality Arcand is the biggest
of all. He announced in October that he'd leave CKAC next summer,
after nearly a decade doing mornings, and his radio roots in
Montreal go back to the mid-80s and stints at now-defunct CKVL
(850, which operated from the very same Verdun studios that CKOO
now uses) and CJMS (1280).
- The big story from English Canada is a power boost for London
community station CHRW, the voice of the University of Western
Ontario. It moved from the university campus to the One London
Place tower in downtown London on Friday, bumping its power from
3000 watts to 5300 watts (with a directional antenna) and moving
one notch up the dial, from 94.7 to 94.9. CHRW's move helps out
CIWV (94.7 Hamilton) as well, eliminating a major source of co-channel
interference there.
- And, yes, there are all-Christmas stations north of the border
to tell you about: in Toronto, Standard's CJEZ (EZ Rock 97.3)
and Rogers' CHFI (98.1) both made the flip; in Kingston, Corus'
CFFX (Oldies 960) flipped over the weekend - and in Ottawa, Rogers'
CKBY (105.3) went all-Christmas amidst rumo(u)rs that it won't
go back to country after Boxing Day. Will country move to what's
now XFM (CIOX 101.1 Smiths Falls)? We'll keep you posted...
- At the other end of NERW-land, western PENNSYLVANIA will
soon be spinning the radio dial to keep up with one of Pittsburgh's
top-rated personalities. Jim Quinn and sidekick Rose Somma-Tennent
will reportedly leave Steel City Media's WRRK (96.9 Braddock)
early in 2004 to take over mornings at Clear Channel's WJJJ (104.7
Pittsburgh). Quinn's right-leaning talk show has never quite
fit in with the classic rock that fills the rest of the day on
"Channel 97," but there's no need to wonder how he'll
fit in with the R&B oldies on "104.7 the Beat"
- his move to WJJJ will bring a new format and new calls to WJJJ,
which has been limping along towards the bottom of the ratings
ever since the "jammin' oldies" format began heading
south a couple of years ago. Clear Channel isn't saying much
about the rest of its programming plans yet for 104.7, but it's
reasonable to guess that Rush Limbaugh could eventually move
there from Infinity's KDKA, and that the company will tap the
talk talent at sister sports station WBGG (970) as well.
December 4, 1998 -
- In MASSACHUSETTS, there's a new format at Worcester's WNEB
(1230). New owners Heirwaves, Inc. took control from Bob Bittner
on Saturday, flipping the station from a simulcast of Bittner's
WJIB (740 Cambridge) to Christian contemporary music, as "Hard
Rock 1230."
- It's official; as we speculated a few months back, Greater
Media is signing a 15-year lease on a Morrissey Boulevard building
to house all its Boston stations. WBOS (92.9 Brookline) and WSJZ
(96.9) will move from 1200 Soldiers Field Road in Brighton, WKLB-FM
(99.5 Lowell) and WMJX (106.7) will move from the Salada Tea
building on Stuart Street, and WROR-FM (105.7 Framingham) will
move from the Prudential Tower. It'll create quite the media
circus down there; the Boston Globe and WLVI (Channel 56) are
already housed next door to each other across the street from
Greater's new home, which is itself just down the block from
the 1960s and early 70s home of WHDH-AM/FM/TV.
- In CONNECTICUT, WMMM (1260 Westport) was back on the air
earlier this week, testing with relays of WSHU (91.1 Fairfield)
as it prepares to return to full-time operation.
- In NEW YORK, the big news out of the Big Apple is the sale
of WNWK (105.9 Newark, N.J.), one of the most underappreciated
FM signals in the city. It's just been sold to Heftel Broadcasting
for a whopping $115 million. It'll flip from multilingual to
a Spanish-language format once the deal closes. WNWK, being a
class B1, doesn't have the reach of the other large New York
FMs (it's also hampered by a first-adjacent signal in Patchogue,
Long Island, among others), but it's still pretty solid in the
city and the Jersey suburbs from its Chrysler Building transmitter.
- One more from the translator files: Say hello to W212BA,
90.3 in Geneva. It's the newly-granted translator of Geneva public
radio outlet WEOS (89.7), and it will operate from WEOS's old
transmitter site on the campus of Hobart and William Smith Colleges,
filling in some gaps in WEOS' new signal from a tower a few miles
away. Not to be outdone, religious station WCIY (88.9 Canandaigua)
has applied for a 105.7 translator in Geneva. This is Family
Life Ministries' second try for a Geneva frequency; the FCC dismissed
an application for 104.3 back in June.
- And we join with the staff of Buffalo's WBEN (930) in mourning
the passing of Clint Buehlman, a WBEN personality from the 1940s
until his retirement in July 1977. Buehlman was Buffalo's most
popular radio host for years, as the "AM M-C" at the
helm of the WBEN Good Morning Show. Buehlman hosted the show
from March 1943 (when he joined WBEN from rival WGR) until he
left the station. He died Tuesday at his home in Snyder, outside
Buffalo. Buehlman was 85 years old.
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