Rush Radio Drops Branding

TOWER SITE CALENDAR 2011 - NOW DISCOUNTED!

Maybe you need an extra copy for the wall of your shop. Maybe you gave your first copy away as a gift. Maybe the year just got away from you and you forgot to order your Tower Site Calendar 2011.

Whatever the reason, do we have a deal for you!

We didn't quite sell out of this year's calendar...and so now that it's March, we're offering our remaining supply for just $12 postpaid. (That's a 33% discount from the original list price of $18!)

Tower Site Calendar 2011 features more than a dozen great images of radio and TV broadcast facilities all over the country (and even beyond - this year's edition takes us to Mexico!)

Thrill to a night shot of KFI's new tower! Check out the WAEB Allentown array just after it lost a tower - or enjoy the history at venerable sites like those of KID in Idaho Falls, WCAP in Lowell, KTKT in Tucson and Rochester's Pinnacle Hill.

But wait - there's more! We also have a small supply of the new FM Atlas, 21st edition back in stock, as well as a limited supply of Tower Site Calendar 2010 - plus signed calendars, back isues and much more in the fybush.com store!

Orders of 20 or more calendars get an even bigger discount. We'll even add a bow or a gift card upon request. But don't wait...supplies are limited, and the calendar will sell out soon!

Order now at the fybush.com Store!

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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, ten and - where available - fifteen years ago this week, or thereabouts.

Note that 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.

One Year Ago: March 8, 2010 -

• Q: Why is Howie Carr walking into the WRKO studios very slowly today? A: Well, there's no Rush...
• That groaner, which neatly sums up the big radio news this week from eastern MASSACHUSETTS, comes to us courtesy of fellow radio observer (and WMWM weekend host) Bob Nelson, who's been as absorbed as anyone in the long saga of Clear Channel's launch of a new talk radio station in Boston. After spending many years and many hundreds of thousands of dollars moving suburban WKOX (1200 Framingham) into Boston, Clear Channel initially moved fairly slowly on changing the AM station's format, leaving the Spanish tropical "Rumba" programming in place on 1200 for a year or so after WKOX had powered up to 50,000 watts from a new city of license, Newton, and a new transmitter site within sight of the Boston city line.
• But for all that deliberation, today's launch of the long-expected talk format on what's now WXKS, "Rush Radio 1200," still ends up having the feel of a - pardon the pun - rush job. The new station was apparently due to launch April 1, but once it became clear that Clear Channel was pulling its Premiere Radio Network programming away from established affiliate WRKO (680 Boston), that date was moved up somewhat abruptly, leaving "Rush Radio" to launch without a morning show or a fully fleshed-out weekend schedule. "Rush Radio" debuts at noon today with its namesake, Rush Limbaugh - and for the next few weeks at least, Rush will double as the station's morning man, with "best-of" reruns filling the 6-9 AM slot until a promised (and as-yet-unannounced) local morning show makes its debut. The rest of the schedule is right off the bird: Sean Hannity at 3 PM, Jason Lewis (from KTLK-FM Minneapolis) at 6 PM, Mark Levin at 9 PM, Coast-to-Coast AM at midnight and Glenn Beck at 9 AM. Weekend mornings are still "TBA," and weekend afternoons and evenings are all "best-of" shows from Limbaugh, Hannity and Beck.
• Faced with the inevitable loss of one of its flagship shows, Entercom's WRKO wasted no time lining up a local host to go up against Limbaugh beginning this afternoon. Charley Manning is a veteran Republican political consultant in Boston, and no stranger to radio talk, having been a co-host of WRKO's "Spin Doctors" show in the nineties as well as a commentator on WBZ (1030), WBZ-TV (Channel 4) and WCVB-TV (Channel 5) in more recent years.
• Still looking for examples of the loyalty Boston audiences show to stations and personalities who provide them with local content? Look no further than the mourning last week for Don Kent, who pioneered TV weather in Boston when he came to WBZ-TV (Channel 4) and WBZ (1030) in 1951. Kent was already a broadcasting veteran, having begun his career on WMEX in 1935 and then on Quincy's WJDA after his service in World War II. At WBZ, Kent's forecasts became an institution, and he was renowned for the accuracy of his predictions during a career that encompassed everything from Hurricane Carol in 1954 to the Blizzard of '78. Kent retired from WBZ-TV in 1983, but continued to be heard on radio for two more decades, most recently at WQRC. He died March 2 in New Hampshire, where he had been living. Don Kent was 92.
• We know a little more now about the aftermath of that storm that ripped across NEW HAMPSHIRE a week ago, and it will be a long recovery for Saga's cluster of stations in Manchester. The sales and business staff of WZID/WMLL/WFEA have relocated to temporary quarters in Merrimack while cleanup crews replace waterlogged flooring and walls at their building at 500 N. Commercial Street, where thousands of gallons of water rushed through the office after the storms tore part of the roof off the structure. The on-air staff remains in the building, working around the damage as best they can.
• It's not quite a format change, but one of Steve Silberberg's Burlington, VERMONT stations has new calls and a new slogan. WLFE (102.3 Grand Isle) became WIER, "102.3 the Wire, High Voltage Rock" at the beginning of the month, complete with a new website at 1023thewire.com.

Five Years Ago: March 6, 2006 -

• It was just a year or so ago that Allentown, PENNSYLVANIA's WDIY (88.1) was fighting off a takeover attempt from crosstown public television station WLVT. Now it's on the other end of the takeover game, and that's caused some consternation for the community and college DJs at Lehigh Carbon Community College's WXLV (90.3 Schnecksville). WXLV went on autopilot a week ago, after one of those jocks mentioned on the air that automation equipment had suddenly appeared in the studio. After a few days of rumors, the college announced that it's signed a nine-year deal under which WDIY will manage and program the station for the college.
• For the next month or two, that means WDIY's programming will be simulcast on WXLV, while WDIY works on a new program schedule for the college station, which is expected to include a mixture of some of WXLV's existing programming and some material from WDIY and NPR. For the first year of the deal, WDIY will keep 90% of the underwriting and membership money raised from WXLV, with a lower figure to be negotiated in subsequent years. WDIY will also work with the college to create training programs for students. In the meantime, though, fans of WXLV's alternative rock and other music programs are out of luck, and the DJs who put those programs together say they've been deprived of a chance to explain to their listeners what happened. Can the college get past those hard feelings and rebuild the station in a way that's satisfying to everyone? Stay tuned.
• Over on the other side of the Keystone State, the call and format changes that have run rampant across the radio dial from State College down to Altoona and Johnstown struck again late last week. This time, Forever Broadcasting swapped calls and formats on rocker WRKW (92.1 Johnstown) and top 40 WYOT (99.1 Ebensburg), creating "Hot 92" and "Rocky 99," and in the process undoing the swap a few years ago that moved top 40 WGLU from 92.1 to 99.1. WRKW also shifts its musical mix somewhat, becoming more of a classic rock station as it moves down the dial. Johnstown also got a new religious station last week, as American Family Radio signed on WLGY (90.7 Nanty Glo) as its newest outlet.
• Over in the Altoona market, Forever made another format change, turning oldies simulcast WWLY (106.3 Huntingdon) into country "Froggy" WSGY, and changing its city of license to Mount Union to fill the gap left by the move of Mount Union's 99.5 facility to Centre Hall.

10 Years Ago: March 5, 2001 -

• From beneath the snows of upstate New York, it's another edition of NorthEast Radio Watch...and what a strange week it's been around the dials. Let's start in MASSACHUSETTS, where the dispute between WBUR-FM (90.9 Boston) and Christopher Lydon's "Connection" crew turned into a full-fledged split this week. If you've been following this saga, you know by now that Lydon and "Connection" executive producer Mary McGrath wanted partial ownership of the public-radio talk show as WBUR prepares to offer it to the NPR system. WBUR management, perhaps envious of the fortunes earned by the station's other signature show ("Car Talk," which is owned by hosts Tom and Ray Magliozzi), balked at the demand -- in the process revealing to the media that Lydon had been offered a raise to nearly $300,000 a year, and McGrath nearly half that. After months of negotiations, Lydon and McGrath were suspended with pay two weeks ago. Most of the show's staff quit WBUR last week, followed on Thursday by conflicting statements from the station and from Lydon, both amounting to the same message: Lydon and McGrath won't be returning to WBUR. The station says the two "informed WBUR that they are leaving their employment to pursue careers in a for-profit, independent production company." A statement posted at a hurriedly-created Lydon Web site says Lydon and McGrath "didn't inform WBUR of anything except that we were willing to negotiate a way to return to the station under any reasonable circumstances to continue to do the program we love."
• Longtime observers of the Boston radio scene know to mark down the call letters on AM 1510 in pencil, and here's why: just weeks after changing calls from WNRB to WSZE, the station formerly known as WMEX, WITS, WMRE, WSSH, WKKU and WSSH (again) made yet another call change last week. It seems "Sports Zone" is someone else's trademark, so the WSZE calls were quietly retired in favor of WWZN, though with no change in the One-on-One Sports programming (which will eventually be rebranded as Sporting News Radio).
• Here's one that should go under the Bay State headlines: we now know why Attleboro's 1320 changed calls from WJYT to WARL a few months back. Since the station is now targeting listeners across the line in RHODE ISLAND, we'll put it in the Ocean State for the moment: The new calls stand for "Web Access Radio Live," a new format that will apparently feature leased-time talk shows that will be streamed live (video and audio) over the Web at the same time as they're heard on WARL. We couldn't get much from the site at webaccessradiolive.com, especially since all that unnecessary Java crashed our browser twice, but here's what we gathered once we restarted our computer: WARL, a new venture of station owner ADD Media, will lease hour-long blocks of time (so far, judging by the posted schedule, it's leased two hours a week, leaving just 166 to go!), allowing programmers eight minutes of commercial time during the hour while also selling its own ad time to corporate sponsors during program breaks.
• We'll start out our NEW YORK report with two new morning shows in Binghamton. One's at WLTB (101.7 Johnson City), which has lured longtime WMXW (103.3 Vestal) co-hosts John Carter and Chris O'Connor over to Vestal Parkway for the wakeup shift beginning today (March 5). The other marks the return to radio of the "Greaseman," aka Doug Tracht. The Ithaca College graduate cut his teeth in Binghamton at WENE (1430 Endicott) before moving up to Rochester (WAXC) and on to the big time in Jacksonville and Washington, before a racist remark led to his dismissal from WARW (94.7 Bethesda MD) two years ago. Tracht announced last week that he's coming back -- albeit, for now, on a small scale, signing Binghamton's WCDW (100.5 Conklin) as his first affiliate for a new DC-based show that starts today (March 5). The only other affiliates so far are small AM stations in Baltimore (WNST 1570 Towson) and Washington (WZHF 1390 Arlington VA), but Tracht is hoping to show that he's cleaned up his act and is ready to return to the airwaves.
• Up in CANADA, the CRTC signed the death warrants this week for four more AM signals, granting moves to FM for CJNH Bancroft, Ontario (from 1240 to 97.7 and 50 kW), CKGB Timmins, Ont. (from 750 to 99.3 and 40 kW), CJCJ Woodstock, N.B. (from 920 to 104.1 with 10 kW) and CKCL Truro, N.S. (from 600 to 99.5 with 16.75 kW).

15 Years Ago: New England Radio Watch, March 4, 1996

• Now that the telecommunications act is law, Infinity is wasting no time in growing still larger in Boston. Locally, Infinity already owns modern-rock WBCN (104.1), which it's had since the beginning, and classic-rock WZLX (100.7), which it purchased a few years back as part of Cook Inlet. With its $410 million purchase of Granum, Infinity now also gets AAA WBOS (92.9) and smooth jazz WOAZ ("The Oasis," 99.5, licensed to outlying Lowell). The most recent Arbitrends give the four FMs a 14.8 share, 12+, making it the third-most-listened to radio group in Boston, behind Evergreen at 17.3 (including WKLB, whose acquisition is still pending) and American Radio Systems at 14.8, but now ahead of CBS at 13.1. If Infinity sticks to established practice, it will keep WBOS/WOAZ operations separate from WBCN and WZLX. This should be interesting for a few people at WBOS, especially morning jock Ken Shelton, who just defected from Infinity and WZLX last year. The deal also adds to Infinity's holdings in Baltimore (2 AMs/2 FMs, including Granum's WXYV-FM/WCAO-AM), Dallas-Ft. Worth (6 FMs/2 AMs, including Granum's KRBV-FM/KOAI-FM/KHVN-AM), and Atlanta (2 FMs/1 AM, including Granum's WVEE-FM/WAOK-AM), as well as putting Infinity in Orlando for the first time with Granum's WHTQ-FM/WMMO-FM/WHOO-AM. This is Boston's first four-FM combo, although American Radio Systems has two AMs and two FMs, and Evergreen has two FMs, an AM, and is buying a third FM.