NERW 1/16/2012: Who’ll Replace CKLN at 88.1 in Toronto?

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, 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: January 17, 2011 –

For many decades now, the pecking order of public radio in western PENNSYLVANIA was pretty clear: the classical music on WQED (89.3) and the news and jazz on WDUQ (90.5) split the lion’s share of noncommercial listening – and fundraising – in the Pittsburgh market, while relative newcomer WYEP (91.3) was a niche player, with a loose AAA format attracting a small but loyal group of somewhat younger listeners.So it may have come as something of a surprise when the long saga of Duquesne University’s attempts to sell WDUQ ended abruptly on Friday afternoon with the announcement that the station had a buyer: a new group called “Essential Public Media,” a joint venture between Colorado-based Public Radio Capital (working through a new nonprofit offshoot, Public Media Company) and WYEP.

Public Radio Capital has been an increasingly important player in the public radio landscape in recent years, financing station deals as large as the sale of Boston’s WCRB to public broadcaster WGBH. Its involvement in Pittsburgh began last year when a group of local philanthropic organizations hooked up with Pittsburgh Public Media, a new nonprofit created by WDUQ’s current management, to take out an option (with PRC serving as consultant) to buy the station from Duquesne.

That option ended up expiring without being exercised, and for the last few months nobody was saying much at all about WDUQ’s future, even as the station was busy moving out of its longtime home and into new quarters elsewhere on the Duquesne campus – a location where its stay will be brief, as it turns out. Once WDUQ’s sale to Essential Public Media closes, the station will get new call letters and a new studio home at WYEP’s relatively new facility on Pittsburgh’s South Side, and Essential will be under no obligation to retain the station’s current staff.

And that raises an interesting point about the sale: at least according to what Duquesne officials said at their Friday afternoon news conference, Essential’s $6 million offer for WDUQ was one of two that was considered, with the other offer – for a lower amount – coming from Pittsburgh Public Media, the group organized by WDUQ’s present management. The $6 million sale price (brokered by Roger Rafson of CMS Station Brokerage for Duquesne) is considerably lower than the university’s original asking price in the $10-12 million range – but that was widely viewed as an overly ambitious goal, particularly in the wake of the $8.7 million sale of commercial station WAMO-FM and its two AM sisters a year earlier. (As another benchmark, Clear Channel just last week sold a class B commercial FM station in the larger San Jose, California market, KUFX, to Entercom for $9 million.)

Essential says it will seek to build on WDUQ’s local journalism, while WYEP general manager Lee Ferraro says they’ll be “working with the community of jazz lovers in Pittsburgh as well.” The deal includes educational opportunities for Duquesne students to intern and even get jobs at the new 90.5; Duquesne, meanwhile, says it will use the revenue from the station’s sale to fund several new educational programs that fit more closely with the university’s core mission than the radio station did.

*There’s a familiar set of call letters returning to Pittsburgh. The WBZZ calls went with “B-94” on what’s now KDKA-FM (93.7) for almost a quarter of a century before being dumped in 2004 when the station went to rock as WRKZ. By the time CBS resurrected “B” in in 2007, the WBZZ calls were in use elsewhere, and of course “B” went away again last year in favor of sports. But when the WBZZ calls became available again last week after their former home in Albany flipped (it’s now 90s-pop “Crush,” WQSH), CBS grabbed them, and now they’re on the station formerly known as WZPT (100.7 New Kensington). No other changes are planned for hot AC “Star 100.7,” CBS says.

Meanwhile, there’s a familiar voice disappearing from the Pittsburgh airwaves – well, some of them, anyway, as Terry Lee discontinues his Sunday-night oldies show on WJAS (1320). The veteran Steel City jock is still being heard on Saturdays on WLSW (103.9 Scottdale), at least in the southern half of the market.

*While public radio people in Pittsburgh work to build a new 90.5, the commercial radio community in Scranton is mourning one of the key players in building one of that city’s most famous stations of an earlier era. Alan Kornish came to WARM (590) in the early 1960s to do sales, but by the end of the decade he’d taken over as general manager, helping to mold WARM into one of the most dominant top-40 voices anywhere in the country. Kornish died at his home in Exeter on Thursday (Jan. 6); he was 74.

For talk radio listeners in eastern MASSACHUSETTS, the week ended with two hosts gone from their usual spots – and one familiar voice back on the air at a new location.

The familiar voice belongs to Michele McPhee, the newspaper columnist-turned-talk host who’d been doing nights at Greater Media’s WTKK (96.9) until “creative differences” pushed her out of that slot in November. Now she’s on the air at Entercom’s WRKO (680), where she starts today in the 1-3 PM slot that had been home to Charley Manning, who took over middays last spring when Clear Channel moved Rush Limbaugh over to its own WXKS (1200). Manning failed to catch ratings fire (though Limbaugh’s numbers on WXKS have also been far from stellar); will McPhee’s more distinctive on-air personality give WRKO some much-needed traction?

Meanwhile in morning drive, Don Imus is now off the air in Boston. He’d already been cut back to just a sliver of morning drive – 5-7 AM – as his Boston affiliate, WTKK, expanded the profile of its local morning show with Jim Braude and Margery Eagan, and as of last Thursday he’s off completely, with “The Jim & Margery Show” now starting at 6, following an extra hour of Phil Hendrie.

Will Imus find a new Boston radio home? The options aren’t promising: rival talkers WRKO and WXKS both appear fairly committed to their own local entries in the morning horse race, as does Imus’ original morning home in town, sports-talk WEEI. And even if WEEI’s competition, “Sports Hub” WBZ-FM (98.5), were interested, there’s a little matter of some very bad blood between Imus and CBS Radio that would have to be overcome.

So for Imus fans in Boston, it’s either distant reception of Providence’s WPRV or New York’s WABC, or Fox Business Channel on TV, at least for now.

Back in the fall of 2009, we reported on the newest radio signal to be licensed in NEW YORK City, translator W296BT (107.1), speculating (here and here) about what might become of the little signal serving lower Manhattan and pieces of downtown Brooklyn and southern Queens.

After a year in which not much happened with the little signal (including any actual on-air appearance on 107.1, where it’s still an unbuilt construction permit), W296BT is once again on the move. The translator has chosen a new primary signal to relay – Clear Channel’s WLTW (106.7) – and it’s applied to move from Brooklyn to 4 Times Square, the prominent broadcast facility that towers over midtown Manhattan.

And that’s not all: the application calls for the translator to move to 106.5, cheek-by-jowl with WLTW on the crowded New York dial. What gives? Educated speculation suggests that the translator, if its CP is granted for the move, would operate on 106.5 only very briefly, just long enough to be licensed on that channel – and then to apply for a move to another frequency where its signal wouldn’t be buried under the HD Radio sidebands of WLTW. From 106.5, the translator (owned by Michael and Tammy Celenza and Young and Eun Kwon under the “Apple 107.1 Inc.” banner) would be eligible to make a minor change to 106.3 or 95.9, both reasonably open channels on which a 250-watt signal from 4 Times Square would cover much of Manhattan and at least small parts of the outer boroughs. What happens then? That’s anyone’s guess, though the obvious next step would be for someone to use the translator as a relay of an HD Radio subchannel from an existing New York FM station.

*Out on Long Island, there’s a format change coming in Suffolk County: as JVC Broadcasting takes over WKJI (96.1 Center Moriches) from Barnstable, it’s ending (as expected) the “K-JOY” AC simulcast with Barnstable’s WKJY (98.3 Hempstead). In its place comes country, as 96.1 prepares to relaunch tomorrow as WJVC, “My Country 96.1.”

Five Years Ago: January 14, 2007 –

With a full complement of station staff, local media, area engineers, itinerant tower photographers and TV news helicopters on hand, the second try at the demolition of the WOR (710) towers in Lyndhurst, NEW JERSEY came off without a hitch Thursday morning.Tripods already lined the driveway of WOR’s new tower site a half-mile away in East Rutherford when we pulled up to add ours to the crowd an hour or so before the scheduled 11:01 demolition. Just like the first attempt last September, the weather was flawless (if a bit chillier) – clear blue skies and a dynamite view across the river to the Manhattan skyline. But unlike that try, which was halted by local police after the proper permits hadn’t been obtained, this one went right on schedule.

In fact, as WOR began its live remote broadcast of the event, the top of the first of the towers (tower 3, the closest to the old transmitter building) had already quietly begun to pitch over before many in the crowd even noticed that the demolition was underway. As the tower crews cut the top level of guys to towers 2 and 3 simultaneously, it took a little over 20 seconds for the two big pieces of steel to fold in on themselves and hit the ground. Tower 3 was first to fall, crumpling about a third of the way up, then landing the bottom of the tower in a sort of arch that would later fall (and which we’d later climb through to survey the wreckage), followed quickly by the twisting demise of tower 2, the southernmost in the array.

After a few minutes’ delay as the tower crew emerged from hiding and moved its saws to tower 1, the easternmost in the array, the cameras again began clicking as the final tower began tipping, bent in half, implanted its top section in the ground to form an inverted “U,” then disappeared from sight to cheers from the crowd and enormous sighs of relief from WOR chief engineer Tom Ray and the station’s management.

Despite fears that the sight of the towers’ collapse might cause panic among drivers on the adjacent New Jersey Turnpike, subsequent viewings of the aerial footage (in HD, no less, on WNBC Channel 4) showed that the Jersey drivers didn’t even slow down when the towers began falling.

Within half an hour of the demolition, the old WOR site was already full of curious engineers, including several who’d been there when WOR built the Lyndhurst towers in 1967, picking their way through the wreckage (less twisted than we’d expected) to salvage bits of shattered base insulators as souvenirs and examining the cleaned-out shell of the transmitter building that carried the voices of Jean Shepherd, several generations of John Gamblings, and so many other legendary WOR talents for so many decades.

Perhaps our favorite moment from the day: the TV reports later on in the afternoon, including the one in which the earnest correspondent’s standup concludes by saying “WOR tells us they’ll build new digital towers at a site about half a mile from the old one,” never quite noticing that those, er, “digital” towers are right next to her already, and that the backdrop of her standup is the new transmitter building. Sigh…

*Speaking of NEW YORK radio history (as Jean Shepherd might have said, segueing into a WOR station ID), the WNEW call letters packed up and flew south last week, after 73 years on the air in New York. The former WNEW (102.7) is now WWFS, for “Fresh FM,” and the WNEW calls now live on the CBS Radio signal at 106.3 in Jupiter, Florida (near West Palm Beach) that was WJBW-FM. There’s no attempt there to trade on the legacy of the WNEW calls – just a parking maneuver to make sure nobody else in New York tries to use them.

Univision split its New York FM simulcast Friday, keeping “La Kalle” and its reggaeton/hurban format on WCAA (105.9 Newark NJ) and flipping WZAA (92.7 Garden City) to regional Mexican as “Que Buena,” with Los Angeles-based morning host Eddie “Piolin” Sotelo.

*There’s a tower down in PENNSYLVANIA, too – or there will be in a few days. Now that Entercom has completed the move of WBZU (910 Scranton) to the rooftop tower of WEJL (630) in downtown Scranton, it’s pulling down the old Lehigh tower on Davis Street that was home to WGBI for so many years. (Thanks to Entercom Scranton CE Lamar Smith for a nice tour of both the new and old sites, which we’ll be featuring on Tower Site of the Week one day soon.)

So much for oldies on FM in Erie: Connoisseur flipped WFGO (94.7) from “Froggy” to adult hits “Bob FM” last week, sending the “Froggy” oldies down to WFNN (1330), where they replace sports talk. Some of WFNN’s sports play-by-play moves to WJET (1400), which remains mostly talk. Look for the calls on the FM to change to WXBB, while the WFGO calls move to 1330.

Ten Years Ago: January 14, 2002 –

Quick – what’s the most powerful AM station in MAINE? The answer to that seemingly simple question has changed in just the last few weeks, thanks to a big facility upgrade at a little station in Rumford, up north of Portland. The 1000-watt daytimer on 790 (later adding 21 watts at night) spent most of its quiet life as WRUM, changing calls a few years ago to WLLB when it was purchased by J.J. Jeffrey. Late last year, Jeffrey sold WLLB to Richard Gleason’s Mountain Valley Broadcasting, which moved some calls around, giving Rumford the WTME calls from 1240 in Lewiston, which became WCNM. But Jeffrey did something else while he owned 790: he filed an application to move the station down the dial to 780 and boost power to 10 kilowatts daytime, still non-directional. And that’s just what WTME did on Christmas Eve, surprising DXers, and half of Portland, with a signal that’s now tied for the most powerful in the Pine Tree State, at least by day. (Only Skowhegan’s WSKW and Gorham’s WMTW were already using 10 kW daytime, and WMTW is directional.) WTME still drops down to flea-power (18 watts) at night, which is problematic this time of year, when the sun’s down before 5 PM, but during the day, it’s now being heard as far away as Boston (and by DXers as far as Ontario!) with religion and talk programming, simulcast with WCNM (1240 Lewiston) and WKTQ (1450 South Paris).

Over in NEW HAMPSHIRE, we can tell you what the call change at WBNC-FM in Conway accomplished: the station now known as WVMJ (104.5) is running an AC format as “Magic,” and we hear it’s being simulcast on the former WBNC (1050), now WXMT.

Down in southern NEW JERSEY, we finally know who’s paying $20 million for Bridgeton’s WSNJ (1240/107.7). “New Jersey Radio Partners, LLC” is a new name in the market, but its partners are familiar names in the radio world: Ed Seeger and Andrew Guest head up American Media Services of Charleston, S.C., the brokerage that’s made its name with innovative FM move-ins. And indeed, the contract to buy the station includes a provision for a move of the FM allocation, presumably to get it closer to Philadelphia and Wilmington (and to clear the way for a power increase at Atlantic City’s WPUR 107.3 as well, perhaps…)

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.”

Fifteen Years Ago: January 8, 1997 –

Things are finally starting to shake out over at Boston’s talk signal, WRKO (680). After two days of dancing around the subject (presumably accompanied by frantic backstage negotiations), veteran talker Jerry Williams has agreed to stay with WRKO doing a weekend shift, 1 to 4 pm Saturdays and Sundays, starting this Saturday, January 11. Williams endeared himself to NERW forever by spending much of Wednesday’s and Thursday’s shows lambasting Boston Globe radio critic Susan Bickelhaupt for the Globe’s sketchy coverage of the situation. Bickelhaupt and Williams have locked swords before, and with very little to lose, Williams let loose on the air, criticizing Bickelhaupt for failing to call him for information, and knocking her for the bland way in which the Globe’s one-paragraph story was written. Also heard on Thursday’s show were many of Williams’ former producers, going back to his start at WRKO back in 1981. Still very much up in the air is the future of WRKO’s morning slot. The feud between co-host Marjorie Clapprood and the station appears to be very real, and it’s now been more than a week since Clapprood walked off. Saturday morning host Mo Lauzier filled in on Thursday, relieving Jeff Katz, who’s getting ready to start in the 10 pm – 2 am slot next week. Katz was uneven at best during his morning debut, spending the first segment of Wednesday’s show in a pointless discussion with other station staffers about who lost the keys to the station van, and later fielding some pretty nasty calls from the listeners. Meantime, Clapprood is reportedly deep in discussions with her lawyers about what to do next, and her co-host Pat Whitley is simply off the air in the meantime.

Notes from all over: The lone AM station in Saratoga Springs NY has returned to local programming, after several years of simulcasting oldies WCKM-FM (98.5 Lake George NY). WKAJ (900) is back to its original calls (from WBGG and then WCKM), and has been heard with big band programming. In New Milford CT, Sound of Life Inc. has applied for a translator on 88.5 for its WFGB (89.7 Kingston NY). The FCC has granted the sale of talker WSNV (103.9 Howland-Bangor ME) from Bay Communications to Moon Song Communications. It’s also approved a change to noncommercial status for WUOK (1240 West Yarmouth MA), as that station is transferred from Boch Broadcasting to the Trustees of Boston University.

Yo-Ho, Yo-Ho, We’re on the Pirate Bandwagon: Yet another unlicensed broadcaster is getting ready to set up shop in the Boston area. An article in the Allston-Brighton Tab newspaper this week quotes former WGBH producer Stephen Provizer as saying he’ll start “Radio Free Allston” next month, running 20 watts on 88.5 from his home on Reedsdale Road in Boston’s Allston neighborhood. Provizer says he’ll operate five hours a day, seven days a week, serving a five-mile radius and airing commercials from neighborhood businesses.