NERW 12/10/2012: Nexstar, Sinclair Up-End Upstate TV

In this week’s issue… Sinclair rearranges Rochester TV – Ken Squier buys another Vermont FM – Remembering WTIC’s Arnold Dean and Albany’s Don Decker – Reith out in Syracuse

By SCOTT FYBUSH

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*The average TV viewer in upstate NEW YORK might not have noticed much, but behind the scenes, last week brought some dramatic changes to the dial involving two big group owners.

Nexstar was already an established presence in the region, owning and operating clusters in Rochester and Utica as well as just across the state line in Scranton and Erie, Pennsylvania. When Nexstar closed its purchase of most of Newport Television’s stations, it instantly became a much larger player. Nexstar’s Newport deal adds most of the cluster that was first assembled more than a decade ago by Ackerley, later passing to Clear Channel and then Newport. In Syracuse, Nexstar now owns top-rated ABC affiliate WSYR-TV (Channel 9), which serves as a hub for Watertown ABC outlet WWTI (Channel 50), Elmira NBC station WETM (Channel 18), Binghamton’s ABC affiliate WIVT (Channel 34) and NBC affiliate WBGH-LP (Channel 20). Nexstar’s Utica ABC affiliate, WUTR (Channel 20), was part of the old Ackerley group, too, and now rejoins its old sister station.

Under Ackerley, the group established a master control hub in Syracuse. The Nexstar acquisition will add a new level of hubbing: accounting and traffic for all of Nexstar’s stations in the region are being handled from a new hub at WROC-TV (Channel 8) in Rochester. Our colleague Peter Naughton at CNYRadio.com reports that consolidation meant as many as 20 jobs were lost at WSYR-TV’s East Syracuse facility, including the loss of several part-time photojournalists as well as production and business managers.

The Nexstar/Newport deal also brings two more former Clear Channel Television stations in the region under Newport’s management: CBS affiliate WHP-TV (Channel 21) in Harrisburg, PENNSYLVANIA and its JSA partner, CW affiliate WLYH (Channel 15) in Lebanon. Nexstar’s arrival in the Harrisburg market means the departure of Holly Steuart, who’d been GM at those stations under Newport; Steuart had also worked at WROC-TV in Rochester before moving to Harrisburg.

Nexstar still has another deal yet to close: it’s also acquiring Fox affiliate WFFF (Channel 44) and WVNY (Channel 22) in Burlington, Vermont, adding to what’s now a large regional footprint.

*While we knew Nexstar’s closing on the Newport stations was just a matter of time, the week’s other big deal came as a surprise – even, apparently, to Nexstar itself. This piece of the puzzle involves the last station remaining in the Newport family, ABC affiliate WHAM-TV (Channel 13) in Rochester. Because Nexstar already owned WROC in Rochester and operated Sinclair-owned Fox affiliate WUHF (Channel 31) under a joint sales agreement (JSA), it appeared that WHAM-TV would have to go to a different buyer. What nobody at Nexstar appears to have expected was that the “different buyer” would be its own JSA partner in Rochester, Sinclair, which paid $54 million on Monday and immediately took over the “non-license assets” of WHAM-TV.

Confused yet? No more so than the business pages that obligingly reported Sinclair’s official statement that it had no plans to alter its WUHF arrangement with WROC, leaving the station Sinclair actually owns, WUHF, being operated by a competitor to WHAM-TV, the station Sinclair will operate but not own. Even in the tangled web that is modern television group ownership, that’s a bizarre situation indeed, and NERW can confirm it won’t last very long.

Here’s what’s really about to happen in Rochester TV:

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Nexstar’s JSA with WUHF began in September 2005, when Sinclair moved WUHF out of the East Avenue studios it had occupied for a quarter-century, shutting down its own local newsroom and relocating WUHF to WROC’s historic Humboldt Street studios. The original JSA was a seven-year deal, and as its expiration approached earlier this year, the two companies renewed the arrangement through the end of 2013.

But NERW has learned there’s a clause in that deal that allows either company to exit the JSA with advance notice – and so sometime in mid-2013, Sinclair will pull WUHF out of WROC’s Humboldt Street facility and move it over to WHAM-TV’s Henrietta studios. WUHF’s Fox affiliation and its syndicated programming (purchased by Sinclair) won’t change, but viewers will notice one immediate difference: instead of a 10 PM newscast produced by the WROC newsroom under contract to WUHF, Sinclair’s own WHAM-TV newsroom will be producing the Fox newscast. (WHAM already does a 10 PM show, which now airs on its CW subchannel.)

In the meantime, WROC and Nexstar will spend the first half of 2013 in the uncomfortable position of providing services to a soon-to-be-competitor, not just in the newsroom but also in master control. Under Ackerley, Clear Channel and Newport, WHAM-TV’s master control was hubbed in Syracuse at WSYR-TV; until a new master control can be built for Sinclair’s new Rochester operation, WHAM’s master control remains in Syracuse being operated under contract by Nexstar.

Over at WHAM, Sinclair’s arrival doesn’t appear to mean any major staffing changes, and may even mean more investment in the newsroom now that it will be serving a second station. And what becomes of the actual WHAM-TV license, which Sinclair can’t own as long as it has WUHF? An application was filed with the FCC on Friday to transfer the license to Deerfield Media, the arms-length Sinclair sister company that functions as a shell company in many Sinclair markets. Deerfield will pay $6 million for the license, and will grant Sinclair a five-year option to purchase the WHAM license.

For Sinclair, then, the week’s deals result in an upgrade from the junior partner in a JSA with a competitor, to becoming the operator of two stations, including top-rated WHAM-TV. For Nexstar, it means the loss of what appears to have been a nice stream of JSA revenue from WUHF; even so, WROC’s strong CBS affiliation and a resurgent local news operation should continue to keep the station in decent shape. (NERW wonders: once WUHF has left the building, will Nexstar seek to partner with the other remaining standalone in town, Hubbard-owned NBC affiliate WHEC? And in retrospect, if Nexstar had known it would end up as a standalone player in Rochester anyway, might it have made more sense for Nexstar to acquire WHAM as part of the Newport purchase, instead selling WROC to Sinclair?)

There are still a few more puzzle pieces yet to be put in place across the region. In Utica, dominant NBC affiliate WKTV (Channel 2) has been up for sale for a while now; could it end up closing Sinclair’s link of stations all up and down the Thruway, where the company now runs two stations each in Buffalo (WUTV/WNYO), Syracuse (WSYT/WNYS) and Albany (recent purchase WRGB/WCWN)?

And in Syracuse, Barrington Broadcasting’s announcement that its stations are up for sale puts more pieces in play: the company owns NBC affiliate WSTM (Channel 3) and its low-power CW sister WSTQ (Channel 14), as well as operating Granite’s CBS affiliate, WTVH (Channel 5).

*Radio People on the Move: Cumulus has a new morning man to replace the recently-departed Jack Hammer at country WKXP (94.3 Kingston)/WZAD (97.3 Wurtsboro). He’s CJ McIntyre, late of Clear Channel’s WRWD (107.3).

In Syracuse, talk host Jim Reith thought he had found a comfortable new home at public broadcaster WCNY after he was ousted from his longtime afternoon spot at WSYR (570) in last year’s big Clear Channel cutbacks. WCNY had big plans for Reith: he was blogging for the station’s website, he was hosting a nightly TV talk show (called simply “Reith”), and he was about to start doing radio talk again, on the HD3 subchannel of WCNY’s FM stations in Syracuse, Utica and Watertown.

Reith’s TV show, however, proved to be a tough sell for public TV viewers and underwriters, and last week the station pulled the plug. “(I)n the end, we found it to be a greater challenge than we anticipated to move Jim’s brand from radio to television,” said WCNY CEO Robert Daino. WCNY-TV says it will now launch a new daily public affairs show sometime next year.

A well-known New York radio voice has reason to be feeling fatherly pride this week: Jack Kratoville’s long career at WLTW (106.7) and other stations in the city and on Long Island inspired his son Kyle to go into radio as well. Now Kyle has relocated to eastern North Carolina, where he’s just been named night jock at WERO (93.3 Washington NC).

*New York’s WEPN (1050) no longer has a simulcast in central NEW JERSEY. The relay of WEPN on WNJE (1040 Flemington) made some sense when 1050 was the English-language home of ESPN in New York and the 1040 signal could fill some serious nulls in the 1050 signal. With ESPN’s move to FM (on WEPN-FM 98.7), 1050 went to Spanish-language ESPN Deportes Radio, and after a few months of simulcasting en Espanol, WNJE has now gone its own way. Under new owner Connoisseur, 1040 is now simulcasting religious sister station WCHR (920 Trenton).

*Translators on the march: In Albany, Joe Reilly’s new Empire Broadcasting is shifting format on W291BY (106.1), switching the input from WUAM (900 Watervliet) and its simulcast of YNN’s local TV news to WABY (1160 Mechanicville) and its adult standards format. Southeast of Buffalo, we can now put a price tag on Lloyd Lane’s latest translator addition for WCJW (1140 Warsaw): he’s paying Family Life Ministries $5000 to add W283AU (104.5 Arcade) to a network that already includes four translators for the AM signal.

*And we remember Don Decker, whose long career in upstate broadcasting started at WCSS (1490 Amsterdam) in the 1950s, then took him to WSNY in Schenectady and WTRY in Troy before he landed at WGY (810) and WRGB (Channel 6) in Schenectady, where he rose to become news director in 1968. Decker later worked as news director at WAMC (90.3) and then at WTEN (Channel 10) before retiring in 1998. Decker launched the careers of many of Albany’s best-known TV newspeople, not to mention the market’s first hour-long evening newscast during WRGB’s dominant years in the 1970s. Decker died Monday at 79 following a fight with cancer.

*If Decker could be considered a contender for the title of “Dean of Albany News,” there was no argument about who was true “Dean of CONNECTICUT Sports.” That was Arnold Dean, who joined the staff of WTIC (1080 Hartford) in 1965 after starting his career at WKRT (920) in his native Cortland, New York, where he was born Arnold D’Angelo. Dean wore many hats in his early years at WTIC, indulging his passion for jazz as the host of several music shows. By 1976, he’d settled into a very comfortable role as the station’s evening sports talk host. Dean’s tenure at WTIC was exceeded by only one other announcer – and nobody’s ever likely to top the legendary Bob Steele’s amazing six-decade run at the station. Like Steele, Dean gradually tapered back his work on WTIC without ever completely leaving the station. Dean was on the air just two weeks before his death on Saturday; he was 82.

*While last week’s corporate job-cutting at big Clear Channel markets appeared to have spared most of the clusters in our region, one central MASSACHUSETTS talent was moving on of his own volition. At Clear Channel in Worcester, the search is on for a morning replacement for Jim Polito, who did his last show on WTAG (580) Friday morning. Polito’s headed down the Pike to Fox’s WFXT (Channel 25), where he’ll be a political commentator.

Across town, WCRN (830 Worcester) has picked up Michael Savage’s new Cumulus syndicated talk show and has reportedly dropped CBS Radio’s “Overnight America,” which is also heard in the area on Greater Media’s WTKK (96.9 Boston); speaking of overnights and CBS Radio, the rotation of fill-in hosts on WBZ (1030 Boston) in Steve LeVeille’s old slot recently included a tryout by Jen Brien, late of WRKO.

Down the hall from WRKO, WEEI-FM (93.7) has picked a new morning sports update anchor: he’s Kevin Winter, most recently of ESPN Radio. Winter has also worked at the old WAMG (890) in its ESPN days and at WWZN (1510).

*It’s long since ceased to be news when a radio station flips to nonstop Christmas music sometime in November – which means that it was news when November ended without any station in Boston making the flip. (Any analog station, that is; CBS Radio’s WODS 103.3, traditionally an early Christmas-flipper in its classic hits days, stuck with its new “Amp” top-40 format on its main channel but went all-Christmas on an HD subchannel back in October.)

Without WODS to prod it into an early flip, Greater Media classic hits outlet WROR (105.7) has stuck with its usual format. As of last week, though, it’s all “ho-ho-ho” down the hall at sister station WMJX (106.7), which has normally been sticking with its usual AC format during the holidays.)

*Wondering what the new “Electromagnetic Company” was up to with the stations it picked up as spinoffs from the Nassau Broadcasting breakup? Not much, it appears: no sooner was the ink dry on Electromagnetic’s acquisition of WEXP (101.5 Brandon) than the Rutland-market station was on the move again. There’s no wondering what the new ownership has in mind: Ken Squier’s Radio Vermont (doing business here as “Woodchuck Radio LLC”) is paying $475,000 to expand the reach of flagship WDEV (550 Waterbury) south into Rutland.

WDEV already has one FM simulcast, on WDEV-FM (96.1 Warren), and if Squier’s goal is to make WDEV the same sort of statewide FM voice that it was in the glory days of AM, there are some opportunites: Electromagnetic is sitting on the now-dark WMXR (104.3 Hartford), which is also presumably for sale; depending on which way Squier might want to move up or down I-89, 104.3 could either stay put in the Upper Valley or build out its construction permit to move to Keeseville, N.Y., in the Burlington market. And there’s WEXP’s simulcast to the south, WTHK (100.7 Wilmington), which stayed with Great Eastern Radio in the Nassau sale; it’s hard to imagine that WTHK wouldn’t also be available at a minimal cost if WDEV wants to expand south of Rutland toward the Brattleboro area.

*One of eastern PENNSYLVANIA’s most interesting college stations is being sold. Lehigh Carbon Community College has agreed to sell WXLV (90.3 Schnecksville) to Four Rivers Community Broadcasting for $705,000, and that means WXLV’s eclectic programming will soon give way to a relay of Four Rivers’ “Word FM,” already heard in parts of the Lehigh Valley on flagship WBYO (88.9 Sellersville). (Much more on this over at Radio Survivor, which has been tracking WXLV’s travails for several years now…)

Scranton public broadcaster WVIA-FM (89.9) added another link to its relay network last week. WPAU (91.5 Palmyra Township) augments WVIA’s reach northeastward into the Honesdale/Pike County area; it joins existing WVIA relays in Williamsport (WVYA 89.7) and in the Mansfield area, where WTIO (88.3) signed on over the summer.

The Clear Channel job cuts affected two broadcasters at opposite ends of the state: AllAccess reports Bob Stei is out after many years as a part-timer at Clear Channel Philadelphia, while in Pittsburgh, middayer Jimmy Flick was cut from “Kiss” WKST-FM (96.1).

*In CANADA, Vista Radio has picked a replacement PD/operations manager at its Niagara Falls stations, CFLZ (Z101.1) and CJED (105.1 Ed FM). Drew Keith comes down the QEW from Hamilton, where he’s spent the last eight years as PD/operations manager at Astral’s CHAM/CKOC/CKLH. Before that, Keith worked for Vista’s Ontario predecessor, Haliburton, and earlier on he was in Toronto at CJEZ and CHFI.

In Montreal, the CRTC has approved TTP’s plan to locate its new AM 940 signal at the transmitter site the company is leasing from Bell in Kahnawahke, just south of the St. Lawrence River. That Kahnawahke site is where the previous 940 signal, CINW, was located – and of course it’s the historic site of CINW’s predecessor, CFCF/CIQC (600). TTP also has a permit for a new English-language talker on 600, which will share the Kahnawahke site with the new French-language 940. TTP had originally planned to put 940 in Saint-Constant, a few kilometers to the southeast, where it would have diplexed with CJMS (1040) at the site that was the original home of CKGM (980).

(Just to complete the great circle of radio here, CKGM later moved to 990 in Mercier, south of Kahnawahke; that site fell silent on 990 last week when CKGM completed its transition to 690, returning that frequency to the air after it had fallen silent, as CINF, from the Kahnawahke towers.)

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As we work our way toward the end of the year, we have some special NERW features coming your way. Next week’s issue will include our annual “NERW Bookshelf and Gift Guide,” and now’s the time to let us know if there’s something you’ve read this year that belongs in our listing of interesting new releases related to radio and TV in our region.

And on December 24, we’ll begin our “2012 Year in Review” special presentation. You won’t want to miss this year’s extensive look back at the stories and people who made broadcasting exciting across the region. We have some great opportunities available for advertisers in this special section, too – reach out to Lisa (lisa at fybush dot com) for all the details on how you can be a part of our Year in Review!

*Good news, everybody! A new shipment of the 2013 Tower Site Calendar is back from the printer, and on its way out to YOU!

This is the 12th edition of our annual calendar, which features photos of broadcast towers taken by Scott Fybush on his travels.

The 12-month wall calendar boasts a full-color photo each month of a well-known broadcast transmitter site.

This year’s edition includes sites in Florida, Wisconsin, Kentucky, California, Iowa, Idaho, Las Vegas, Colorado, Boston, Cleveland, Albuquerque, upstate New York and western Massachusetts. We’ve also redesigned the calendar to make it more colorful (don’t worry; the pictures are still pristine) and make the spiral binding our standard binding — your calendar will hang even better on your wall now! And of course, we still have the convenient hole for hanging.

Order 20 or more for a 10% discount! And while you’re at the Fybush.com store, check out the new National Radio Club AM Log and the final stash of FM Atlas editions.

For more information and to order yours, click here!