NERW 1/23/2012: Cumulus Doubles Down on PA Country

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 24, 2011 –

In an era where most women in radio were relegated to clerical work or hosting homemaker shows, Ruth Meyer blazed a trail through the industry in NEW YORKthat few radio managers have equaled.Meyer came to New York from her hometown of Kansas City, where she started out writing copy for KCKN (1340), then fell into the orbit of top-40 pioneer Todd Storz, who hired her away to work at WHB (710). In 1958, she took on what was supposed to have been a temporary programming job at New York’s WMGM (1050), only to quit over philosophical differences – as she told author Bob Shannon in his recent book “Turn it Up!,” she believed that she understood the new top-40 format much better than WMGM’s management did.

Fortunately, another Storz protege was working across town at WMCA (570), and Meyer soon ended up there as well. Her original title was “production director” – as a woman, she wasn’t considered qualified to be a program director – but Ruth Meyer was programming WMCA, and doing it superbly.

The WMCA “Good Guys” were Meyer’s creation, and so was the smiley-face sweatshirt that became a New York icon for a few years in the early 1960s. For a decade, until her departure in 1968, Meyer kept WMCA fully competitive with its much more powerful competitor, WABC (770), and even today it’s not hard to find listeners who’ll gladly argue that B. Mitchel Reed and Gary Stevens and the rest of the WMCA “Good Guys” were making better radio than WABC.

Meyer consulted for European stations for a few years after leaving WMCA, then returned to New York radio in 1973 to program WHN (1050); later in the decade, she also programmed WNEW (1130) and returned to WMCA, by then doing talk. Meyer also worked for NBC, helping to develop the youth-oriented “Source” network, and for ABC Radio before retiring to Kansas City, where she died Saturday morning.

While Ruth Meyer was blazing a trail in New York radio, Liz Dribben was beginning her broadcast career at the University of Buffalo’s WBFO (88.7) – but she soon moved to television, becoming one of the best-known faces of WKBW-TV (Channel 7) in the 1960s as host of “Dialing for Dollars” and “In Conversation.”

Dribben moved to New York in 1969, soon joining CBS News, where she worked from 1972 until 1993 as a producer and newswriter. In later years, she was back on the air at WNYC and WEVD; she also taught broadcast journalism at Columbia University. In 2001, she was inducted into the Buffalo Broadcasters Hall of Fame.

Dribben died last Thursday in New York after a brief illness; she was 73.

*You’d think “FM Station Goes Stereo!” would be a headline from 1968 or so – but not in Sag Harbor, where WLNG-FM (92.1) has been a prominent monophonic holdout for decades now, largely at the behest of longtime station manager/air personality Paul Sidney, who believed mono-only operation extended the reach of the class A FM signal.

But Paul’s been gone for a few years now, and when WLNG installed a new transmitter and antenna last year, speculation grew that the legendary little FM signal on the East End would finally flip the stereo pilot “on” for good – and so it did last week, with RDS, no less.

*It’s been almost nine years since CANADA’s first national all-sports radio network folded – but now the same signal that was the Toronto flagship of the ill-fated “Team Sports Radio” is poised to once again talk sports.It was a high-profile moment a decade ago when CHUM (1050) ditched its longtime oldies format to launch “The Team.” This time around, 1050 is all but forgotten, having been largely wasted with a simulcast of CTV’s CP24 TV news channel since the oldies were once again abandoned in 2009.

But sometime in April, that will change once more, when CHUM becomes the flagship of the new TSN Radio Network. TSN, of course, is the cable sports channel owned 80% by CTV and 20% by ESPN, which licenses its “SportsCenter” (er, “SportsCentre”) brand and supplies other programming to the TV network – and which is expected to supply at least some ESPN Radio content to TSN Radio as well.

*In RHODE ISLAND, the FCC has officially cancelled the license of WRJI (91.5 East Greenwich). The Spanish-language religious station had been off the air for more than a year, and had made the mistake of admitting as much to the Commission, which is required by law to delete the license of any station that remains continuously silent for a year. WRJI had applied to move from East Greenwich to Providence, but the FCC dismissed that application as well, noting that it would remove the sole local service to East Greenwich and that it failed to protect other nearby applications on 91.5 (not to mention Providence’s own WDOM on 91.3.)But the saga of WRJI (which was licensed to share time with WCVY at Coventry High School) may not be over that fast – our ears in the Ocean State report that the station’s programming was still being heard on Sunday.

Five Years Ago: January 22, 2007 –

*Nearly three years after his Vox group sold most of its stations in NEW HAMPSHIRE and VERMONT to Nassau Broadcasting, Jeff Shapiro is coming back to the Upper Valley as owner of the “other” cluster in the market.Shapiro’s Great Eastern Radio LLC is buying Clear Channel’s signals, including news-talk WTSL (1400 Hanover NH) and WTSM (93.5 Springfield VT), AC WGXL (92.3 Lebanon NH), rock WMXR (93.9 Woodstock VT)/WVRR (101.7 Newport NH) and country WXXK (100.5 Lebanon NH), for an as-yet-undisclosed price.

“We are thrilled to be returning to the broadcasting community in the Upper Valley,” says Shapiro, who owned WHDQ in Claremont for almost 20 years before selling to Nassau in 2004.

The Upper Valley stations will join Concord-market WTPL (107.7 Hillsboro) under the Great Eastern umbrella.

*In PENNSYLVANIA, Marconi Broadcasting’s WHAT (1340 Philadelphia) relaunched late last week with a rather daring new format. In place of the urban talk that former owner Inner City Broadcasting offered, Marconi CEO Tom Kelly is turning the little AM signal (for which he paid $5 million) into “Skin Radio,” which will mix modern rock and hip-hop. Alvin Clay is the PD of the new station, which will feature what Kelly describes as “young non-radio folks” on the air.We’re big fans, here at NERW, of any sign of fresh thinking on the air, especially on the AM dial, but if you believe, as we do, that “Skin Radio” will end up drawing most of whatever audience it gets from its webcast, you’ve got to wonder what Kelly was thinking by spending as much as he did on the broadcast signal. And since Kelly’s an experienced radio player (he’s keeping his music-research business going even as he launches “Skin Radio”), we’re particularly eager to find out. Stay tuned…

*Two NEW YORK public broadcasting executives are preparing to move on from their leadership posts. At WNET/WLIW in New York City, Bill Baker will step down in early 2008 after 20 years as president, with former NBC News president Neal Shapiro replacing him. (Shapiro’s already on board at Educational Broadcasting Corporation, WNET’s parent, for a yearlong transition process.)Up the Hudson, Deborah Onslow’s retiring as president of WMHT Educational Telecommunications in the Albany/Schenectady market. Onslow joined the stations in 2001 from WGBY in Springfield (and from WXXI in Rochester before that); no word yet on a replacement at WMHT.

A format change in the Finger Lakes: The Radio Group has pulled WSFW (1110 Seneca Falls) out of the “Finger Lakes News-Talk Network” simulcast with WGVA (1240 Geneva), WCGR (1550 Canandaigua) and WAUB (1590 Auburn). The daytime-only signal on 1110 is now the “Finger Lakes Visitors Channel,” with a repeating loop of travel information and weather forecasts.

There’s a new talk show starting today on WYSL (1040 Avon). Rochester attorney and political activist Bill Nojay, who was a regular substitute for WHAM’s Bob Lonsberry, has landed a regular 2-3 PM weekday slot on WYSL, where he’ll be talking about Rochester’s economic future.

*In CANADA, the CBC is about to make another round of programming changes on its radio services, especially at Radio Two, where an aging audience is prompting concerns about the network’s future. So beginning in March, and continuing over the next year, the mostly classical programming on Radio Two will be joined by an increasing amount of jazz and pop, with a strongly Canadian flavo(u)r to it. Radio One, meanwhile, will lose most of its music programming, and its afternoon “Freestyle” pop culture show will be replaced by a new Toronto-based arts show hosted by Jian Ghomeshi.

And we remember Canada’s pioneering TV meteorologist, Percy Saltzman, who died last Monday (Jan. 15) at 91. Saltzman was working for the federal weather service in 1947 when he began providing forecasts for CBC radio, and when CBC TV went on the air five years later, Saltzman was the very first live air talent to be seen on the new service. Saltzman spent 20 years with the CBC before joining CTV as part of the inaugural staff for the new “Canada AM” morning show. In 1974, he moved to the new CITY-TV, and later worked for Global before retiring in 1982.

Ten Years Ago: January 23, 2002 –

The sound of sports talk is coming to southern CONNECTICUT this week, as yet another Clear Channel station ditches the standards format in favor of satellite-delivered talk. This time around, it’s WAVZ (1300) in New Haven making the change. As soon as tomorrow (Jan. 24), the 1000-watt station will become “The Zone, Fox Sports Radio 1300,” airing the 24-hour Fox Sports feed distributed by Clear Channel’s Premiere Radio. WAVZ was already carrying local sports programming that included Ravens AHL hockey; that will continue, but the station doesn’t expect to add much more in the way of local talk. The standards continue for New Haven listeners on WQUN (1220 Hamden).

Elsewhere in the Nutmeg State, we noted the arrival of some “refugee” call letters from South Florida, buried amidst the FCC’s call changes this week. Those would be “WTMI,” recently sent packing after decades in Miami, where they were associated with the classical music format on 93.1 FM. Cox Radio turned off the classics in Miami on New Year’s Eve, flipping the station to dance as WPYM, “Party 93.1,” which opened the door for the folks at Marlin Broadcasting to apply for the WTMI calls for WCCC (1290) in West Hartford. There’s a family connection there: Marlin sold WTMI to Cox a few years back, and WTMI’s classical programming, from Marlin’s Beethoven network, is still heard on 1290, at least after Howard Stern’s show is over each morning.

Clear Channel picked up another FM in MAINE this week, converting its LMA of Gopher Hill Broadcasting’s WQSS (102.5 Camden) into full-fledged ownership for $1.72 million.

Down in Portland, Chuck Igo landed on his feet as the new afternoon-drive jock on oldies WYNZ (100.9 Westbrook). Igo, who’s always lived in the Portland area during his long career in Boston radio (most recently in overnights on WROR), will keep making the haul down I-95 to do weekend work at the Greater Media cluster in the Hub.

We’ll begin our NEW YORK report just across the border from Canada, at WWJS (90.1 Watertown), where a dispute that involves the station’s operators, the church that supported it and the city of Watertown has taken the religious station silent for now. WWJS is licensed to the Liberty Christian Center, which is hoping to receive tax-exempt status from Watertown. It had been operated by Charles and Karleen Savidge, who are the in-laws of Liberty pastor Steven Bryant, until Bryant locked them out of the 210 Court Street building shared by the church and the radio station. Bryant told Watertown media outlets that he holds the WWJS license; the Savidges say that’s impossible, because Bryant is a Canadian citizen. For now, WWJS’s equipment remains locked inside the Court Street building and the station remains off the air; we’ll keep you posted as this situation heads to court.

Over here in Western New York, the voices are about to change on Rochester oldies outlet WBBF (950 Rochester/93.3 Fairport), as PD Bobby Hatfield gets ready to depart the Entercom station. (Under his real name of Joe Reilly, he’s the new owner of WHLM 930 down in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, which will inaugurate regular programming next month.) Dave Symonds, who’s already operations manager for the Entercom cluster, will assume PD duties for WBBF, while Mike Vickers moves from middays to Hatfield’s old afternoon drive slot. Dave Radigan will take over midday and assistant PD duties, we’re told.

Fifteen Years Ago: January 18, 1997 –

The talk radio wars in Hartford have claimed a victim: WPOP (1410) abruptly cancelled all its programming last week, and after a weekend of dance/CHR music, re-emerged Monday (1/13) as “Sports Radio 1410,” minus its entire programming staff. The format change comes just on the heels of WPOP’s sale to SFX Broadcasting from Multi-Market Communications, which had run the station as a mix of local and satellite talk. Among the shows that originated at WPOP was the syndicated “Judy Jarvis Show,” which has shifted production to the Robinson Media Arts Center next to the Connecticut School of Broadcasting in Farmington. Jarvis no longer has a Hartford-area outlet. Jarvis needed to move no matter what, since the WPOP studios in Newington are being sold as part of SFX’s consolidation of its many Hartford stations.

Yo-ho! Yo-ho! More news from the pirate front: We begin this week with our friends down at “Praise 105.3” in Connecticut, that unlicensed gospel-music station that NERW first noticed about a month ago. It seems “Praise” has been noticed by a few others as well, most notably the folks down at licensed WKND (1480) in Windsor CT, who say they’re losing something like $10,000 a month to “Praise.” Someone’s called the FCC (yes, they really do still exist!), and “Praise 105.3″‘s “Sponsor Appreciation Day” on Thursday was marred by the sudden discovery by some of those sponsors that the station they were advertising on is illegal. Marichal Monts, the pastor of the Citadel of Love in Hartford, and a gospel show host on Wesleyan University’s WESU (88.1) Middletown, says he’s pulling his support from “Praise 105.3.” Monts told the Hartford Courant that he knew the station was unlicensed, but didn’t realize it was illegal — and he’s “not trying to break the law.” The operator of “Praise 105.3,” one Mark Blake, refused to answer questions from the Courant. Published reports put the station at 701 Cottage Grove Road in Bloomfield CT, which suggests that the station is probably running over a hundred watts of power, given how good its signal is in Hartford’s north, west, and east suburbs.

Boston University’s public radio station, WBUR (90.9) Boston, is taking yet another step towards 24 hour news and talk. ‘BUR is pulling the plug on Tony Cennamo’s overnight jazz block. Cennamo is an opinionated host whose views on what does (and doesn’t) make good jazz have polarized many in the Boston jazz community. He’s also been with ‘BUR for what seems like forever. No word on whether anyone else in town will pick up Cennamo’s show.

And finally this week, a major programming note from NERW Central: After seven years in Boston, I’m picking up the radio and heading west next month. Starting February 3, I’ll be the assignment editor of R News, Time Warner’s 24-hour cable news channel in Rochester NY. As most of you know, I’ve spent the past five years as a newswriter and editor at Boston’s WBZ, and while it’s been an exciting, rewarding place to work, I’m ready for a new challenge — even if it is TV! (2007 update: But I came back to radio in the end…) Don’t panic, though — NERW will live on. The nice thing about the Internet is that I can use it just as easily from Rochester NY as from Waltham MA. I’ll still be getting regular Boston updates from NERW’s many friends up here, including Boston Radio Archives co-creator Garrett Wollman and contributing editors Peter George, Donna Halper, and so many others. The scope of this column will change a bit, though — as we change the name to “North East Radio Watch.” You can still call us “NERW” for short, and we’ll still cover the goings-on on and off the air in the six New England states. Starting this spring, though, you’ll also read about what’s happening in upstate New York here in NERW, as I begin re-acquainting myself with the radio dial I grew up with (it was emptier then!)