In this week’s issue… CRTC slaps down Niagara simulcast – Tower down in Maine – NY FM reworks morning show – WARM’s back
*Broadcasters in the U.S. enjoy pretty free rein when it comes to what they program, who they simulcast and where they seek out ad dollars. But you only have to go a few miles across the border into CANADA for this week’s example of just how differently the rules work there.
The stations at the center of the CRTC’s wrath this week are Vista’s CFLZ (101.1 Fort Erie) and CJED (105.1 Niagara Falls), which have been simulcasting as “2Day FM” since September 2013 but waited until May 2014 to ask the agency for the license modifications that would make the simulcast legal. While “shoot first and ask questions later” may be a sound business strategy in some contexts, it doesn’t fly with the CRTC, which last week slapped Vista with some tough conditions in order to keep the 101.1 half of the simulcast on the air.
Here’s the problem: because the CRTC requires most licensees to provide a not-insignificant amount of local news specific to their communities, it’s nearly impossible for stations to both simulcast 24/7 and to meet those local news and programming requirements. Under the Broadcasting Act, stations that are local for less than 42 hours a week can’t solicit or accept local advertising within their communities.
After Vista acquired CFLZ and CJED through its purchase of the Haliburton group in 2012, it tells the CRTC that it found the Niagara Falls-based stations were “in disrepair, understaffed, had virtually no presence in the market, and were not operating on a financially sustainable basis,” making the simulcast necessary on a temporary basis. Its May application requested CRTC permission to retain the simulcast until the end of CFLZ’s license term, waiving the 42-hour rule for local ad sales while meeting a license term requiring three hours of local news each week.
But the CRTC was in no mood to reward Vista. Writing that the financial problems at CJED/CFLZ already existed when Vista bought the stations, the CRTC denied the license amendments. Instead, it told Vista that it has only until this Thursday to return local programming to 101.1, with a detailed report on how compliance will be assured – or, failing that, to submit an application by January 26, 2015 to convert CFLZ into a “rebroadcasting transmitter” of CJED.
Assuming Vista chooses that latter option, as seems likely, it will be able to legally simulcast the two overlapping FM signals all the time. But it also won’t be able to solicit or accept advertising in Fort Erie, ending just under 30 years of local radio operation in that community just across the Niagara River from Buffalo. Local Fort Erie radio started in 1986 when CJFT (530) took to the air, diplexed with then-sister CJRN (710); later on, CJFT moved to 101.1 as CJFT-FM, CKEY and eventually CFLZ. The station has been under CRTC scrutiny in the past, especially a decade or so ago when its then-owners struck a deal with the Cumulus cluster across the river in which much of 101.1’s programming was coming from Buffalo. If CFLZ becomes a “rebroadcasting transmitter” of the 105.1 signal 20 miles or so to the north, Fort Erie advertisers will effectively be shut out of radio – and does that serve the community very well, either?
(One more note before we leave “2Day FM” – Canadian Radio News’ Dan Sys reports that back in September, Vista put the “2Day” branding on CHGK 107.7 in Stratford, too.)
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*In Toronto, Ryerson University is returning once more to the broadcast airwaves. Many decades ago, Ryerson started what’s now independent jazz station CJRT (91.1), and later on CKLN (88.1) came and went from the Ryerson campus. Radio Ryerson had reapplied for 88.1 after CKLN lost its license, but when it didn’t get the 88.1 frequency, it applied for 99 watts at 1280 on the AM dial, which is what it received from the CRTC last week. The new station, to be known as “The Scope,” will carry calls CJRU, reports Canadian Radio News.
*In Montreal and Quebec City, Jean-Pierre Coallier and Pierre Barbeau are selling their “Radio Classique” signals (CJPX 99.5 and CJSQ 92.7, respectively) to Gregory Charles’ Groupe Musique Greg. Steve Faguy reports the deal, believed to be worth just over C$10 million, will probably retain the stations’ French-language classical programming. Just down the road in St.-Constant, the CRTC has approved Groupe Medias Pam’s purchase of CJMS (1040), for C$15,000 and commercial airtime for the former owners. The sale comes with a laundry list of conditions, including a commitment to retaining CJMS’ French-language country format and a short-term renewal that’s meant to help resolve some substantial rules violations under previous ownership.
Driven by budget cuts, the CBC’s changes in local TV news are about to roll through eastern markets in different ways: in Toronto, Ottawa, Halifax, Charlottetown and St. John’s, Newfoundland, 90-minute local early-evening newscasts will be cut to 60 minutes, while local news in Windsor, Fredericton and Montreal gets cut all the way back to 30 minutes. In Montreal, CBMT (Channel 6) is a particularly weak performer among CBC local newscasts, falling a very distant second behind CTV’s dominant CFCF (Channel 12). To help fill the gap in local news on TV, CBC will begin carrying an hour of local morning news from CBC Radio on each of its local TV stations from 6-7 AM; this change will actually increase the reach of some local morning radio shows, since CBLA (99.1 Toronto)’s “Metro Morning,” for instance, isn’t heard on local transmitters in areas such as London and Sudbury that get CBLT (Channel 5) from Toronto on TV. (Likewise, CBC TV viewers all across New Brunswick will get the Fredericton morning show from CBZH instead of their local shows from Saint John or Moncton, and Cape Breton Island viewers will get the Halifax morning show instead of CBI Sydney.)
Say goodbye to CBGA-1 (540): the ICI Radio Canada outlet that served Quebec’s Gaspe peninsula from a transmitter site in far northern New Brunswick went silent for good sometime last week, replaced by a network of smaller FM repeaters.
*The “C” company making big staffing changes in NEW YORK City last week wasn’t iHeart (well, it used to be a “C” company) but rather Cumulus – and the changes were in morning drive at WPLJ (95.5), where Jayde Donovan is inbound from Tampa’s WPOI to become the new sidekick to Todd Pettengill on “The Todd Show.” Her arrival means the departure of Pettengill’s original co-host, Cooper Lawrence, and production director William “Fitz” Fitzpatrick is out as well, less than a year after he came on board for the Pettengill show. (Our content partner, RadioInsight, noted that the WPLJ news release on Donovan’s arrival makes no mention of PD John Foxx, either.)
Down the hall, former WQHT (Hot 97) jock Mister Cee has joined the staff at “New York 103.9,” WNBM (103.9 Bronxville).
*A few weeks ago, NERW exclusively reported on plans for initial TV signal testing from the new 1 World Trade Center tower, and this week we have some updates to offer. In addition to plans to test a VHF signal on RF channel 12, the Metropolitan TV Alliance (MTVA) has also applied for a UHF signal, using special temporary authority under ion’s WPXN (Channel 31) license to transmit during overnight hours on RF channel 32 from 1WTC. MTVA notes that seven of its members use UHF channels and are seeking data to determine whether to apply to move permanently to the new tower.
Meanwhile, WABC-TV (Channel 7) is asking the FCC to extend its STA for that channel 12 test. Not only does it hope to conduct the UHF and VHF tests simultaneously, but WABC notes that its channel 12 antenna for the test has been delayed in customs and no tests can be conducted before the channel 12 STA CP runs out tonight. Instead, it’s asking the FCC to extend the test period until February 28, 2015, though it only plans to do two weeks of overnight testing.
In Rockland County, Alexander Broadcasting’s WRCR (1300 Spring Valley) is getting closer to building out its move up the dial to 1700. The new signal, licensed to Ramapo, will come from one of the remaining two towers of what was originally the three-tower 1300 array off Route 59. When WRCR moves, it will get a big power increase: it’s currently running 125 watts by day and 83 watts at night under STA, but on 1700 it will get 10 kW days and 1 kW at night.
Happy anniversary to one of the Hudson Valley’s oldest stations! WKNY (1490 Kingston) signed on back in 1939, and it will celebrate its 75th birthday with a special that will air Tuesday night at 7.
LPFM news: in Troy, the Green Educational and Legal Fund is applying to shift its 92.7 application to 106.9; down the road in Albany, Grand Street Community Arts now has calls – WCAA-LP – for its new construction permit on 107.3.
*There’s some good news from MAINE, where engineer Joel Epley checked in with NERW over the weekend to report that he’s got WMDR-FM (88.9 Oakland) back on the air after wind and ice took its tower down on Streaked Mountain a few days ago. (See all the details in our NERW Extra from Wednesday.)
While work continues up at the main WMDR-FM site to remove the wreckage of the downed tower and to see how much of the antenna can be salvaged, a broadband antenna at the site of sister station WMEY (88.1 Bowdoin) meant that the WMEY facility east of Lewiston could be retuned as an emergency home for the 88.9 signal, replicating at least part of WMDR-FM’s usual big coverage of central and southern Maine. Epley reports the replacement 88.9 signal is strong enough to reactivate the translator in Bangor that went silent when the Streaked Mountain tower fell.
*In eastern MASSACHUSETTS, Howie Carr is adding another affiliate to help fill in the anemic after-dark coverage of his new Boston flagship, WMEX (1510). Carr’s gain, in this case, is fellow Entercom exile Glenn Ordway’s loss: WCAP (980 Lowell), which was one of the first terrestrial signals to pick up Ordway’s new streaming show when it launched earlier this year, is now dropping Ordway from the 3-6 PM weekday slot and putting Carr there. When it’s cooking at a full 5,000 watts, WCAP serves a decent chunk of northeastern Massachusetts from the 128 corridor into the Merrimack Valley, but we hear the station has been on its backup transmitter lately.
*In RHODE ISLAND, iHeart is applying for an auxiliary facility for the downgraded WWBB (101.5 Providence). Just a few weeks after first testing its new 6 kW signal from downtown Providence (where we hear it caused more than a few issues for other non-broadcast users of long standing at the same skyscraper rooftop), WWBB has applied for 6 kW/302′ DA from the East Providence tower shared by sister station WHJY (94.1 Providence) and WBRU (95.5 Providence). With the downgraded WCIB (101.9 Falmouth) now on the air, iHeart has only WWBB to complete before it can upgrade WBWL (101.7 Lynn) to nondirectional status in the Boston market.
(A note about that WHJY tower and many others: if you read the big news Thursday that iHeart is selling many of its towers and leasing them back, here’s the piece you didn’t read – it appears the decision about which towers stay company-owned and which go to a leaseback is based on one specific criterion. Towers where iHeart already had outside tenants, whether they were wireless companies or competing broadcasters, are getting sold. Towers occupied solely by iHeart’s own stations, especially AMs, appear to be staying with the company.)
*In central PENNSYLVANIA, WIOO (1000 Carlisle) can move ahead with its plans to increase power and shift up the dial to 1010, now that the FCC has rejected an appeal from Radio One’s WOLB (1010) down the road in Baltimore. WOLB had dropped from 1000 watts daytime down to 250 watts from a different site in 2007, clearing the way for WIOO to refile its 5 kW 1010 application, which had earlier been dismissed for overlap with WOLB’s original 1 kW facility. WOLB then appealed after being denied an increase back to 1 kW from its new site, and it was that appeal that the FCC rejected.
Down the road in McConnellsburg, WWCF (88.7) has applied for a license to cover for its new 7-watt/1420′ signal from a new location. The station had been silent for nearly a year after new owner Cove Mountain Educational Broadcasting took over. In a fundraising campaign earlier this year, Cove Mountain said WWCF “intends to provide unique, locally produced content that educates, informs and delights the communities of southern PA and northern MD. The programming on WWCF will maintain the fundamental principles of integrity, quality, diversity and respect for all people in the community. The WWCF music programming will feature artists from Folk, Blues, Rock, Jazz and other idioms. Promotion of local music will play an important role in the programming.”
In Scranton, WARM (590) is back on the air under a reduced-power (1250 watt) STA, and its return comes with a format change: instead of the oldies it’s been running during its last few years on and off the air, Cumulus is now programming CBS Sports Radio on the new “Sportsradio 590.” It’s the fourth sports signal in the market, joining Shamrock’s WEJL (630/100.1)/WBAX (1240) with ESPN, Bold Gold’s “Game” (WICK 1400/WYCK 1340, etc.) with Fox Sports and Entercom’s “Sports Hub” (WHBS 102.3) with NBC Sports Radio.
In Erie, Connoisseur has reapplied to move WRKT (100.9 North East) to 104.9, becoming a class B1 signal sharing a tower with sister station WRTS (103.7 Erie). Its previous construction permit for those same relocated facilities expired December 6 without being built.
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From the NERW ArchivesYup, 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, fifteen and – where available – twenty 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: December 16, 2013 *One of the rules that everyone knows about radio is that when you have a brand that works, you don’t change it. If everyone in New York identifies “1010 WINS” with news, or if everyone in Boston knows that “Kiss 108” is the place to turn for hits, you leave those brands alone and let them keep doing what they do, for close to 50 years in the case of WINS and more than 35 in the case of Kiss.
It’s not a format change – the station will still be playing a fairly hot brand of adult contemporary – and it’s not coming with any changes in air talent, nor is it bringing a return to streaming the station’s audio. So why turn “B” into “More”? Because, as one radio industry observer joked, Jerry Lee is that rare breed of owner who “doesn’t even change the color temperature of the studio light bulbs without focus-grouping it.” Lee’s not sharing the specific perceptual research that drove this upcoming change, but it’s not hard to guess what his research told him: while “B” was a young, fresh brand when he rolled it out 20 years ago, the 25-54 listener base of 1993 is now 45 to 74 years old, and today’s 101.1 isn’t playing much Lionel Richie or Celine Dion. If that’s the association younger listeners have with “B” in 2013, the logic goes, then it’s time for a change.
Will Jerry Lee win again this time? A lot of good broadcasters have bet against him in the past and lost badly. We’d be surprised if WBEB (which hasn’t yet filed for new calls) isn’t still at or near the top of the ratings a year from now. *The big news once again from New York City last week came from Clear Channel and WOR (710), which followed up its introduction of a new logo (not coincidentally, in Mets blue-and-orange, since WOR will be the new Mets flagship) with the big reveal of its finalized 2014 schedule. As we reported in a NERW update last Monday morning, the big surprise was Clear Channel’s decision to bring Elliot Segal back to town with his “Elliot in the Morning” show. After a stint in the 1990s as part of Elvis Duran’s morning crew at Clear Channel’s Z100 (WHTZ), Segal headed off to Washington’s WWDC-FM (DC101), where he’s become a morning fixture.
To that end, longtime WOR midday staple Joan Hamburg is being sent off to weekends, while in the afternoons Rita Cosby vanishes from the schedule completely after the New Year. Instead, after Elliott and Mark Simone (9-noon), the new weekday WOR lineup will include Rush Limbaugh at noon, Sean Hannity at 3, Andy Dean at 6 and Dave Ramsey at 9, at least on days when the Mets aren’t playing. *In RHODE ISLAND, the official word from Cumulus talker WPRO (630 Providence)/WEAN (99.7 Wakefield-Peace Dale) is that talker John DePetro was on vacation last week…but when the only public statement DePetro was issuing on his website was a PDF of a statement written by his lawyer, it was clear something was brewing around the controversial host.
DePetro, meanwhile, says he was threatened with physical violence outside the station; his lawyer’s statement says “attempts to suppress the free expression of speech…is [sic] antithetical to the United States Constitution.” Will he be back behind the WPRO microphone this week? Stay tuned… Five Years Ago: December 14, 2009 WEDNESDAY UPDATE: Sad news this morning from Pittsburgh, where KDKA (1020) reports the death of its veteran talk host Fred Honsberger. “Honz” died this morning at his home in the Pittsburgh suburb of Monroeville. He was just 58, and had been at KDKA for 30 years. We’ll have a complete obituary in Monday’s NERW. There’s a tower down in upstate New York. Tower crews were working on the 400′ tower of WRCE (1490 Watkins Glen) Monday afternoon when the 41-year-old structure collapsed, killing one worker, Dirk Remington, 46, of Clyde. A longtime AM voice in southeastern PENNSYLVANIA has fallen silent. Great Scott Broadcasting, which has owned WPAZ (1370 Pottstown) since Herb Scott put the station on the air back in 1951, abruptly pulled the little local AM station off the air Thursday, putting four full-time staffers and two part-timers out of work without notice. Mitchell Scott, son of the station’s founder, told the Pottstown Mercury that the station no longer fit with the rest of his company, which is based in Maryland, several hours away – but that he hopes to find a buyer who can get the station back on the air. It’s listed with Pittsburgh-based broker Ray Rosenblum for sale. Sports radio listeners in central NEW YORK are in for a change next spring, when Ed Levine’s Galaxy group takes over the ESPN Radio affiliation currently held by Citadel’s WNSS (1260 Syracuse). Starting March 5, 2010, ESPN will move to the new “ESPN Radio 97.7 and 100.1” in Syracuse and Oswego, and to Galaxy’s “Game” trio in Utica (WTLB 1310 Utica/WRNY 1350 Rome/WIXT 1230 Little Falls). Those FM frequencies aren’t full-power stations – they’re translators W249BC (97.7 Mattydale) and W259AX, which is being moved into Oswego, and they’ll be relaying Galaxy’s AM stations in the market, WTLA (1200 North Syracuse) and WSGO (1440 Oswego), which have been doing satellite-fed standards. In addition to ESPN’s national programming, the Galaxy stations will expand on the Syracuse University sports content already being heard on Galaxy’s “TK99” (WTKW 99.5 Bridgeport/WTKV 105.5 Oswego), with additional coverage of SU sports. And one more development: Galaxy’s little daytimer up north, WSCP (1070 Sandy Creek), which has been relaying “TK99 & TK 105,” will flip to ESPN Deportes Spanish-language sports…and as one wag points out, the new format will indeed serve listeners in Mexico. (Mexico, Oswego County, New York, that is.) So what happens to WNSS? The local Brent Axe afternoon sports-talk show will continue, reports CNYRadio.com, and additional programming announcements will follow next year. (Fox Sports Radio is probably off the table, since it’s already heard on Clear Channel’s WHEN 620.) And speaking of the Oswego stations, we’re sorry to report the passing of their longtime owner. Bob Gessner bought WSGO back in 1971, put WSGO-FM (now WTKV) on the air a few years later, and ran the stations as paragons of small-town local radio for a quarter of a century. Under Gessner’s leadership, the stations moved to their current transmitter location off Route 481 in 1989, when the FM station took on the new calls WGES. Gessner’s earlier career had included station management and ownership downstate, including a stint at New York’s WCBS and the founding of WBNR (1260 Beacon), which he operated with Sy and Alfred Dresner (yes, “Gessner and Dresner”). Gessner retired in 1996 when he sold the Oswego stations to Galaxy. He died Dec. 5 in Kissimmee, Florida, at the age of 86. In Hamilton, CING (95.3) has a new nickname for its 70s-pop format. It’s now “Vinyl 95.3,” and it’s not quite jockless anymore: former CFTR (680 Toronto) jock Bob Saint has been heard pulling airshifts at the Corus classic hits outlet. Ten Years Ago: December 13, 2004 MASSACHUSETTS – and the nation – lost one of the great ones last week. Since 1976, David Brudnoy had entertained, educated and, often, irritated audiences on WHDH (850), WRKO (680) and – starting in 1986 – the 50,000-watt night signal of WBZ (1030 Boston). In 1994, Brudnoy came to the nation’s attention when he revealed that he was suffering from AIDS. After a viral infection related to the disease put him in a coma for nine days and kept him off the air for ten weeks, Brudnoy returned to the air with a reduced shift (7-10 PM instead of 7-midnight), a new studio (in the library of his Back Bay home) and a profile raised by appearances on national TV and the publication of his memoirs, Life is Not A Rehearsal. Brudnoy’s illnesses continued to take him off the air occasionally in recent years, but it quickly became clear that his latest absence, which began on December 1, was a serious one. Last Wednesday, Brudnoy gave an interview to WBZ anchor Gary LaPierre in which he announced that his Merkel cell carcinoma had spread to his liver and kidneys and that he did not expect to live more than a few days. Wednesday night’s Brudnoy show, hosted by former WBZ personality and close Brudnoy friend Peter Meade, took the form of an on-air wake, with Brudnoy listening from his room at Massachusetts General Hospital as politicians, authors and average listeners called in to say how much Brudnoy had meant to them. At 6:11 the following night, Brudnoy succumbed to his cancer. He was 64. There was other news, in MASSACHUSETTS and elsewhere, ill-equipped as we were to deal with it in the face of the sad news from WBZ. Over at sister station WODS (103.3 Boston), veteran New England programmer Pete Falconi (late of Worcester’s WXLO) takes over as music director and midday host, filling the shoes of the departed Sandy Benson. In yet another corner of the Infinity Boston cluster, the changing of the guard continued at WBCN (104.1 Boston), where afternoon jock Nik Carter, one of the last remaining veterans of the Oedipus era at the rock station, is out of a job, with his contract not being renewed and no replacement named just yet. On any other week, the sudden death of a veteran upstate NEW YORK morning man would have been our lead story, and we’re saddened indeed to have to report the passing of WBEE (92.5 Rochester)’s Bill Coffey. Bill started at WBEE in 1988, not long after the station flipped to country, and he held down mornings there until he was forced to return to his native southeastern Pennsylvania to care for his ailing father. Three years later, the departure of his successor, Fred Horton (now in Erie, Pennsylvania at WXTA) created an opening at WBEE, and thanks to the modern miracle of ISDN, Bill was once again hosting the “Coffee Club,” this time from the comfort of his home in Glenmoore, Pennsylvania. The show worked, though, thanks to local co-host (and WBEE veteran) Terry Clifford and frequent visits to Rochester by Coffey. After a show last Monday that went without a hitch, the staff at WBEE was shocked to get a phone call later in the morning saying that Bill had suffered a heart attack, collapsed and died. He was just 56; he leaves behind his wife, Barbara, and three children. Fifteen Years Ago: December 11, 1999 We begin this week’s news in western NEW YORK, and we begin with an obituary. John Otto, the talk host credited with pioneering the form in the region, died early Monday morning at Buffalo General Hospital of emphysema. Otto’s broadcast career began at the old WBNY (1400) in Buffalo at the tender age of 19. After two years in the Navy, Otto spent the rest of his five-decade tenure in Buffalo radio, most of it with WGR (550), where his “Extension 55” and “Night Call” were the city’s best-known talk shows in the 1960s and 70s. Otto took a detour to WWKB (1520) for a few years in the mid-80s, then returned to WGR for the rest of his career. For the past year, Otto did his 10PM-1AM shift from his home, as his health deteriorated and he became unable to get to the WGR studios. In 1998, Otto was named to the Buffalo Broadcast Pioneers’ Hall of Fame. Otto was hospitalized last weekend after suffering a fall at home. As news of his death spread Monday morning, the response was immediate from across the Buffalo media community, exemplified by WBEN’s Sandy Beach: “We have lost our teacher.” WGR devoted its Monday and Tuesday night shows to remembrances of Otto. John Otto was 70 years old. In other news from the Empire State, there’s now a format war in Rochester — in adult standards, of all things! Just like it did in Dallas and Denver this fall, Crawford Broadcasting has dropped the religious format from WDCZ (990) in Rochester, replacing it with a locally-generated (or at least very slickly voice-tracked) standards format as “Legends 990,” WLGZ(AM), complete with PAMS jingles. The religion continues on WDCZ-FM (102.7 Webster). WLGZ goes head-to-head with dial neighbor WEZO (950), whose standards format is entirely satellite-delivered, not to mention pre-empted by Spanish nightly from 7-9 PM. For those keeping score, this is callsign number six (WNYR, WEZO, WRMM, WCMF, WDCZ, WLGZ) and format number eight for 990 in the twenty years it’s been on that frequency. (Boston-area listeners might want to check WLGZ out at night; its directional signal comes in very nicely in and around the Hub!) In MASSACHUSETTS, Citadel begins filling the gaps between its New Hampshire cluster (ex-Fuller-Jeffrey) and its Connecticut/Rhode Island stations (ex-Tele-Media and Spring) with a $24.5 million purchase of Montachusett Broadcasting’s WXLO (104.5 Fitchburg) and WORC-FM (98.9 Spencer). WXLO’s huge signal reaches from southern New Hampshire across central Massachusetts (east as far as Boston) and into Connecticut and Rhode Island. Classic rock WORC-FM is a much more limited signal, serving southern Worcester County and not much else. The sale pretty much completes the mega-grouping of Worcester, with WTAG and WSRS in Clear Channel (ex-Capstar, ex-AMFM) hands and WAAF part of Entercom. (And it’s not even the highlight of Citadel’s week; that would be the 9-station, 9-figure purchase of Liggett’s Michigan clusters…) No more Tone-Loc? WBOT (97.7 Brockton) has unveiled its permanent format, and no, it’s not “All Dead Air,” either. “Wild 9-7-7” made its debut Monday night as “Boston’s New Home for Hip-Hop and R&B,” taking dead aim at WJMN (94.5) and WILD (1090) with a signal that at least does a decent job of covering the city’s black neighborhoods, even if it does leave something to be desired to the north and west. Programming, at least for now, is being directed out of Radio One’s WERQ (92.3) in Baltimore. Say goodbye to one NEW HAMPSHIRE station: Notre Dame College in Manchester has returned the license of WRND (91.7) to the FCC, and the calls have been deleted. WRND went silent in 1997, and last year began simulcasting public radio WEVO (89.1 Concord). Notre Dame dropped its journalism program this year, and the radio station went away as well. We heard CANADA’s newest AM station using its calls this week. CINF (690 Montreal) is getting ready for next Tuesday’s launch as “Info 690,” and the signal both day and night in Rochester sounds an awful lot like that of the old CBF from its Brossard, Quebec transmitter site — but it’s not! A last-minute message from Sheldon Harvey up in Montreal informs us that 690 is diplexing off the CIQC (600) site, while English sister “940 News” (whose calls will in fact be CINW, not the previously-announced CKNN) is diplexing off French-language CKVL (850)’s towers a few miles to the east. Weekday programming on CIQC and CKVL wrapped up with Friday’s shows, and weekend programming will conclude Sunday, with Monday being a dark day on all four frequencies before Tuesday’s 11 AM launch of Info 690 and 940 News. Simulcasts will reportedly continue on 850 and 600 for up to six months. |
In this week’s issue… iHeart axes Boston, NYC morning shows and more - Cumulus cuts in central PA - Southern Tier combo saved from silence - Ottawa FM relaunches - K-Love buys in the Burgh - Scranton gets "Loud" -...
In this week’s issue… "Hot" cools down in Providence, CT studios closed - GBH to sell Cape studios - A HEBA in Hamden? - New HDs in New York - Another Canadian AM to close
In this week’s issue… GBH shuffles mornings, prepares new show launches - NYSBA inducts Hall of Famers - More news-talk in the Hudson Valley - Remembering Dan Sys
In this week’s issue… Beasley cuts claim veteran jock - FCC releases LPFM decisions - AM towers coming down - New voices at Indie 88
