NERW 12/14/2015: Ugly CH-CH-Changes in Hamilton

In this week’s issue… Massive Canadian TV cuts – NH AM goes silent – Changes at Cumulus NYC – Towers going up in Mass.

By SCOTT FYBUSH

Jump to: ME – NH – VT – MA – RI – CT – NY – NJ – PA – Canada

*It’s just a short drive across the border from our upstate New York home base to CANADA, but when it comes to local TV, our neighbo(u)rs north of the border occupy a completely different universe.

That reality was borne out in Hamilton, Ontario on Friday when CHCH (Channel 11) cancelled its evening newscasts and called a 4 PM staff meeting at which it laid off its news staff of 129 full-timers and 38 part-timers, closing the books on an audacious experiment in wall-to-wall local news.

While CHCH itself continues to be owned by Toronto-based Channel Zero, its subsidiary Channel 11 LP, which provided the newscasts, filed for bankruptcy Friday. When newscasts resume tonight, they’ll be provided by a new subsidiary that will rehire only a fraction of the former staff, reportedly 58 full-timers and 23 part-timers. Some of CHCH’s longest-serving veterans, including Matt Hayes, Scot Urquhart Lauran Sabourin and Donna Skelly, won’t be part of the new team, even after surviving the upheavals a few years back that sent the station through a series of ownership and programming changes that culminated with Channel Zero paying just $12 for CHCH and CJNT in Montreal.

(You can see more about CHCH’s history and get a look inside its ambitious news operations in this Site of the Week profile from earlier this year.)

Instead of starting news at 4 AM and running non-stop through 7 PM, then picking up again at 11 PM, the new CHCH news operation will include only a two-hour morning show from 7-9 AM, an hour at 6 PM, a half-hour at 11 and no weekend newscasts at all. CHCH also cancelled the “Sportsline” and “Square Off” talk shows it had programmed in the 5 PM hour.

What went wrong? Channel Zero places much of the blame on the end of the Local Program Improvement Fund, a tax on cable and satellite subscribers that had funneled millions of dollars a year to help maintain local programming. Others, including Montreal’s Steve Faguy (who calls it “The day local TV died“), point to the bigger changes in Canada’s TV landscape in recent years. Unlike the US model, where most local stations are owned by companies independent of the national networks, nearly all of Canada’s local stations are now owned by one of a handful of giant media conglomerates – Bell’s CTV, Shaw’s Global or Rogers’ CityTV. That simply doesn’t leave much ad revenue for any independent players, and that left CHCH without the revenue stream it had hoped to tap for its news experiment.

And now more than 80 newspeople are out of work in Hamilton, adding to a toll that’s included even bigger cuts at Bell’s radio and TV operations across Canada.

*In Montreal, it appears multicultural programming may be the future for Evanov’s CHRF (980), which has been playing Christmas music since dropping its own audacious experiment, French-language programming aimed at the GLBT community. Evanov recently bought Montreal’s original ethnic station, CFMB (1280), and it has been airing a few hours a day of multicultural shows, though a full-time flip would require the CRTC to change CHRF’s license terms.

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*In NEW YORK, Geraldo Rivera made good on his vow to sue Cumulus for ousting him from the 10 AM-noon slot at WABC (770).

The host says former Cumulus head Lew Dickey Jr. promised him a one-year extension of his contract, which was reportedly worth $600,000 a year; a Cumulus spokesman tells Bloomberg News the company “offered Geraldo Rivera a new contract commensurate with the value of his show, and our offer was repeatedly rejected.” There’s still no word on who might be Rivera’s permanent late-morning replacement at the perenially-troubled talker. (How glum is Cumulus’ financial situation? Here’s one clue: WABC didn’t interrupt its Sunday evening lineup of paid programming to take President Obama’s Oval Office address to the nation last weekend.)

More changes at Cumulus: down the hall at WNSH (94.7), Kelly Ford is departing the local New York morning show to join the Nashville-based “America’s Morning Show,” where she replaces Terri Clark. No replacement has been named yet at New York’s NASH. Hannah Byrom, who’d been doing weekends and fill-ins at Cumulus’ WPLJ (95.5), moves down the Turnpike to take over middays at Connoisseur’s WPST (94.5) in Trenton, where she replaces Corinne Kimball. (And what role will Melony Torres fill when she moves to WPLJ from Washington’s WRQX soon?)

Now that Mo’ Bounce has moved from nights to the WHTZ (Z100) afternoon slot long held by J.J. Kincaid, iHeart has filled the Z100 night slot, too: the prestigious gig goes to Chris Jones, aka “Maxwell,” who moves up from the 10 PM-2 AM show. Down the hall, Joe DeAngelis gets promoted from director of promotions to director of marketing and promotions for all six stations in iHeart’s New York cluster.

*It’s the end of an era in New York radio: after 86 years of nearly continuous broadcasting, 485 Madison Avenue is losing its last radio tenant. Opened in 1929, the building served as CBS world headquarters until the nearby “Black Rock” skyscraper replaced it in 1964. After that, some of the former CBS studios were occupied by Bonneville’s WRFM (105.1) and WNYW shortwave. Then in 1985, WADO (1280) moved in, later joined by Univision Radio sister stations WQBU (92.7) and WCAA (105.9), later replaced by WXNY (96.3).

Now Univision is completing a studio move that relocates WADO, WXNY and WQBU from 485 Madison Avenue to the Teaneck, New Jersey digs of sister stations WXTV (Channel 41) and WFUT (Channel 68). It’s part of a larger pattern of Univision moves that has also combined radio with TV in markets such as Miami and Los Angeles, and it leaves space on the second and third floors at the old CBS building that will get the first non-radio tenant since the Great Depression.

*Here’s a remarkable anniversary: just 16 years after CBS moved in at 485 Madison, a young host named Oscar Brand started a show called “Folksong Festival” on city-owned WNYC. Seventy years after that first broadcast on Dec. 9, 1945, Brand and the show (which airs Sunday nights at 10 on WNYC AM 820) are still going strong, with a monthlong celebration of the anniversary now underway.

*Remember the days when the biggest story in the translator world was “satellators,” those religious broadcasters who put on translators relaying parent stations thousands of miles away? A few of those are still around, but one in Utica is fighting for a new home on the dial. W201BS (88.1), relaying Pensacola  Christian College’s WPCS from Florida, was displaced by the new WVVC (88.1) in Dolgeville. Instead of giving up on the translator, Pensacola is now applying to move the translator to 88.5, using a tighter directional pattern that will aim most of its signal east of Utica.

Art Bell’s abrupt decision to once again exit the radio airwaves may leave a handful of terrestrial affiliates in NERW-land at loose ends. Bell posted a cryptic message late last week claiming his family is once again being threatened by stalkers, causing him to discontinue the “Midnight in the Desert” show he was hosting as a streaming offering. The show was being offered to broadcasters under fairly onerous terms – no streaming on their own, for instance – but had picked up a few outlets in the region including WKAJ (1120 St. Johnsville), WCSS (1490 Amsterdam), WLVL (1340 Lockport) and WECK (1230 Cheektowaga), as well as CFRB (1010) in Toronto and WXME (780 Monticello) in MAINE.

Bell’s departure from the show at least temporarily had producer Heather Wade hosting, but that situation appears to be temporary at best.

*In NEW JERSEY, Bridgelight’s Fort Lee translator, W276AQ, will stay put on 103.1 after all. After the FCC dismissed its application to move to 102.3, the Commission also dismissed Dennis Jackson’s application to move his W276BV from Greenwich over to New Rochelle with a power boost to 85 watts – and now Bridgelight has applied for a modification to W276AQ that will give the Fort Lee translator a new directional antenna with slightly increased coverage, still at 35 watts ERP.

At a time when we’re told college students have lost their interest in broadcast radio, it’s nice to see a counterexample like that of WKNJ (90.3 Union). Kean College’s station has been through a lot of turnover, but it’s entering 2016 with a new logo, new website, streaming audio and a new PD, Emily Gabriel. She tells the college paper that she’s determined to bring the station back to prominence at Kean with more student visibility and involvement – and we wish her all the best!

*Last week, NERW broke the story of Forever’s latest purchase in central PENNSYLVANIA. Now we can put a price tag on Radio Hanover’s sale of WYCR (98.5 York-Hanover) and WHVR (1280 Hanover) – Forever will pay $2.6 million for the stations, plus a $400,000 noncompete paid out over four years. Forever will also lease the studios and AM site on Radio Road and the FM site in Heidelberg Township with an option to buy. In September, Forever agreed to pay $4.25 million for WGTY (107.7) and WGET (1320) just down the road in Gettysburg, a deal that has yet to close.

*For Pittsburgh listeners of a certain age, few names and voices were so familiar as Wendy King. With her husband, Ed, she hosted “Party Line” at 10 PM weeknights and Saturdays on KDKA (1020) from 1951 until Ed’s death in 1971. (The call-in show predated the ability to air phone calls live, so the Kings merely paraphrased what their callers were saying at first.)

The Kings had met at their first Westinghouse posting, WOWO in Fort Wayne. Wendy King was 92 when she died at her Green Tree home last Monday.

*What’s Hall Communications up to in the Harrisburg market? It quietly changed calls on the former WLPA-FM (92.7 Starview) to WONN-FM on December 2; for now, it’s still carrying ESPN Radio on the FM signal. Could the call change be a way to differentiate the 92.7 signal in Harrisburg and York from Hall’s adult standards WLPA (1490 Lancaster), which just began simulcasting on a Lancaster translator at 92.5?

Hope Christian Church of Marlton continues to make translator modifications: now it’s asking to move its W210BX (89.9 Highspire) to 100.5. At the new frequency, the translator just south of Harrisburg would continue to relay Hope’s programming from an HD subchannel of WSOX (96.1 Red Lion).

On TV in the market, Al Gnoza returns to local screens today. After being ousted from his spot on ABC affiliate WHTM (Channel 27), he’s returning to CBS affiliate WHP-TV (Channel 21), where he did weather from 1998-2000. Gnoza will co-anchor WHP’s 5 and 5:30 PM shows and report for its 6, 10 and 11 PM broadcasts.

*It may be the end of the line for a venerable NEW HAMPSHIRE AM station. In its days as WBBX, iHeart’s WMYF (1380 Portsmouth) was once a big player on the Seacoast, even as a 1000-watt daytimer with a tight pattern protecting adjacent-channel signals in Manchester (WFEA 1370) and elsewhere. In later years, 1380 went non-directional by day and added 1000-watt night service from its two-tower array.

As of last week, though, WMYF is off the air after iHeart’s lease ended on the Islington Street tower site that was also 1380’s longtime studio home. (iHeart’s Seacoast cluster of four FMs and Rochester’s WPKX 930 now operates from the Lafayette Street studios of WBBX’s old archrival, WHEB.) For now, WMYF continues to stream its classic country format while under special temporary authority to remain silent. Demolition is already underway on the 1380 tower site and the old building. Will iHeart find a new transmitter site for the signal, or will Portsmouth go silent on AM, 20 years after WHEB turned off its daytime AM outlet at 750 on the dial?

*The newest broadcast towers in MASSACHUSETTS are on the way up in New Bedford, where Hall is busy building out the new sites for its WCTK (98.1) and WNBH (1340). The stations are losing their current shared site to construction of a new port facility, which can’t coexist with high RF levels.

Thanks to Mike Fitzpatrick at NECRAT.us, we have fresh photos of the new construction to show you – at left, that’s the new WCTK self-supporter partway up, adjacent to the old WNBH/WCTK tower. That tower will be 600 feet tall when it’s done. Mike reports the new WNBH tower is already completed and lit at its new site near St. Mary’s Cemetery.

And we note the passing of Conrad White, who came to Boston’s WGBH as a volunteer but soon became a key behind-the-scenes production staffer. In 15 years at the station, from 1967 until 1982, White helped produce Julia Child’s “The French Chef,” among other key WGBH shows. White later went to Harvard as head of the Media Production Center. He was 80 when he died in Providence Nov. 9.

*In RHODE ISLAND, Bouchard Broadcasting’s WNRI (1380 Woonsocket) appears poised to add an FM translator. W261CB (100.1) currently belongs to Brian Dodge’s We Trust In Jesus group up in Norwich, VERMONT, but it’s less than 250 miles away from WNRI, and so the $75,000 purchase will allow WNRI to move the translator to a new frequency in Woonsocket once the FCC opens its AM translator window next year.

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This week’s column is dedicated to the memory of Max Cacas, who died on Tuesday at 61. While he never worked here in NERW-land, the veteran DC journalist was a friend to many in the region both professionally and personally. Max’s professional resume included time at NPR, where he worked behind the scenes in the early years of “Morning Edition,” as well as the Capital News Connection, which served several affiliates in the region, Federal News Radio and WTOP. On a personal level, Max was an early adopter of Usenet and a vital part of the rec.radio.broadcasting community from which this column launched more than 20 years ago. More recently, he was a Facebook staple, participating actively in many radio-related forums. He was always generous with his time and enthusiasm, and his sudden death leaves a void that will be hard to fill.