NERW 2/29/2016: The Fight for AM Skywave

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, 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: March 2, 2015

*It’s not going especially quickly, and certainly not especially profitably for Disney, but the former Radio Disney network of AM signals is going away, bit by bit.

This past week brought two big developments: the return to the air of former Disney station WQEW (1560) in NEW YORK, and in western PENNSYLVANIA the impending sale of WDDZ (1250 Pittsburgh).

Pittsburgh first: it’s been 16 years since Disney (through its former ABC Radio unit) paid Jacor $5 million for what was then WEAE, the 5000-watt signal that was the old WTAE radio. It was an ESPN Radio outlet until 2011, when the ESPN affiliation shifted down the dial to Clear Channel’s WBGG (970), and it’s effectively been warehoused ever since. (It was, if we’re not mistaken, the very last new affiliate Radio Disney added to its over-the-air network as it began ramping down its broadcast presence.)

So what’s a 5000-watt signal worth these days in Pittsburgh? If you’re Salem (doing business as “Pennsylvania Media Associates”), it’s an even $1 million, less than half what Salem’s paying for its other Disney acquisition, WDWD (590 Atlanta). Why the disparity? The Atlanta signal comes with a big piece of land in the suburbs – but the Pittsburgh signal has been a tenant at its longtime South Hills transmitter site ever since Jacor sold the AM off separately from its FM sister (now WKST-FM 96.1) back in 1999.

It’s not hard to guess the “Answer” about what Salem will do with 1250: in a market where its two existing signals, WPIT (730) and WORD-FM (101.5), both do religion, the logical choice for a third signal will be the conservative talk format that Salem has been branding as “The Answer” all over the country. That’s especially logical in Pittsburgh, where the talk audience is somewhat in play after Clear Channel moved the top-tier syndicated players from FM to new talk entrant WJAS (1320) last year.

*Meanwhile in New York, that 50,000-watt 1560 signal came back to the air Friday just after noon, a week and a half after Disney took it silent. As expected, the former WQEW is now WFME, the revived New York-market outlet of California-based Family Radio, and it reportedly came back with a nice 10-minute tribute to its predecessors at 1560 on the dial, the standards version of WQEW from the 1990s and the long classical run as WQXR that preceded it. (We hear our broadcast history compatriot Peter Kanze helped out with archival audio for the production by longtime WFME station manager Charlie Menut.)

*The FCC has quietly approved an unusual frequency change in eastern MASSACHUSETTS, allowing WWRN (91.5 Rockport) to slide down the dial to 88.5. Light of Life Ministries put the religious station on the air in 2012, but faced the very real possibility of being bumped off the air when the FCC finally ruled last December on appeals of several dismissed applications from the 2007 noncommercial FM filing window. The University of Massachusetts filed for 91.5 in Gloucester in that window, and the FCC reinstated its application, which had initially been tossed out for a typo in the transmitter coordinates. Assuming UMass still wants the Gloucester facility (it last corresponded with the FCC about it back in 2009), the next step appears to be FCC approval of its 2007 application, which would overturn the initial grant to Light of Life. It’s not yet clear whether Light of Life will immediately proceed on WWRN’s move from 91.5 to 88.5, or whether it will wait to see if UMass actually gets its 91.5 grant.

It’ll always be “Gil’s chair” to us, but the morning sports anchor seat on WBZ (1030) has a new occupant: Adam Kaufman has been promoted to that role after working part-time at the CBS Radio news outlet. The very busy Kaufman is also a host on sister station WBZ-FM (98.5 the Sports Hub) and on the CBS Sports Radio network, as well as at Comcast Sports Network.

*Saga’s Manchester, NEW HAMPSHIRE cluster never really made a formal announcement about the format change, but the last bits of standards on WFEA (1370 Manchester)’s schedule have now been replaced by “More Stimulating Talk.” We’d already noted Howie Carr’s addition to the WFEA schedule a few weeks ago in afternoon drive; the rest of the weekday syndication lineup includes Doug Stephan in mornings, Laura Ingraham (spelled correctly!) at 9, the new Jonathon Brandmeier show at noon, Mark Levin at 7 PM, John Bachelor at 10 PM and Overnight America at 1 AM.

Five Years Ago: February 28, 2011

*Some sad news out of central PENNSYLVANIA begins our abbreviated report this week: Bob O’Brien worked in radio in the 1970s in New York and New Jersey and then landed at WFEC (1400 Harrisburg) during the end of that station’s long run with top-40 – but he really made a name for himself in the years that followed, both as a popular DJ at events and as a friend to many other Pennsylvania jocks and programmers.Last Thursday (Feb. 24), O’Brien was driving on I-81 when another driver crossed the median and slammed into his car, killing him. O’Brien was just 60.

*In Erie, Bill Shannon is selling translator W285AI (104.9) to Citadel, which had already announced plans to simulcast its sports station, WRIE (1260), on the FM signal. Sale price for the translator is $62.500.

*In NEW YORK‘s Hudson Valley, Sunrise Broadcasting’s new WGNY-FM (98.9 Rosendale) is officially on the air now, and as promised on the station’s website, it’s picking up the same oldies feed (largely via satellite) that’s been heard on the existing WGNY (1220 Newburgh) and WDLC (1490 Port Jervis), not to mention the HD2 channel of WJGK (103.1 Newburgh), which makes for quite a mouthful at legal ID time.

Word is that WGNY-FM’s own HD2 channel, which will feature a rhythmic format, isn’t yet on the air…but in the meantime, we can at least offer you a first glimpse at the WGNY-FM antenna on a ridge north of Poughkeepsie.

Meanwhile at the Cumulus cluster, there appear to be changes coming at WCZX (97.7 Hyde Park): veteran morning man Bob Miller and middayer Suzy Garcia are gone and the website of the AC station has been scrubbed, replaced with an announcement that “The New Mix is coming” on Thursday. Miller had been with the station since 1994.

And up in the northern reaches of the valley, community station WGXC (90.7 Acra) made its on-air debut at 2:00 Saturday afternoon, serving Greene and Columbia counties and vicinity.

Ten Years Ago: February 27, 2006

It’s been a turbulent time for sports radio in eastern MASSACHUSETTS – and it’s not getting any quieter any time soon. The last few months have brought the launch of ESPN Radio on WAMG (890 Dedham)/WLLH (1400 Lowell and Lawrence); staff changes, new transmitters and the impending end of the Red Sox contract at WEEI (850 Boston); the return of Eddie Andelman at WTKK (96.9 Boston) – and now the third all-sports player, WWZN (1510 Boston), is officially up for sale, along with the rest of its parent company, The Sporting News. The company’s billionaire owner, Paul Allen, confirmed last week that he’s hired an investment firm to review several offers that he’s received to sell the company, which includes the flagship magazine as well as Sporting News Radio (formerly One-on-One Sports) and its three stations, WWZN, WSNR (620 Jersey City NJ-New York City) and KMPC (1540 Los Angeles). WSNR dropped most Sporting News Radio programming several years ago and now runs leased-time ethnic programming, and WWZN let most of its local staff (including Andelman) go last year. (It also lost its flagship sports franchise, the Celtics, to WEEI’s sister station WRKO.)

Just as The Sporting News is the third-largest major sports magazine (after Sports Illustrated and ESPN: The Magazine), so SNR is a distant third (at least in affiliate count and ratings) behind ESPN Radio and Fox Sports Radio. Would a new owner keep the radio network and the stations as a loss-leader brand extension to the magazine, as Allen has done? Or could the radio stations be headed to separate ownership and away from sports formats? As always, stay tuned…

Sports fans everywhere mourned the loss of Curt Gowdy last week. As we reported in an update to last week’s NERW, Gowdy died last Monday morning (Feb. 20) in Florida, at age 86.

Gowdy came to Boston in 1951 after several years calling games in New York, and for the next fifteen seasons he was a fixture in the Red Sox booth. And while he went on to even greater heights as a network broadcaster (calling the first Super Bowl and five more thereafter, as well as the World Series and almost every other major sporting event), he remained fondly remembered by Sox fans. Last August, the Sox honored him with a special day at Fenway Park, Gowdy’s last Boston appearance. And on Saturday, his funeral procession circled Fenway, in a final gesture of respect to the man whose low-key style defined Red Sox radio for decades to follow.

Gowdy was, of course, also a broadcast owner in the region. In 1963, he bought WCCM (800) and WCCM-FM (93.7) in Lawrence, later renaming the FM after himself – WCGY. In 1969, Gowdy added WBBX (1380) in Portsmouth, NEW HAMPSHIRE to his holdings, which also included KOWB (1290) and KCGY (95.1) in Laramie, Wyoming. Gowdy sold WBBX in the eighties, followed in 1994 by WCCM/WCGY and in 2002 by the Wyoming stations.

Does a nation still coming to terms with the impending loss of UPN and The WB really need another new TV network? Whether or not it does, it’s getting one – at least in NEW YORK and nine other markets where Fox Television Stations needs something to fill the prime-time slots about to be left empty by the demise of UPN.

Fox will replace UPN on WWOR (Channel 9) with something called “My Network TV,” a mini-network that will launch with two English-language “telenovelas,” an attempt to translate the success of that format in the Spanish TV world, where nightly hour-long dramas that run for several months at a stretch are a programming staple.

Fifteen Years Ago: February 26, 2001

It’s gone from AC to smooth jazz to modern AC to rhythmic oldies — and now Buffalo’s WBUF (92.9) has come full circle to the rock format they last had more than twenty years ago. The Infinity-owned station abruptly killed off its “Dancin’ Oldies” format and “B92.9” nickname on Thursday, slipping into a day of stunting with Queen’s “We Will Rock You” and taunts against Citadel’s “97 Rock” (WGRF 96.9) before relaunching Friday (2/23) at noon with Genesis’ “Abacab” (not, as the Buffalo News had it, “Turn It On Again”!) The new “Rock 92” brings Howard Stern back to the Buffalo airwaves half a decade after his less-than-successful stint on WWKB (1520), filling the rest of the day with a mix of rock tunes that seems, thus far, to lean rather heavily towards the 80s. (Buffalo listeners have had access to Stern for the last year and a half through Toronto’s CILQ, Q107, for whatever that’s worth…)

Next stop in NEW YORK? Binghamton, where the FCC approved Clear Channel’s purchase of WINR (680) from dentist Paul Titus this week, over the strenuous objections of commissioner Gloria Tristani. By adding WINR to its existing cluster (sports WENE 1430 Endicott, rock WKGB 92.5 Susquehanna PA, AC WMXW 103.3 Vestal, CHR WMRV 105.7 Endicott and country WBBI 107.5 Endwell), Clear Channel brings the combined Binghamton market share of its stations and those of rival Citadel to a whopping 91.2 percent, reducing Binghamton to a duopoly in Tristani’s view. By not considering whether or not the market can support three competitors and whether there were other potential buyers for WINR, Tristani writes, “we may never know if the cementing of a duopoly in Binghamton was inevitable, or simply another case of regulatory malfeasance by the FCC. While WINR today is far from a major player in the market (it’s been decades since the station’s days as an important top-40 outlet), NERW thinks it will be interesting to see how Clear Channel rebuilds the station to take on Citadel’s dominance of the AM dial in Binghamton. (Those paying close attention to Binghamton in the last year or two will recall that it was originally Citadel that planned to acquire WINR, moving its news-talk WNBF from 1290 down to the superior 680 signal, then moving standards WKOP from 1360 to 1290 and leaving Titus with 1360, the weakest AM in town. Now WNBF faces the likelihood of a competing news-talker on 680, drawing resources from Clear Channel’s Premiere talk lineup and its upstate network of radio newsrooms. This should be interesting!)

NEW HAMPSHIRE is next on NERW’s agenda, and have we ever been hearing a lot about that religious pirate on 88.7 somewhere around Londonderry! It’s been on the air just about every night, we’re told, with nary an ID to be heard. The end could be in sight, though: one NERW reader checked in to report that the pirate’s second harmonic, at 177.4 MHz, was wreaking havoc with his reception of WHDH-TV, whose channel 7 occupies 174-180 MHz. WHDH has been alerted to the problem, and that’s the sort of complaint that tends to send the Enforcement Bureau running.

The big news in MAINE is a new simulcast in the Bangor area. WNSX (97.7 Winter Harbor) dropped its relay of former sister station WMDI (107.7 Bar Harbor) this week to join its new Clear Channel sister station in Searsport with classic rock as “The Fox at 97.7 and 101.7.” The Searsport station gets new calls, too, changing from WBYA to WFCX.

A few tidbits from across PENNSYLVANIA: Pittsburgh’s own Clarke Ingram checked in with a format shift at the station he programs in the Steel City. Don’t call “The Beat” (WJJJ 104.7) “Jammin’ Oldies” anymore; the new phrase is “Jammin’ Hits,” with an added emphasis on more recent rhythmic tunes.

Twenty Years Ago: March 3, 1996

It’s gone from AC to smooth jazz to modern AC to rhythmic oldies — and now Buffalo’s WBUF (92.9) has come full circle to the rock format they last had more than twenty years ago. The Infinity-owned station abruptly killed off its “Dancin’ Oldies” format and “B92.9” nickname on Thursday, slipping into a day of stunting with Queen’s “We Will Rock You” and taunts against Citadel’s “97 Rock” (WGRF 96.9) before relaunching Friday (2/23) at noon with Genesis’ “Abacab” (not, as the Buffalo News had it, “Turn It On Again”!) The new “Rock 92” brings Howard Stern back to the Buffalo airwaves half a decade after his less-than-successful stint on WWKB (1520), filling the rest of the day with a mix of rock tunes that seems, thus far, to lean rather heavily towards the 80s. (Buffalo listeners have had access to Stern for the last year and a half through Toronto’s CILQ, Q107, for whatever that’s worth…)

Next stop in NEW YORK? Binghamton, where the FCC approved Clear Channel’s purchase of WINR (680) from dentist Paul Titus this week, over the strenuous objections of commissioner Gloria Tristani. By adding WINR to its existing cluster (sports WENE 1430 Endicott, rock WKGB 92.5 Susquehanna PA, AC WMXW 103.3 Vestal, CHR WMRV 105.7 Endicott and country WBBI 107.5 Endwell), Clear Channel brings the combined Binghamton market share of its stations and those of rival Citadel to a whopping 91.2 percent, reducing Binghamton to a duopoly in Tristani’s view. By not considering whether or not the market can support three competitors and whether there were other potential buyers for WINR, Tristani writes, “we may never know if the cementing of a duopoly in Binghamton was inevitable, or simply another case of regulatory malfeasance by the FCC. While WINR today is far from a major player in the market (it’s been decades since the station’s days as an important top-40 outlet), NERW thinks it will be interesting to see how Clear Channel rebuilds the station to take on Citadel’s dominance of the AM dial in Binghamton. (Those paying close attention to Binghamton in the last year or two will recall that it was originally Citadel that planned to acquire WINR, moving its news-talk WNBF from 1290 down to the superior 680 signal, then moving standards WKOP from 1360 to 1290 and leaving Titus with 1360, the weakest AM in town. Now WNBF faces the likelihood of a competing news-talker on 680, drawing resources from Clear Channel’s Premiere talk lineup and its upstate network of radio newsrooms. This should be interesting!)

NEW HAMPSHIRE is next on NERW’s agenda, and have we ever been hearing a lot about that religious pirate on 88.7 somewhere around Londonderry! It’s been on the air just about every night, we’re told, with nary an ID to be heard. The end could be in sight, though: one NERW reader checked in to report that the pirate’s second harmonic, at 177.4 MHz, was wreaking havoc with his reception of WHDH-TV, whose channel 7 occupies 174-180 MHz. WHDH has been alerted to the problem, and that’s the sort of complaint that tends to send the Enforcement Bureau running.

The big news in MAINE is a new simulcast in the Bangor area. WNSX (97.7 Winter Harbor) dropped its relay of former sister station WMDI (107.7 Bar Harbor) this week to join its new Clear Channel sister station in Searsport with classic rock as “The Fox at 97.7 and 101.7.” The Searsport station gets new calls, too, changing from WBYA to WFCX.

A few tidbits from across PENNSYLVANIA: Pittsburgh’s own Clarke Ingram checked in with a format shift at the station he programs in the Steel City. Don’t call “The Beat” (WJJJ 104.7) “Jammin’ Oldies” anymore; the new phrase is “Jammin’ Hits,” with an added emphasis on more recent rhythmic tunes.