NERW 4/10/17: Sad End for Maine Meteorologist

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: April 11, 2016

*One of the newest translators to put a signal over parts of NEW YORK City is selling for a near-record price.

W248CG (97.5 Jersey City NJ) is a 110-watt signal that Ted Schober’s City Commons LLC put on the air last year. For the last few months, he’s been leasing the signal to Erick Salgado’s Cantico Nuevo Ministries, which has filed to convert that lease to a $1.6 million purchase.

Cantico Nuevo has been using the translator as a relay of WJDM (1530 Jersey City), which it’s been leasing from Multicultural Broadcasting, but its sale filing indicates that it will instead run the translator off an HD subchannel it will lease from Pillar of Fire’s WAWZ (99.1 Zarephath NJ).

The deal includes $350,000 in cash and a $1.25 million note held by the seller.

*In CONNECTICUT, University of Northwestern – St. Paul completed its deal with EMF on March 29, turning the former WCCC (1290 West Hartford) into WNWW, “Faith Radio 1290.” EMF had been running the AM station as a simulcast of its Hartford K-Love outlet, WCCC-FM (106.9); it donated the AM signal to Northwestern in exchange for Northwestern’s agreement to pay $1000 a month in tower rent for the AM and its purchase of a translator from EMF.

*Hall Communications has changed formats on a central PENNSYLVANIA AM/translator combination. WLPA (1490 Lancaster)’s contract to carry “America’s Best Music” ran out at the end of March, and now the AM signal and its FM translator at 92.5 are simulcasting ESPN Radio with sister station WONN-FM (92.7 Starview). The simulcast alleviates some of the interference that existed between the 92.5 translator and the 92.7 signal, which was formerly WLPA-FM.

Five Years Ago: April 9, 2012

*In CANADA, the week’s big news came from the CBC, which responded to federal budget cuts ($115 million over three years) by announcing plans to cut 650 staffers and eliminate some of its programming services and transmitters.

The most dramatic cuts come at Radio Canada International, which will shutter its shortwave transmitter at Sackville, New Brunswick after seven decades and will end its newscast services and all its Russian and Brazilian programming.

For domestic audiences, the cuts will include some of CBC television’s original programming – and some TV transmitters that now carry CBC-TV and Radio-Canada TV to remote communities. The CBC’s plan calls for the shutdown of hundreds of analog transmitters at the end of July instead of keeping them on the air for an additional year, and that would mean the end of English-language CBC service anywhere in Quebec outside of Montreal – and in much of the Maritimes as well.

Francophones outside Quebec would lose even more Radio-Canada service, with transmitters in Windsor, London, Kitchener and Sarnia (and in even bigger cities such as Calgary) shutting down, leaving viewers forced to use pay TV services, either cable or satellite, to receive CBC/Radio-Canada programming.

And then there’s this: CBC executives say they’ll apply to the CRTC to sell commercial time on CBC Radio Two and Radio-Canada’s Espace Musique network. If approved, it will be the first time since the 1970s that the CBC has carried commercials on its radio networks. (CBC-TV and Radio-Canada TV have always competed for ad dollars with Canada’s commercial TV broadcasters.)

*And of course we can’t let the death of Mike Wallace pass without comment. There’s no shortage of tributes out there to Wallace’s many decades with CBS News on “60 Minutes,” but long before he found network news fame, Wallace was already a local TV star in New York. The Brookline, Mass. native had already tasted network exposure on CBS in the early 1950s as an actor and talk host, but he moved to DuMont’s WABD-TV (Channel 5) in 1955 to start a local news operation in the wake of the demise of DuMont’s network.

At WABD, Wallace made a name for himself as the pugnacious host of “Night Beat,” a freewheeling late-night show in which a cigarette-wielding Wallace questioned a guest in front of a plain black backdrop, decades before Charlie Rose. “Night Beat” moved to ABC in 1956 but didn’t last long, and by 1959 Wallace was back in local TV at New Jersey-based WNTA-TV (Channel 13), where he ran the newsroom and anchored the local “News Beat” newscast and a new version of “The Mike Wallace Interview.”

By 1963, Wallace had made it back to CBS News, and of course he never left; “60 Minutes” came along in 1968 and Wallace continued to make appearances on the broadcast as late as 2008.

Wallace was 93 when he died on Saturday night in New Canaan, Connecticut.

We remember Walt Sanders, one of the mainstays of WBZ-TV (Channel 4)’s long era of ratings dominance in the 1970s and 1980s. Sanders came to Channel 4 in 1968 as one of the station’s (and the city’s) first African-American TV reporters, and he stayed at WBZ until his retirement in 1995. Sanders died last Monday (April 2) at his home in Spring Hill, Florida. He was 81 years old.

Ten Years Ago: April 9, 2007

*There’s always some risk involved in tweaking a station that’s consistently at the top of the ratings, but when that station is at the top of the NEW YORK ratings, any tweak at all becomes a decent-sized gamble.

But Clear Channel has some pretty solid reasoning behind its quiet shift last week that moved WLTW (106.7 New York) away from the “Lite” identity that’s been the station’s cornerstone since its debut in 1984.

While the “Lite” branding still appears from time to time on the station, it’s now “New York’s 106.7,” with what looks like a pretty hasty Photoshop job on the station website, now accessible at 1067newyork.com and newyorks1067.com in addition to the old 1067litefm.com and wltw.com.

So what’s wih the new identity? One factor, of course, is the new competition from CBS’ “Fresh FM” WWFS (102.7 New York), which is missing no opportunity to associate “Lite” with the sleepy soft AC music that 106.7 spent so many years playing. WLTW’s gradual move away from that music toward a hotter adult contemporary sound (verging, at times, on almost a pop-CHR sound) is another factor in the change.

And then there’s the people-meter factor: WLTW understands, as so many PDs will learn soon enough, that as Arbitron shifts over to its new automated ratings system, a lot of the old realities of the diary system will no longer apply. Already, the word is that most of the station’s entries in Arbitron diaries were simply “106.7,” without calls or slogan, and once the Portable People Meter kicks in in New York, all that will matter will be getting radios to land on that frequency, no matter what the slogan.

*It’s really in CANADA, of course, but CKEY-FM (101.1 Fort Erie ON) continues to target the Buffalo market, just over the Niagara River, and now it’s doing so with a new nickname. “Wild 101” was replaced by “Z101” last week, with a more mainstream top-40 format and a reworked airstaff.

Ellen Z is out in afternoons, with Keith Kelly handling that shift for now, and PD Dave Universal created a minor message-board stir when he installed “Taylor Kaye” (Jenny Wade, late of WKSE in Buffalo) in late nights. There’s a Taylor Kaye across the lake at Toronto’s CHUM-FM, too, and at last check, the new Z101 website didn’t show any name at all in the 10 PM airshift. (Interesting, too, given the CRTC’s previous interest in CKEY’s Canadian bona fides, that the new Z101 site, unlike the old “Wild” site, shows only a Buffalo request-line number, and no Canadian studio phone.)

*Now that western MASSACHUSETTS is hearing NPR news and talk from WFCR (88.5 Amherst) on the big 50,000-watt signal of Clear Channel’s WNNZ (640 Westfield), Pamal has a new format on its orphaned WPNI (1430 Amherst), which had been carrying the WFCR news-talk programming. Until WPNI can be sold, it’s now simulcasting WUMB-FM (91.9 Boston), bringing that station’s folk music to what’s presumably a very receptive Pioneer Valley audience.

*In VERMONT, we hear that Pamal has peeled WZRT (97.1 Rutland) away from the “Kiss FM” identity it had under Clear Channel ownership; the station’s still top 40, but it’s back to its old “Z97” moniker. (We also note that Clear Channel’s vermontkiss.com site, while mostly updated to show only WVTK 92.1 Port Henry NY/Burlington VT, still has some “Kiss FM 92.1-97.1” logos around, too.)

CBS’ Philadelphia TV stations, KYW-TV (Channel 3) and WPSG (Channel 57) made their long-awaited moves to 15th and Spring Garden last Monday, launching news on KYW in HD at the same time. Meanwhile, back in KYW’s old Market Street neighborhood, former next-door neighbor WTXF (Channel 29) has a new VP/general manager, as Mike Renda moves to that Fox O&O from sister station WJW (Channel 8) in Cleveland. And across Independence Mall, WHYY (90.9/Channel 12) is reportedly losing its leader; a report in the Philadelphia Inquirer says Paul Gluck is taking a new job running Drexel University’s Rudman Institute for Entertainment Industry Studies.

Back to CBS – it had a rough start last Monday to its new FM talk station in Pittsburgh. WTZN-FM (93.7 the Zone) was supposed to have premiered the new Scott Paulsen show at 4 PM after John McIntire’s shift, but the lawyers apparently got involved, and so McIntire ended up being forced to fill an extra 90 minutes of airtime, without even being able to use Paulsen’s name to explain what was going on. The station eventually plugged into Sporting News Radio to give McIntire a break, and the legal issues were resolved in time for Paulsen (formerly at Clear Channel’s WDVE) to go on the air Tuesday.

Fifteen Years Ago: April 8, 2002

It’s rare to see a big-city directional AM station move its entire transmitter site – unless the government steps in and gives it no choice. That’s what’s happening in New York City, where WOR is losing its site in the Meadowlands, and it’s what WJAS (1320) in Pittsburgh, PENNSYLVANIA is going through now as well. WJAS’ current two-tower site sits along the river near the eastern portal of the Squirrel Hill tunnel, on land that the station leased from the Standard LaFarge Company. In 1994, Standard sold the land to the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh, without giving WJAS the right of first refusal to buy it, something WJAS says it was entitled to by contract. The URA tried to end WJAS’ lease on the land, only to find itself in the midst of a three-way lawsuit, which the agency now hopes to settle by selling WJAS another piece of land that it owns, a few miles north at Highland Drive and Leech Farm Road in Penn Hills. WJAS’ application calls for a three-tower array, with two towers used by day with 6000 watts and two towers at night with 3300 watts. Normally, stations that change sites have to reduce nighttime interference on the frequency by 10 percent; WJAS is asking the FCC to waive that power-reduction requirement because the move is involuntary.

Moving along to NEW YORK, WDRE (98.5 Westhampton) wants to move west on Long Island. The station, which relays the modern AC of WLIR (92.7 Garden City), now shares a site near East Quogue with WWXY (107.1 Hampton Bays); it’s filed an application to move about five miles west to the site just north of Eastport and south of the Long Island Expressway that’s used by WRCN (103.9 Riverhead). WDRE’s new facilities would be 3000 watts at 100 meters, with a directional antenna nulled towards WRKS (98.7 New York) and WPLR (99.1 New Haven).

Speaking of WLIR, its “big announcement” Monday was, unsurprisingly, an April Fool stunt: a claim that musician Moby had bought the station and was turning it into “WMBY.” Moby did, in fact, program the station for a few hours, playing a much more diverse list of tunes than normally heard on the commercial dial in New York!

Other stunts worthy of mention around the region: in Syracuse, WNTQ (93.1) morning team Ted and Amy claimed the state was about to outlaw eating and drinking in cars. It would have been only mildly amusing – until talk host Jim Reith across town at WSYR (570) was taken in on the stunt by a caller! Up in New Hampshire, WJYY (105.5 Concord) claimed its morning team was being “suspended” – and they were, from a crane 40 feet up during the entire (very rainy) morning show.

It may have sounded like an April Fool joke, but Binghamton’s WCDW (100.5 Susquehanna PA) is really changing format. The station says it will let listeners decide over the weekend, voting among a series of stunt formats that will run in one-hour blocks; whatever happens, it appears the station will cancel the Greaseman’s syndicated morning show and perhaps let some of its airstaff go. (We still suspect oldies are on the way to this rimshot signal.)

Twenty Years Ago: April 10, 1997

We’ll start this week in Massachusetts, where Glenn Ordway is out as program director at all-sports WEEI (850). Ordway tells the Boston Globe the decision was a mutual one, to allow him to focus on his on-air duties. Brad Murray takes over PD reins at WEEI, in addition to his duties at sister talker WRKO (680). Up in Gardner, meantime, little WGAW (1340) is about to be doing independent programming for the first time in years. Doug Rowe kept WGAW when he sold WSRO (1470) in Marlborough, and word has it that WGAW’s program schedule will soon include Red Sox baseball and other simulcasts from nearby WEIM (1280) in Fitchburg.

New Hampshire news: It’s the end of an era for independent TV in the Granite State. WNDS (Channel 50) in Derry was officially transferred to Ramcast, Inc. last Saturday, bringing with it a switch to Global Shopping Network programming. Most of the station’s staff, including well-known weatherman Al Kaprelian, was laid off. WNDS had recently been improving its cable coverage in the Boston market, and is now available to viewers in most of the metro area – for whom it’s now at least the fourth all home-shopping signal on the UHF dial.

There could be a new AM signal in the Upper Valley area. Koor Broadcasting, which owns WNTK AM-FM (1020 Newport/99.7 New London), is applying for 720 in Hanover. No word yet on facilities, but we’d suspect a few thousand watts daytime, possibly directional to protect CKAC (730) in Montreal, and a few watts at night. Apparently the plans for 720 in Billerica MA are now completely dead and gone…

One bit of news from Rhode Island this week: the long-awaited debut of Providence’s WB affiliate is now set for 5:30 PM on Sunday, April 13. WLWC (Channel 28) is licensed to New Bedford MA and will be operated by NBC’s WJAR (Channel 10). WLWC is owned by Fant Broadcasting, which has similar LMA deals in other markets around the country.