NERW 6/26/2017: The Struggles of Small-Town Radio

In this week’s issue… NJ AMs go dark, Adirondack group in turmoil, historic New England signals for sale – WTC lights up with TV for good – Remembering Gabe Pressman – New Montreal signal on air

By SCOTT FYBUSH

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

*It’s been a tough week for small-market AM radio around the region, raising questions about the economics of the medium in places as diverse as central NEW JERSEY, the Adirondacks and rural VERMONT.

In the Garden State, the week brought news of problems at two small AM stations that had been among the last to be squeezed on to the dial back in the 1960s and 1970s. WKMB (1070 Stirling) signed on in 1972 and played country music during daylight hours before being sold to the Rev. Gary Kirkwood’s King’s Temple Ministries in 2003. The black gospel station was deleted by the FCC on a “red light violation” for failing to pay its regulatory fees.

While the deletion of WKMB picked up plenty of attention in the trades, it’s not necessarily final; the FCC will often reinstate a “deleted” license once the fees are paid, and we’re hearing WKMB may be back to licensed status soon.

*Make your way way up I-287 toward the New York state line and you’ll hear “North Jersey 1500,” John Silliman’s WGHT in Pompton Lakes, which announced later in the week that it will be ending its commercial existence in August after 53 years on the air. The former WKER signed on in 1964 and has been in Silliman’s hands under its current calls since 1993, when he bought it from founder and namesake Robert Kerr.

The 1000-watt directional station has struggled with its daytime-only status on a frequency dominated by Washington’s powerful WTOP (now WFED), and it has a few more strikes against it: its equipment, we’re told, is in need of a near-complete overhaul and its low-lying transmitter/studio site is ever more susceptible to catastrophic flooding.

The future for WGHT is, as yet, a bit uncertain; we’re told that Silliman intends to donate the license, at least, to the local school system so it can be used as a training ground for students. Will the school have the resources needed to rebuild the AM signal, or to seek out an FM translator in the limited window that opens one month from today?

*It’s been a very long time since we’ve been able to say that a local daily newspaper has covered a radio story more comprehensively than we can, but the Adirondack Daily Enterprise in Saranac Lake hit it out of the park with their story Wednesday about the mess that’s become of Ted Morgan’s Saranac Lake Radio group of stations.

It’s widely believed that Morgan overpaid for WNBZ (1240 Saranac Lake) and what’s now WNBZ-FM (106.3 Saranac) when he bought them in 1998, and even more so for the Nardiello family’s Radio Lake Placid group (WIRD 920/WLPW 105.5 Lake Placid and WRGR 102.1 Tupper Lake) in 2004. And we’ve heard plenty of stories in the years since about Morgan failing to pay bills and moving transmitters without telling the FCC.

But the Enterprise‘s Chris Knight started digging in more deeply after hearing complaints that several of the signals were off the air and the Radio Park building in Saranac Lake had been abandoned, and what he found was disturbing indeed: a long trail of unpaid tax, utility and rent bills and an owner apparently over his head and then some. The Radio Park building, which Morgan narrowly bought back from foreclosure a few years ago, is once again set for a foreclosure sale this fall.

Worse yet, once this story catches the FCC’s attention, there’s sure to be scrutiny of what appears to be a routine practice of moving the FM signals from site to site after rent bills go unpaid – all without actually filing for legal site changes.

Knight reports that right now, only WRGR and WNBZ-FM are on the air, operating on autopilot from a rented space in Plattsburgh; WIRD was deleted by the FCC earlier this year for a “red light” issue, WLPW lost its tower lease – and WNBZ(AM), which would soon have turned 90, has been off the air for over a year.

*Which brings us across Lake Champlain to VERMONT, where a very long family tradition is coming to an end.

Ken Squier’s father put WDEV (550 Waterbury) on the air back in 1931, and the station has been in family hands ever since as a paragon of what good local radio can sound like. With top-notch local and regional news coverage and a constant sense of community, WDEV and its newer sister, WDEV-FM (96.1 Warren), have long been staples of life in central Vermont.

So it was a bit of a shock last week when Squier announced that he’s looking to sell his Radio Vermont group, which also includes AC/full-service “101 the One” (WCVT 101.7 Stowe/WEXP 101.5 Brandon) and country WLVB (93.9 Morrisville).

“We’re hoping to find a Vermonter or some Vermonters who are interested and dedicated to local programming,” Squier told Burlington’s Seven Days. “We’re unique and special. We don’t want someone to take it over and do just another music format.”

The news was especially jarring on the heels of the recent sale by the Martin family of Burlington’s WCAX-TV, which was very similar to WDEV in its quintessential Vermont-ness. While the radio business hasn’t become quite as centralized and nationalized as “local” TV, where the economics of an independent WCAX simply didn’t work any longer, it will be challenging for any new owner to keep WDEV going in its present form, too.

Squier tells Seven Days there’s no buyer in line just yet for WDEV and its sister stations, and that he’s willing to wait for the right one to come along.

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*Our NEW YORK report starts, as it must, with the death of the man who effectively created the job of “TV news reporter.”

Gabe Pressman, who died Friday at 93, had already been a newspaper reporter for a decade when he joined what was then WRCA (660) in 1956. Two years later, he began reporting for sister station WRCA-TV (Channel 4, today’s WNBC), becoming one of (and possibly the) first reporters in New York to appear regularly on camera from the field. For decades, Pressman was a fixture wherever news was happening in New York. He left WNBC in 1972 for Metromedia’s WNEW-TV (Channel 5, now WNYW) but returned in 1980, and he was still reporting for WNBC as recently as this year’s St. Patrick’s Day parade. (photo: WNBC)

*WNBC’s sister station WNJU (Channel 47/RF 36) began full-time operation from 1 World Trade Center late last week, almost 16 years after it and eight other TV stations were silenced there in the 9/11 attacks. We’ll be watching closely as other New York broadcasters make their own moves south to begin regular broadcasts from the tower – and of course, we’re hoping to get up there ourselves before long to see the new installations!

It’s been 50 years since WCBS (880) put its all-news format on the air, and the station is planning a celebration August 8. Tony Bennett will headline “Celebrating 50 Years of News: A Night of New York Stories” at the PlayStation Theater, with WCBS’ own Wayne Cabot and Alex Silverman emceeing the event.

*We’ve been remiss in not mentioning the new antenna and power boost at Syracuse University’s WJPZ (89.1), where alumni of Z89 including WCBS (880 New York)’s Alex Silverman helped to get a new 3-bay Shively directional antenna in place atop Mount Olympus a few weekends ago, raising the college top-40 station’s power from 100 watts to 1000 watts with a much better signal across the northern part of the Syracuse metro.

In the southern Finger Lakes, Vizella Media has put a second translator on the air for “ESPN Ithaca” WPIE (1160 Trumansburg). Todd Mallinson’s move of W234BD (94.7 Bolton VT) is now complete, and it’s on the air at 107.1 from Watkins Glen, neatly paired with his existing Ithaca translator signal, also at 107.1.

“I’m sorry that there is this really ugly political environment in this country with the current President,” Bond said. “Unfortunately, Central PA can’t handle someone as liberal & brutally honest as I can be quite often.” Bond acknowledged that as someone else’s employee, he had to follow the station’s rules (and had been warned before) – but said he couldn’t sit silently when the conversation turned to the current administration and its policies.

*And in Erie, we remember Hyle Richmond, who came to town in 1957 as an announcer at WICU (1330, now WFNN) and WICU-TV (Channel 12) but soon found his niche as one of the city’s early TV news reporters. Richmond, a World War II veteran who served in Japan, started in broadcasting in Buffalo after the war at WWOL (1120), WXRA (1080) and WUSJ (1340 Lockport, now WLVL). In Erie, he became a fixture on the local TV news scene until his retirement in the 1980s. Richmond later lived in Arizona and then Omaha, Nebraska, where he died June 3 at age 90.

*In eastern MASSACHUSETTS, NBC Boston (WBTS-LD) is trying to give its ratings a boost with a big addition to its news team: next month, former WCVB (Channel 5) anchor J.C. Monahan will join her old channel 5 colleague Phil Lipof at the NBC Boston anchor desk. Monahan, who left WCVB in February, will take over the co-anchor slot on the afternoon and early evening newscasts, a chair now occupied by Shannon Mulaire.

*Another longtime voice is leaving CBS Radio’s WBZ (1030 Boston): Neil Chayet, whose “Looking at the Law” segments have been running since 1975, is retiring after more than 10,000 broadcasts. Chayet started the segment on the old all-news WEEI (590) but has been a WBZ staple for more than three decades; for many years, the weekday segments were accompanied by a weekend “Looking at the Law Live” talk show. They’ve also been in syndication on a station lineup that includes New York’s WCBS (880). Chayet will be working on a book while he fights an aggressive prostate cancer for which he’s being treated at Mass General. (photo: WBZ)

Out west, Ware’s WARE (1250) is taking advantage of the FCC’s new AM translator rules to expand its signal westward toward Springfield. Kurt Jackson’s latest modification application for the former W272AU (102.3 Hanover NH) keeps the transmitter in Palmer, but the translator (moved to 97.7) will now run 250 watts, edging its 60 dBu contour over most of Springfield. To the north, WFAT (700 Athol) is looking to extend its reach toward Greenfield with translator W222CH (92.3 Millers Falls), where it’s proposing a 99-watt signal from Deerfield that would cover most of the upper Pioneer Valley.

*In CONNECTICUT, Damon Scott is jumping from one big Hartford cluster to another. On Wednesday, he told listeners of CBS Radio’s WTIC-FM (96.5) that he was leaving the station after 27 years there – and on Thursday, iHeart’s WWYZ (92.5 Waterbury) announced that Scott is moving there starting July 5 to join Cory Myers for mornings on “Country 92.5.” No replacement has been announced yet over at TIC-FM.

*In CANADA, the week’s biggest news came from several fronts in Montreal. On TV, CTV’s CFCF-TV (Channel 12) dropped its local sports coverage, dismissing veteran weekday anchor Randy Tieman, weekend anchor Sean Coleman and reporter Brian Wilde. The station’s Habs, Alouettes, Impact and other sports coverage will now be read by news anchors – and we’ll see if the end of a separate local sports team has any effect on CTV Montreal’s outsize ratings.

On the AM dial, TTP Media may not have a staff or studio, but it’s not letting its permit to build a new English-language talk station at 600 on the dial expire unbuilt on Friday. TTP began testing last week on the signal from the Kahnawahke transmitter site of the market’s original AM 600, the old CFCF/CIQC. The new 600 has taken the calls CFQR, which long went with CFCF’s FM sister on 92.5 (now Corus’ “Beat” CKBE), and it was on the air sporadically during daytime hours with the audio feed from sister station CFNV (940), which was off the air while the CFQR daytime signal was being tested, according to Sheldon Harvey and other Montreal radio observers.

What happens next? French-language CFNV, which beat its own deadline a few months back, still hasn’t launched anything that resembles the regular programming it promised the CRTC, and we’ll be interested to see if the addition of a second signal finally means actual programming from whatever’s left of the original TTP partnership.

*North of Toronto, CHRY Community Radio has had its application for a rebroadcast transmitter rejected. “The Vibe” planned to add a 92 watt average/155 watt max DA/83.5 m signal at 105.3 in Scarborough to augment its main signal, CHRY (105.5), from North York.

In Guelph, Neill Clemens has retired. After 43 years at CJOY (1460), most of them doing morning news, Clemens left the airwaves June 16; the “Dave and Neill Morning Show” is now just “Mornings with Dave.”

In northern Ontario, Eternacom’s CJTK (95.5 Sudbury) now has the CRTC’s blessing to add six more rebroadcast transmitters for Christian “KFM.” They’ll be on 105.7 in Englehart, 105.9 in Iroquois Falls, 100.9 in New Liskeard, 106.5 in Sault Ste. Marie, 104.9 in Spring Bay and 98.3 in Sundridge.

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