that”s suddenly far less crowded. Galaxy”s two rock FMs, modern rock “K-Rock” WKLL and classic rock-leaning WRCK, had been locked in a tight battle with Clear Channel”s rock WOUR and classic hits “River” WOKR. Levine tells NERW that WOUR”s strong brand and long rock history in the market persuaded him to keep the competitor he”s acquiring, while shutting down his own WRCK (and taking it out of commercial competition by selling it to EMF.)
For EMF, which has been growing with impressive speed across upstate New York, the deal will likely mean a move of its flagship “K-Love” contemporary Christian format from class A drop-in WKVU (100.7 Utica) to the massive class B WRCK signal on 107.3, transmitting from the market”s main Smith Hill tower farm. (Only the true Utica radio geeks will recall that 107.3″s origins, way back in 1962, were as standalone FM”er WUFM – and that WOUR, for that matter, began as a relay of Syracuse standalone classical station WONO.) That, in turn, means 100.7 will probably flip to EMF”s second network, Christian rock “Air One.” What about WOKR, the 93.5 rimshot signal from Remsen, north of Utica? It”s never reached Utica well, and would probably end up as another Air One relay if EMF keeps it at all.
NorthEast Radio Watch 11/18/2024: Sims Gets Yankees Callup
In this week’s issue… Yankees hire Dave Sims - Wallace, Maxwell move in NYC - Gray cuts news in Maine - Remembering CT's Pinto By SCOTT FYBUSH Jump to: ME - NH - VT - MA - RI - CT...
NERW 7/24/2017: From Southfield to Southie
In this week’s issue… Beasley imports Detroit morning show – WBRU makes noise again, but is a sale really imminent? – Live overnights out at CBS-FM? – CBS Radio’s new Pittsburgh offering – Big translator sales in Philly, Rochester
By SCOTT FYBUSH
Jump to: ME – NH – VT – MA – RI – CT – NY – NJ – PA – Canada
*Is there any market more resistant to outside talent than Boston? The notoriously provincial listeners of eastern MASSACHUSETTS have been pretty consistent over the years in rejecting shows that originate from outside the market. With the possible exception of a few successful years for Howard Stern in WBCN’s waning days, Boston listeners want to hear Boston voices on their Boston morning airwaves…which is what makes it puzzling, at best, to read Beasley’s announcement that it’s importing the morning team from its WRIF (101.1 Detroit) to be heard in the morning on “Alt 92.9” WBOS (92.9 Brookline).
Starting today, the “Dave and Chuck the Freak Morning Show,” hosted by Dave Hunter, Charles Urquhart and Lisa Way, will be simulcast on both stations. “The Dave & Chuck the Freak show is both funny and relatable, and its cast is made up of masterful storytellers with an eye for the extraordinary,” said PD Cadillac Jack in the corporate press release. “When you combine their natural talent, great chemistry, and impeccable work ethic, the results are unparalleled, and we’re especially excited to welcome them to ALT 92.9!”
But will WBOS listeners welcome Dave and Chuck? It’s a sure bet that any mention of the Tigers, the Walter Reuther Freeway or Governor Rick Snyder will be an instant turn-off for Sox fans driving on the Pike – and that means that Dave, Chuck and Lisa will have to try to be fairly generic, which is usually the last thing anyone wants a morning show to be. (For contrast, just look down the hall from WBOS to Beasley’s WROR, which has had literally decades of morning radio success with the these-guys-could-only-be-in-Boston voices of Loren and Wally.)
It’s a fairly low-risk gamble for Beasley, since WBOS has been running mostly jockless in its present “ALT” incarnation, but it is still a gamble if the new talk-based morning show turns off an audience that’s been liking the music-first approach on 92.9. The real test will be whether this is a sign of more cost-cutting to come as the big-budget days of Greater Media and CBS recede into the rear-view mirror and today’s cost- and debt-conscious owners such as Beasley and the upcoming merged Entercom/CBS take center stage.
There’s more of that cost-cutting to talk about later in this week’s column – and if you’re not currently subscribing, you’re missing a lot of content here every single Monday! (You can fix that, for as little as 29 cents a day, by signing up right here.) While we’re reminding you…have you checked out our new podcast, “Top of the Tower,” yet? We’ll be talking in more depth about this story in this week’s episode. And if you’re not on our email list, you’re missing our reminders when new content is available here in NERW, on the podcast or on Tower Site of the Week – sign up for the list right over on the right side of this page or our front page!
THE 2025 TOWER SITE CALENDAR IS COMING VERY SOON!
The landmark 24th edition of the world-famous Tower Site Calendar is in production, and your support will determine whether it will be the final edition.
It’s been a complicated few years here, and as we finish up production of the new edition (including a cover reveal, coming later this week!), we’re considering the future of this staple of radio walls everywhere as we evaluate our workload going forward.
The proceeds from the calendar help sustain the reporting that we do on the broadcast industry here at Fybush Media, so your purchases matter a lot to us here – and if that matters to you, now’s the time to show that support with an order of the new Tower Site Calendar. (And we have the new Broadcast Historian’s Calendar for 2025 ready to ship, too. Why not order both?)
Visit the Fybush Media Store and place your order now for the next calendar, get a great discount on previous calendars, and check out our selection of books and videos, too!
[private]
*Heading out to the Berkshires, there’s now a price tag on Townsquare’s planned purchase of the Vox/Gamma cluster: the national small- and medium-group owner will pay $3.535 million for the three AMs, two FMs and one translator that make up most of the Berkshire County radio market (WBEC-FM, WBEC, WUPE/WUPE-FM, WNAW and WSBS), plus $20,000 to Northeast Airchecks LLC for WSBS’ Great Barrington translator. That’s about $400,000 more than Galaxy had agreed to pay for those stations before its deal with Vox/Gamma failed to close.
*A note from Lisa at the Fybush Media Store: We wrote about the WRKO 50th Anniversary Reunion that took place at the Crowne Plaza in Newton the first weekend in June. Sadly, we weren’t able to be there. But we’re looking forward to watching the best highlights of the event on our brand-new double-DVD set, which was recorded, edited and produced by “Radio’s Best Friend” Art Vuolo, Jr. Five dollars from each DVD purchase will go to the Broadcasters Foundation of America, which provides financial assistance to retired radio and TV professionals. You can get your own copy in the Fybush Media Store, or see a clip of the video here.
*In RHODE ISLAND, there’s a growing buzz around WBRU (95.5 Providence), the modern rock station that’s run by Brown Broadcasting Service but not actually owned by the university. It’s been no secret that there’s been growing tension between one faction of Brown Broadcasting leaders who’d like to sell WBRU’s class B FM facility and another faction that wants to keep the FM signal. The “sell” group argues that the millions of dollars BBS could get from the commercially-licensed 95.5 facility could fund new media ventures that could be more valuable learning experiences for students and more relevant to a college audience in the 21st century; the “keep” group, as we understand it, hopes that more professional staffing can improve WBRU’s sagging ratings and especially its underperforming sales department.
The fight broke into the open last week with a Providence Monthly story reporting that the board had finally reached a decision to sell earlier this year – and claiming that a sale could come any day, taking WBRU’s modern rock (and its Sunday urban specialty format) off the air immediately. Providence’s WJAR jumped into the fray with its own story Thursday claiming a sale announcement “is expected in days.”
Is a 50-year legacy of student-run commercial FM in Providence really that close to ending? There’s reason to be at least a little skeptical: the split within WBRU leadership has resulted in more than a few conflicting stories (and even outright reversals of what appeared to be settled decisions) out of 88 Benevolent Street in recent years, for one thing. For another, it’s not clear who’d have both the desire and the deep pockets to add 95.5 to their portfolio. The biggest Providence operators, iHeart and Cumulus, have their own financial worries to deal with. Would smaller players like Hall or Townsquare have the resources? Would Rhode Island Public Radio, right in the midst of its own recent acquisition of what’s now WXNI (89.3), be ready to take on another big capital project? (RIPR tells WJAR it doesn’t have anything in the works right now.) Or would EMF once again be a buyer of last resort, dropping millions to put K-Love on a big statewide signal? And if there is a sale, what sort of objections might delay a transfer?
As always, we’ll be watching closely.
*CONNECTICUT Public Radio has named a new news director. Jeff Cohen has been with WNPR (90.5 Hartford) and its sister stations for seven years as a reporter and fill-in “All Things Considered” host. He replaces John Dankosky, who’s now heading the New England News Collaborative and hosting its weekly “NEXT” magazine show.
*We send our sympathies to our MAINE radio friends mourning the sudden loss of Mike Poulin, the central Maine radio veteran who died Friday night at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, apparently after suffering a heart attack. Poulin’s four-decade career included long runs at WMME (92.3 Moose) and more recently at WEBB (B98.5) in Augusta, where he was doing afternoons. He was also tracking middays at Townsquare’s “Capital 95.9” (WJZN 1400 plus translator). Poulin was just 62. (photo: Townsquare Augusta)
*The oldies that used to be heard on Saturday nights on Boston’s now-defunct (at least temporarily) WMEX (1510) have found a new home in NEW HAMPSHIRE. WGAM (1250 Manchester) and WGHM (900 Nashua) is carrying “Solid Gold Saturdays” from 6-9 PM, with Jim Callahan at the board.
And here’s a good spot to turn our attention from radio to TV, where the FCC has just set out the timetable for TV stations that sold off their spectrum to actually leave those channels in early 2018. That includes WBIN (Channel 50) in Derry, where Bill Binnie took in $68 million for his RF 35 spectrum earlier this year in the auction, then entered into a deal to replace his channel-sharing agreement with Entravision with an all-out purchase of the remaining license assets of WBIN.
What’s the value of that license? In no small part, the right to cable and satellite must-carry for the programming carried over the former WBIN license (via a spectrum share on Entravision’s WUTF channel 66/RF 27). And that prompted a strong objection last week from NCTA, the cable industry’s trade association.
NCTA opposed the sale of the WBIN license, arguing that because the channel-share still hasn’t been built out on the WUTF facility, the FCC should rule that “must carry rights do not attach to the transfer or assignment of a construction permit or license by successful channel sharing bidder that has not constructed its shared facilities or commenced operations at the shared location.”
Even if the FCC were to rule against the Entravision/Binnie deal on these grounds – and to us, that seems unlikely – it wouldn’t mean the end to the channel share; instead, we’d expect Binnie will first “build out” its channel share with WUTF, then refile the sale to Entercom, all the while preserving the must-carry rights that now go with WBIN’s license.
*In NEW YORK, it’s been ten years almost to the week since “Jack” hit the road and classic hits returned to WCBS-FM (101.1), but now the station that long defined personality-based music radio in the big city is operating with a little less personality in the overnight hours. Early Thursday morning, WCBS-FM overnight jock Dave Stewart said his farewells to the shift he’s held since 2012, when he moved over from his longtime WPLJ gig. Another CBS-FM voice, Charlie Burger, has been doing the shift for now, and it’s not clear that this move has anything to do with the impending CBS Radio merger into Entercom. Stewart, for his part, sounded optimistic about landing in a new slot soon – but he’ll be missed in the role he excelled in, being a rare friendly live voice around the clock in the nation’s biggest market.
*There’s a new urban voice coming to FM in Buffalo. WUFO (1080 Amherst) will make the official announcement this morning that it’s launching its new FM translator at 96.5 on August 2. Under its new “Power 96.5” brand, the new translator is the third one atop the former HSBC Tower, the tallest building in downtown Buffalo. In addition to the Tom Joyner Morning Show that was already being heard on 1080, the new 96.5 format will add Michael Baisden and a local afternoon show with DJ Huk-Her.
*Here in our home market, Russ Kimble’s long gamble on a suburban Rochester translator is paying off in a big way. W288CS (105.5 Rochester) has a construction permit to go to 250 watts from the top of the Xerox Tower, the tallest building in downtown Rochester, and the promise of a robust signal covering most of the market was enough for a new company called Blue Light Communications LLC to agree to pay Kimble and partner Patricia Anderson a whopping $650,000 for the signal. In its current incarnation serving the eastern suburbs, 105.5 is part of Brian McGlynn’s “Team” sports network, fed with CBS Sports Radio programming from WRSB (1310 Canandaigua), another former Kimble family signal.
It looks like Blue Light is aiming to provide some urban competition to locally-owned WDKX (103.9), which has had that audience to itself for decades. The New York-based company is run by hip-hop promoters and record-label executives Manny Bella and Lester Pace, who are putting $100,000 down and paying the rest in a promissory note. (McGlynn will reap 40% of the sale proceeds as part of a consulting arrangement with Kimble and Anderson.) Blue Light also has an arrangement with Entercom to use an HD subchannel in town (apparently on WBZA 98.9, which also hosts a subchannel for Family Life Ministries) to feed the translator.
We’ll be watching to see what Blue Light’s programming plans look like – and on McGlynn’s own attempts to sell his 97.5 translator in Rochester, not to mention the future of the Team sports format, also heard on the west side of town on WOKR (1590 Brockport).
*In Olean, we’ve been remiss in not noting a recent format change at the Colonial Media + Entertainment cluster: the “Bob” branding is gone at country WBYB (103.9 Eldred PA), which has new calls WAGL as it returns the former “Eagle” brand to the market. The new Eagle is back on its old dial position in town, too, on a new translator, W256BS (99.1 Olean), which replaces a previous 99.1 translator that was sold in last year’s window.
And what’s Galaxy up to at the northern end of the Syracuse market? It filed to flip its Fulton translator, W291BU (106.1), from a relay of “Sunny” AC WZUN (102.1) to a rebroadcast of WSCP (1070 Sandy Creek). Right now, WSCP is running ESPN Deportes – will that continue, or is there a new format coming to Oswego County?
*In western PENNSYLVANIA, CBS Radio is doing something that a lot of HD Radio operators probably should have done years ago: it’s launching a 24/7 weather-and-traffic channel fed by the newsroom of KDKA (1020 Pittsburgh). The “KDKA Traffic & Weather Together” service will air on the HD3 of sister station WDSY (107.9), with a repeating five-minute loop weekdays from 5 AM-7 PM and less-frequent updates at night and on weekends.
It’s a nice extra for Pittsburgh-area HD listeners (or anyone who has the Radio.com app), but we’re on the same page as RadioInsight’s Lance Venta, who wonders why it took so long to provide this kind of extra value on the HD platform?
*Across the state in Philadelphia, Shila Nathan has been reunited with former WRDW-FM morning co-host Chio. After working at WNSH in New York and WUSN in Chicago, Shila’s back in Philadelphia at the current home of “Chio in the Morning,” iHeart’s recently-relaunched WISX (Real 106.1).
*Across the river in NEW JERSEY, Rowan College is selling translator W264BH (100.7 Mount Holly) to Spectrum Development Group for $125,000. The translator will flip from relaying WGLS (89.7 Glassboro) to relaying WPST (94.5 Trenton), at least for now – but with former Cumulus CFO Richard Bonick and longtime station owner (Marathon Media, etc.) Chris Devine at the helm, we suspect Spectrum Development has bigger plans in the works. Those plans, at least right now, include a filing to move the signal closer to Philadelphia, though last week’s application only gets the new 60 dBu contour to the Cherry Hill side of the river, which means at least one more hop will be needed to get the signal into the city.
*The Garden State is becoming a hotbed for TV channel-sharing, and here’s what we can tell you so far about what’s been filed. Philadelphia’s TBN religious outlet, WGTW (Channel 48), will move from its own RF 27 signal to the RF 36 signal of WMGM-TV (Channel 40), which Univision is in the process of buying. WGTW took in $80.8 million for its spectrum in the auction, while sister station WTBY (Channel 54/RF 27) in Poughkeepsie got $162.4 million. WTBY’s programming will go to a channel-share on WDVB-CD in Edison, New Jersey (transmitting from New York City).
Univision’s own Philadelphia signal, WUVP (Channel 65), is leaving RF 29; its $86 million windfall gives plenty of funding to pay to share with WUVP’s new host, Tribune’s WPHL (Channel 17).
And there’s no channel-share for MiND TV’s noncommercial WYBE (Channel 35); owner Independence Public Media is investing the $131.5 million it got for RF 35 in a foundation that will provide millions of dollars a year to fund other new media ventures beginning in 2019.
*Back in central Pennsylvania, Cumulus has launched its new 93.9 translator in York for talker WSBA (910). The former W253AC moved from 98.5 in Reading (where it relayed sports WIOV 1240) to the WQXA-FM tower in York, where it’s running 250 watts.
Up the road in Harrisburg, CJ Hoyt is the new news director at Nexstar’s WHTM (Channel 27). He’s inbound from sister station WZDX in Huntsville, Alabama, and he replaces David Jones, now at WNYT in Albany.
Over in Pittsburgh, former WDUQ (90.5, now WESA) general manager Scott Hanley is back in the game. After spending time down in Birmingham, Alabama as GM of WBHM (91.3), Hanley moved back to Pittsburgh last year, where he’s now been named GM of WZUM (1550 Braddock)/WZUM-FM (88.1 Bethany WV). That’s the new jazz station started by a group of WDUQ alumni including former chief engineer Chuck Leavens, and it’s about to launch a new 101.1 translator in Pittsburgh. With Hanley at the helm, look for significant growth at the station; we wish him and his colleagues all the best. (Disclosure: Fybush Media has assisted WZUM and parent Pittsburgh Public Media in a variety of consulting and brokerage capacities.)
*It was a quiet week in CANADA, where the biggest radio news came from Brantford, Ontario and religious CFWC (93.9), which won CRTC approval for its C$440,000 sale from Sound of Faith Broadcasting to Evanov Radio Group.
CFWC will join Evanov’s existing country/talk CKPC (1380) and “Jewel” soft AC CKPC-FM (92.1), and will keep its current format.In Thetford Mines, Quebec, Attraction Radio’s CKLD (105.5) has flipped from “Passion Rock” to “Plaisir 105.5,” reports Canadian Radio News.
[/private]
GROW WITH US! Fybush Media and RadioInsight have joined forces to provide a bigger ad sales platform for the broadcast and streaming industry. Are you the right fit to become our next sales professional? We’re seeking someone creative and energetic who knows his or her way around the radio, TV and streaming community. Generous commission and profit-sharing. Want to join our team? Let’s talk.
Fybush.com isn’t a mere website.
We’re a community.
We’re a community.
And we take care of our community members. Do you have a piece of equipment you want to sell? Or one you want to buy? Are you looking for a job? An employee? We can help you with all of those searches and more! We offer classified ads at reasonable prices, seen by people in every part of the industry. Contact Lisa for details.
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: July 19 & 25, 2016 Sixty years after the Bordes family founded it in New Jersey, Greater Media is exiting the radio business with a bombshell $240 million sale to Beasley Media Group. The deal announced at close of business Tuesday will bring Beasley back to the FM dial in Philadelphia, as well as adding a full FM cluster in Boston and – at least for now – a cluster in three central New Jersey markets. Here’s how it shakes out across NERW-land: In its headquarters town of Boston, Beasley was a quiet presence with WRCA (1330 Watertown). Now it will add Greater Media’s five FMs to that: modern rock “Alt 92.9” WBOS (92.9 Brookline), rhythmic “Hot 96.9” WBQT (96.9 Boston), country WKLB (102.5 Waltham), classic hits WROR-FM (105.7 Framingham) and AC “Magic” WMJX (106.7 Boston). It’s incumbent upon us to note (since nobody else will do so!) that the deal will reunite 102.5 and 1330, the former WCRB-FM and WCRB(AM), more than three decades after they were split off to different owners. In Philadelphia, Beasley exited FM less than two years ago with the CBS Radio swap that gave it toeholds in Tampa and Charlotte in exchange for sending WXTU (92.5) and then-WRDW-FM (96.5, now WZMP) to CBS. Now Beasley gets an even bigger FM cluster from Greater Media: rock WMMR (93.3 Philadelphia), adult hits WBEN-FM (95.7 Philadelphia), sports WPEN-FM (97.5 Burlington NJ) and classic rock WMGK (102.9 Philadelphia). They’ll pair with the rump AM cluster that Beasley retained after the CBS swap: religious WTMR (800 Camden NJ), leased-time WWDB (860 Philadelphia) and the AM Beasley got from CBS, sports WTEL (610 Philadelphia). Beasley also has AC WJBR (99.5) in the adjacent Wilmington, Delaware market. And in central New Jersey, Beasley’s new acquisitions sprawl across three sub-markets embedded in greater New York City: in Monmouth-Ocean, it’s rock WRAT (95.9 Point Pleasant) and classic hits WJRZ (100.1 Manahawkin), in Middlesex-Somerset-Union it’s the original Greater Media stations, talk WCTC (1450 New Brunswick) and AC “Magic” WMGQ (98.3 New Brunswick), and out in Morristown it’s oldies WMTR (1250) and rock WDHA (105.5 Dover). *The death of Bill Cardille on Thursday morning hit hard for generations of Pittsburghers. Cardille filled all kinds of roles on the western Pennsylvania airwaves for more than 60 years, but none more beloved than “Chilly Billy,” the iconic horror host of “Chiller Theater” on WIIC/WPXI (Channel 11). In that role, he did more than just introduce movies. He helped fund the original “Night of the Living Dead,” and his persona influenced Pittsburgh native Joe Flaherty to create SCTV’s “Monster Chiller Horror Theater.” Cardille came to WIIC right at the beginning: he was the announcer whose voice signed the station on the air for the first time in 1957, and his work at the station included hosting “Studio Wrestling” and afternoon kids’ movies, as well as doing the weather and pretty much anything else the station needed, too. He came by those skills honestly: after a short run at WDAD (1450 Indiana), his first TV gig in the early 1950s was as an announcer at Erie’s fledgling WICU-TV (Channel 12), where he learned to do live TV without much in the way of money and resources. In addition to his run at Channel 11, Cardille did radio at WWSW (970), WIXZ (1360) and, for almost 20 years, at WJAS (1320), where he worked from 1995 until the station’s 2014 format change to talk. Cardille had been battling cancer. He was 87 when he died of pneumonia at his home in McCandless. Five Years Ago: July 23, 2012 *In 18 years of writing this column, it”s hard to recall a summer week as jam-packed with news as these past seven days in NERW-land have been. Rock back in New York, modern rock gone in Boston, a big cluster of TV stations sold, a prominent radio cluster for sale…oh, and the very imminent end of most TV reception across big swaths of Canada, too.
After a day of reminiscing with just about everyone who passed through the doors of 25 Exchange Street since WFNX”s launch back in 1983, Robert closed out WFNX”s final hour with David Bowie”s “Changes” and then “Let”s Go to Bed” by the Cure, the song that marked the transition from WLYN-FM to WFNX way back when. Since the announcement back in May that Boston Phoenix owner Steve Mindich was selling WFNX”s license (but not its intellectual property) to Clear Channel for $14.5 million, there”s been no shortage of eulogies for one of the last independent big-market alt-rockers left standing. (One of the best came from longtime WFNX news director Sharon Brody, who wrote “one final Brody Beat” for her current employer, WBUR; still more came in a special Phoenix section last week.) *While alternative rock was dying in Boston, rock made a surprise return to the FM dial in NEW YORK City on Tuesday morning. The signs had been building for a few days that Merlin Media was pulling the plug on the year-old “FM News 101.9” experiment at WEMP, but the initial speculation focused on the possibility of a news-talk hybrid along the lines of Merlin”s WWIQ (106.9) in Philadelphia, which has an all-news morning block and syndicated talk the rest of the day. What almost nobody saw coming, though, was the complete 180-degree turn Merlin made at 10:00 Tuesday morning: while WEMP staffers (and those at sister station WIQI in Chicago) were meeting with executives, a pre-recorded news segment abruptly gave way to “New Rock 101.9” at WEMP and “i101” in Chicago. *Enough big news for one week? Not hardly, thanks to a very big TV station transaction that then prompted a radio cluster selloff. The TV group is Newport Television, the private-equity-backed venture that acquired Clear Channel Television in 2007, and last week it announced plans to sell off most of the 27 stations it owns around the country. Here”s how it shakes out in NERW-land: Sinclair Broadcast Group, already a major player in upstate New York, Pittsburgh and Portland, Maine, is paying $412.5 million for six stations, including CBS affiliate WHP-TV (Channel 21) in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. That deal also includes the rights to program WHP”s sister station WLYH (Channel 15), a CW outlet, and it makes for a nice northward extension to Sinclair”s home base in the Baltimore area.
*There”s big TV news from CANADA this week, especially for viewers outside the biggest cities. The CRTC approved the CBC”s request to shut down all of its remaining analog transmitters effective August 1, a move that will leave over-the-air viewers in many places with no service from CBC or Radio-Canada, and in some cases with no Canadian TV service at all. CBC officials cited budget issues and the widespread use of satellite and cable TV when they decided to implement digital TV service only in “mandatory markets” – provincial capitals and other very large cities with multiple local stations. Among the cities that don’t meet those criteria for CBC English TV are Sydney, Nova Scotia, Moncton, N.B., Quebec City (and the rest of Quebec outside Montreal), London, Kitchener and Sudbury, Ontario – and Sudbury”s doubly hit, since its large Francophone population will lose Radio-Canada service, as will Halifax, Charlottetown, Windsor, and a whole swath of rural eastern and northern Quebec. (You can read the entire list of deleted transmitters here.) Ten Years Ago: July 23, 2007 *The upstate NEW YORK market of Utica/Rome has been a problem for Clear Channel ever since the company announced it was shedding most of its smaller-market stations. With a cluster that exceeds current market caps, in an over-radioed market that’s at best stagnant, the group of four AMs and five FMs wasn’t included in the list of stations Clear Channel is selling to the Goodradio.TV group (which isn’t “Goodradio.TV” anymore, but we”ll get to that later in this week’s issue), and for a while it looked as though the company simply wasn”t finding a willing buyer for the stations. That changed on Thursday, when Ed Levine”s Galaxy Communications announced a deal under which it will buy the Clear Channel cluster, spinning off four of the CC stations to another local broadcaster, Ken Roser, and one of the CC stations and one of Galaxy”s existing Utica stations to EMF Broadcasting. Here”s the way the market looks now: And here”s how it will look when all the deals close: So what does it all mean? For Levine, who just exited the Albany market with a sale of two stations (plus a Syracuse rimshot FM) to EMF, it means a much stronger position in a Utica/Rome market Levine says he”ll combine the existing “Sports Stars” programming from the two AMs he”s acquiring (WIXT 1230 Little Falls and WRNY 1350 Rome) with the Syracuse University sports package Galaxy recently landed and with the strong signal of his existing WTLB 1310 Utica to create a new three-station sports network with a much more potent reach than the existing “Sports Starts” quad-cast, and he says no changes are planned right now for “Mix” WUMX. For Ken Roser, the deal represents a homecoming: he”d owned 97.9 and 105.5, then “Wow FM” WOWZ/WOWB, before selling them to Clear Channel in 2002. Back then, Clear Channel paid $2.15 million for the two FMs and the Little Falls AM on 1230 (then WLFH). While prices aren”t being announced yet for the latest deal, it”s a pretty solid bet that Roser is paying far less than that to buy back his old FMs, as well as daytimer WUTQ (1550 Utica) and WADR (1480 Remsen). We”re hearing that Roser will keep the “Kiss” branding and top-40 format on the FMs, with no word on what becomes of the AMs. We also don”t know yet whether Roser will end up with the Genesee Street studios downtown that Clear Channel has been using; (Those studios came along with Clear Channel”s 1998 acquisition of WOUR and the rest of the then-Dame group; Galaxy will be moving WOUR out to its WTLB studio/transmitter facility in Washington Mills.)
Just a week after announcing her departure from WCVB (Channel 5), Natalie Jacobson said her goodbyes last week, first in a special “Chronicle” on Tuesday night and then at the end of her final newscast Wednesday. “It is not easy to walk away from this,” Jacobson said in her closing remarks. “But life moves on and I, like many of you, am ready for a new challenge.” That Jacobson is still saying little about what that new challenge might be (some sort of multimedia venture aimed at retirement-age baby boomers, apparently) reinforces our sense that the abrupt departure isn”t as voluntary as Jacobson and the station are saying – especially when we look back at Jacobson comments in which she said she planned to be at WCVB for a while – “I do see myself staying here and yes I am happy here,” was the exact quote to the Herald as recently as late March. In any event, WCVB rounded up all the usual tributes – Red Sox management, Ted Kennedy, rival WBZ anchor Liz Walker – as well as a smallish batch of old clips for the “Chronicle” tribute, which had the feel of something hastily assembled, short of the tribute properly due to Jacobson, who truly paved the way for women in Boston television. After a remarkable 35-year run at one station, it”s not hard to think that Jacobson deserved a bigger send-off. Fifteen Years Ago: July 22, 2002 Pittsburgh’s public television station is about to get at least $20 million richer – but PENNSYLVANIA will lose its last public TV duopoly, thanks to an FCC decision last week that will allow channel 16 in the Steel City to be used for commercial broadcasting. WQED (Channel 13) was among the first public television stations in the country when it signed on in the spring of 1954 (KUHT in Houston beat it on the air by more than a year, but WQED claims to be the first community-owned station, while KUHT was and is owned by the University of Houston); five years later, the station took an old black-and-white transmitter and added WQEX (Channel 16) to its lineup. Initially intended to provide in-school educational programming, WQEX eventually became an “alternative” public TV outlet. After going color in the eighties, WQEX operated for a time under completely separate program management from WQED, with a schedule that included classic TV reruns and PBS programs that weren’t cleared on channel 13. By the late nineties, though, WQED became determined to sell WQEX, to help meet what the station said was a serious financial shortfall. In 1997, WQEX began simulcasting WQED – something WQED hoped would be a brief temporary move before selling the station completely. One plan involved the fledgling Pax network, which lacked a Pittsburgh outlet. Pax planned to buy commercially-licensed WPCB (Channel 40) in Greensburg from religious broadcaster Cornerstone TeleVision, which would then purchase channel 16 from WQED and move the WPCB programming there. A brief gasp of courage from several FCC commissioners, questioning whether Cornerstone”s programming met the qualifications for a noncommercial channel, quashed that deal (although the FCC later backtracked on the new rules that were briefly put forth), and WQED then asked the FCC to “de-reserve” channel 16, allowing it to be sold for full commercial use. That prompted a community outpouring of opposition, with several groups asking the FCC not to allow the de-reservation, under which WQED proposed to sell WQEX to ShootingStar, Inc., a new company formed by Diane Sutter, former general manager of WWSW (970/94.5) in Pittsburgh, for $20 million. Last October, the FCC denied the request, but opened a Notice of Proposed Rule Making on the case. That NPRM was closed this week when the FCC ruled that the de-reservation can proceed. Most of the commissioners agreed with WQED”s argument that it needs the money from the sale for DTV conversion (something the station hasn’t done yet, while working its way through the WQEX sale) and an upgrade of the WQED facility in Pittsburgh”s Oakland district. The ruling also acknowleged that Pittsburgh is under-served by television, with just seven commercial stations in the market (Viacom’s KDKA and WNPA, Hearst-Argyle’s WTAE, Cox’s WPXI, Sinclair’s WCWB and WPGH and Cornerstone’s WPCB). Commissioner Michael Copps dissented, calling public television stations the “gems” of the television system, and noting that once a station is de-reserved, it”s gone for good. No word yet on when WQEX’s simulcast of WQED might be replaced by commercial programming (from Pax, perhaps?) – stay tuned! We”ll start our NEW YORK report right here in Rochester, where WBBF (950 Rochester) broke out of its simulcast with oldies WBBF-FM (93.3 Fairport) Friday evening just after 6, switching to a short playlist of songs drawn from WBBF-FM and its Entercom sister stations, classic hits WBZA (98.9) and country WBEE-FM (92.5) – with announcements proclaiming the station to be “News Talk 950.” (All of the music in the rotation, by the way, had either “News,” “Talk,” “Sports,” “Business” or “Weather” in the title or the name of the artist…) The 1000-watt signal on 950 covers Monroe County quite well (in its heritage top-40 days, it was regularly the number-one station in town by wide margins), but it’s a far cry from the market’s dominant news-talker, Clear Channel’s clear channel WHAM (1180). Expect to hear Bill O’Reilly on 950 – and we hear rumors about Dr. Joy Browne, Sean Hannity, Tom Leykis, some sports coverage and perhaps a local morning show. Twenty Years Ago: July 24, 1997 We begin this week’s edition with some sad news from CONNECTICUT. Veteran newsman Walt Dibble died on Monday at age 67. Dibble had worked in Connecicut radio for 49 years, the last 20 of them at WTIC in Hartford. Dibble’s career began in 1948 at Stamford’s WSTC (1400), and included stints at WICC (600) in Bridgeport and WAVZ (1300) in New Haven, as well as a lengthy stay at Hartford’s WDRC (1360/102.9). Dibble came to WTIC as news director in 1977, replacing NBC’s hourly news with local news at the top and bottom of the hour. Dibble won a national award from the RTNDA for his investigative reporting, as well as awards from Ohio State University in 1981 and from the Connecticut AP Broadcasters Association (the Abrams award for excellence in radio journalism) in 1995. Radio reporters all over New England knew Dibble as someone who was always willing to provide news sound out of Hartford, and to lend advice and job tips to those new to the business. In addition to his work at WTIC, Dibble was also an instructor at the Connecticut School of Broadcasting and at Southern Connecticut State University. Dibble had been battling leukemia for some time before his death, and had just returned to work at WTIC (although not yet to the air) when he died. He’s survived by three sons (including Fox sportscaster and former Cincinnati Reds pitcher Rob Dibble) and three daughters, and by his wife, Barbara. In this era of shuttered radio newsrooms, Walt Dibble was one of the few remaining giants in the business. He will be sorely missed. |
Related Posts
NorthEast Radio Watch 11/11/2024: iHeart, Cumulus Cut Deeper
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" -...
NorthEast Radio Watch 11/4/2024: Cumulus Consolidates in RI
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
NorthEast Radio Watch 10/28/2024: News Changes at GBH
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
Please login to join discussion