The latest move will bring WCCM’s signal back to more solid coverage of Lawrence and vicinity, but at a price – the 1110 signal signs off at sunset, with no night power at all, so there still won’t be local sports on the “new” WCCM. As for WCEC on 1490, the Hispanic population in and around Haverhill continues to grow, so that half of the move promises to be successful – but we still vividly remember the days, not all that long ago, when Haverhill, Lawrence and Lowell each had multiple local English-language radio voices, too, and it’s sad to think that the days of the old WHAV, WCCM and WLLH are long gone.
NorthEast Radio Watch 12/23 & 12/30/2024: WKIT Lives!
In this week’s issue… WKIT finds a buyer - Eskin out at WIP - Staff shifts in Utica - CRTC approves Bell divestitures
NERW 7/31/2017: Signal Shuffle in Elmira
In this week’s issue… WBRU sale nears reality – New owners for silent NY AMs – Broadcasters spar over PA AM – Maison Radio-Canada rebuild moves ahead – Honoring Binghamton’s engineering dean
By SCOTT FYBUSH
Jump to: ME – NH – VT – MA – RI – CT – NY – NJ – PA – Canada
*Grab a scorecard, if you will, because there’s an interesting shuffle about to happen in NEW YORK‘s Southern Tier between two FM stations that share the same tower but have different owners.
Sound Communications’ WENY-FM (92.7 Elmira) has been broadcasting from South Hill since it first hit the air in the 1960s; Kevin Fitzgerald and George Hawras’ WPHD (96.1 South Waverly PA) is a much more recent arrival, having signed on only in 2003.
Last week, Sound and the Fitzgerald/Hawras partnership filed to swap licenses – but in a way that would leave Elmira-area listeners almost completely unaware that anything had changed. The application to exchange licenses says that Fitzgerald and Hawras will file to move the WENY-FM license from 92.7 to 96.1, using the exact facilities now occupied by WPHD, and will change calls to WPHD as well. At the same time, Sound will file to move the WPHD license from 96.1 to 92.7, using the current WENY-FM facilities, and change calls to WENY-FM.
If it’s granted by the FCC, the only thing listeners might notice (and only if they’re especially alert) is that 96.1 would become “WPHD Elmira,” while 92.7 would identify as “WENY-FM South Waverly.”
What’s going on here? As we explored last week in our “Top of the Tower” podcast, there’s only one reason for going through all of this FCC sleight-of-hand: a station licensed to Elmira, in Chemung County, is in the Elmira-Corning radio market for the purposes of the Commission’s ownership caps – but a station licensed over the state line in South Waverly is outside any rated radio market and thus governed by contour overlaps when it comes to determining ownership caps. And since the Elmira-Corning market is a strange beast that extends into sprawling Steuben County, far beyond the reach of the 92.7 or 96.1 signals, the use of contour overlaps just might allow Sound owner Paige Christian to do something she can’t do right now, which would be to add another FM signal to her existing holdings in the market.
Is there a deal in the works for Sound to add to its cluster, which includes AC “Magic” on 92.7 and WENI-FM (97.7 Big Flats), 80s/90s hits WGMM (98.7 Corning) and country WKPQ (105.3 Hornell)? Not that we’ve heard yet – and for that matter, we haven’t even seen FCC applications for the actual facility swaps proposed in the exchange agreement. Will the FCC let 92.7 “become” 96.1 in a minor change, and vice versa? We’ll be watching…and keeping you posted.
THE 2025 TOWER SITE CALENDAR IS SHIPPING NOW!
Behold, the 2025 calendar!
We chose the 100,000-watt transmitter of the Voice Of America in Marathon, right in the heart of the Florida Keys. This picture has everything we like in our covers — blue skies, greenery, water, and of course, towers! The history behind this site is a draw, too.
Other months feature some of our favorite images from years past, including some Canadian stations and several stations celebrating their centennials (can you guess? you don’t have to if you buy the calendar!).
We will ship daily through Christmas Eve. Place your order now for immediate shipping!
This will be the 24th edition of the world-famous Tower Site Calendar, 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, 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]
*Radio People on the Move in New York City: at CBS Radio’s “AMP” (WBMP 92.3), middayer/MD Niko (Nicholaus Petrou) has exited after four years. No replacement has been named yet.
At iHeart’s WWPR (Power 105.1), Breakfast Club executive producer Eddie Fennel moves up to assistant PD, while middayer DJ Prostyle becomes music director while retaining his air shift.
And another familiar voice has retired from CBS Radio News: Frank Settipani joined the network in 1981; he did his last newscast from the Broadcast Center last week.
*Translators are in the news on Long Island: a new soft AC “Breeze” format has been on the air for a couple of weeks on Apple Community Broadcasting’s W268AN (101.5 Plainview), fed by the HD4 of WVIP (93.5 New Rochelle).
EMF’s K-Love format is heading to the island soon, too, as EMF pays Holding Out Hope Church $250,000 for translators W235BB (94.9 Hauppauge) and W283BA (104.5 Selden), which will switch from “Hope Radio” (WLIR 107.1 Hampton Bays) to relaying EMF’s WKLV-FM (96.7 Port Chester).
*Several silent upstate New York AMs appear to be returning to life. In Utica, Good Guys Broadcasting’s WUSP (1550)/W238CA (95.5) and sister station WRCK (1480) up in Remsen have been silent for well over a year now, returning only long enough to keep the license alive; now they’re headed to a group called Phoenix Radio, Inc. (Cassandra Harris-Lockwood and Stephen Lockwood) for $125,000.
Down the Thruway, Robert and Letitia English’s Towercast Media LLC is buying silent WMCR (1600 Oneida) from Leatherstocking Media for $40,000. The sale will leave Leatherstocking with just one remaining license, silent WSEN (1050 Baldwinsville).
In Rochester, an update on the translator story we reported last week: Genesee Media will keep its “Team” sports programming going after its current FM translator signal on 105.5 is sold. There will be a short simulcast period on Team’s new translator at 97.5 (fed from 1590 Brockport, which will change calls from WOKR to WRSB), followed by a permanent Team move to an upgraded 97.5 signal from the Xerox Tower.
*And we close with a salute to Binghamton engineering legend Gino Riccardelli, whose long career in the Southern Tier was honored on Saturday with a 95th-birthday reception at the Bundy Museum.
Riccardelli put three of Binghamton’s four TV stations on the air, helping to build pioneer WNBF-TV (Channel 12, now WBNG) in 1949, upstart UHF outlet WINR-TV (Channel 40, now WICZ) in 1957 and public TV outlet WSKG (Channel 46) in 1968. He’s still an important part of the local broadcast scene, and we’re sorry we weren’t there to wish him well in person.
*In the wake of the death of longtime PENNSYLVANIA station owner Cary Simpson, there’s a dispute brewing about the fate of his last remaining station, WTRN (1340). After the announcement a few weeks ago that Matt Lightner is buying the station for $90,000, Simpson’s son Ted began making noise on social media and with the FCC objecting to the sale. The Altoona Mirror reports that Lightner and the Simpson estate went to court asking for a restraining order to keep Ted Simpson from interfering with the sale, which is still pending before the FCC. Blair County Judge Jolene Kopriva granted the order, telling Ted Simpson that any dispute about the handling of the estate should properly be handled in court, and that Simpson’s statements were “damaging the relationship not just with the estate but also to the radio station your dad loved.”
*In Pittsburgh, WPGB (Big 104.7) PD JD Greene has added programming duties down the hall at sports talker WBGG (970), taking over from Gregg Henson; he’s also signed a three-year contract extension with owner iHeart Media.
There’s a new format and new calls on the former WLSW (103.9 Scottdale), which has joined Bob Stevens’ Broadcast Communications Inc. as a simulcast of leased talker WKHB (620 Irwin); WLSW is becoming WKHB-FM, and its own simulcast, WQTW (1570 Latrobe), is also relaying WKHB.
To the north, Loran Mann’s Pentecostal Temple Development Corp. is selling silent WMNY (1150 New Kensington) to Bhavna Gupta’s Radio 1150 LLC for $180,000.
*And we note the death on July 14 of Jack Layton W9UK, whose long career in engineering included stints at KDKA and other Pittsburgh stations and as an alternative broadcast inspector across Pennsylvania. He also spent time in Chicago at WIND and WVON/WGCI. Layton, who had also served as a deacon in the Catholic church for many years, was 76.
*In RHODE ISLAND, a sale of WBRU (95.5 Providence) is apparently just days away from being announced; we’ve explored the what-ifs of this deal fairly extensively in the column in recent weeks, so we’ll wait until more news emerges about the buyer and then provide an update.
*MAINE Public Radio is adding a new midcoast signal with the $550,000 purchase of Blueberry Broadcasting’s WTQX (96.7 Boothbay Harbor). The station has been relaying rocker WTOS (105.1 Skowhegan), but will join MPBN’s “Maine Public Classical” network this fall when the deal closes, under new calls WBQA.
MPBN has also filed for new calls for two of its new classical network stations: WFYB (91.5 Fryeburg) becomes WBQF, while WRMO (93.7 Milbridge) becomes WBQE.
*One of eastern MASSACHUSETTS‘ local AM voices is getting a new owner, but details are sketchy so far about what’s next for WNBP (1450 Newburyport) and its 106.1 translator. We know so far that WNBP’s weekend hosts were told this past weekend’s shows would be their last, and that at least one, oldies DJ Dave Mack, will be moving his show to Haverhill’s WHAV-LP (97.9). Carl Strube and Pete Falconi have owned WNBP since 2009, and we hear an announcement of the station’s next chapter should come today. (We’ll keep you posted.)
*What’s up with WEEI sports talker Kirk Minihane? He spent most of last week off the air after a rant against Red Sox management last Monday morning. Entercom’s insisting that Minihane is simply taking “personal time,” and that there’s no retaliation for his on-air disagreement with the team. Will he be back today? Stay tuned…
And in Worcester, Lance Ballance exits as PD of Cumulus’ WXLO (104.5), with no replacement on board yet.
*It was a quiet week in CANADA, too, except perhaps where real estate on the east end of Montreal is concerned. The CBC’s plans to vacate the current Maison Radio-Canada and replace it with a new building by 2020 took a big step forward last week with the announcement that contracts have been signed for both ends of this complex deal.
The Broccolini Group will pay one dollar for the eastern part of the current MRC property (now used as a parking lot), then build the new MRC and lease it back to CBC/Radio-Canada for the same C$21 million a year that the corporation now pays in maintenance costs. The rest of the current MRC property, including the existing MRC building, is being sold to Groupe Mach for C$42 million and will be redeveloped once Radio-Canada moves out in 2020. Groupe Mach will assume the corporation’s current maintenance backlog costs, estimated at C$170 million. How quickly is this all moving? Construction on the eastern end of the site for the new MRC is expected to start on Monday.
(See our tour of the existing MRC from 2016 on Tower Site of the Week…)
*Elsewhere in Quebec, the CBC is converting two more of its remaining low-power AM relays to FM. CBMK (1230 Level-sur-Quevillon) will go to 92.7 with 50 watts/12.5 m, while CBMM (540 Senneterre) goes to 101.7 with 115 watts/3.8 m.
[/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: August 1, 2016 *If you’re in eastern MASSACHUSETTS or NEW HAMPSHIRE and you use a satellite dish to get your Boston TV signals, you’re not watching Sunbeam’s WHDH-TV (Channel 7) or WLVI (Channel 56) this week.
This time, though, the satellite companies know that whatever deal they make based on NBC’s value to their customers will vanish in just a few months when Comcast pulls the NBC affiliation away from Sunbeam and WHDH. Sunbeam owner Ed Ansin knows that if he tries to drive satellite customers over to cable to see his stations, they’ll just be enriching the pockets of his arch-enemy Comcast. And while he won’t come out and say it, Ansin probably sees a long-term value to the dispute, if it gives him financial damages that he can show against Comcast for pulling the NBC affiliation. (Not to mention giving NBC lower national ratings for a do-or-die Olympics broadcast if big chunks of market #10 can’t see the broadcast!)
Cox management has gone so far as to send a memo to WFXT employees saying there’s no truth to rumors than NBC is looking to acquire channel 25 – but there’s clearly something happening at a station that’s been dealing with declining ratings and in-house instability lately, and we note, as always, that Comcast/NBC has still yet to say definitively where “NBC Boston” will be landing on TV dials January 1. *On the translator front back in MASSACHUSETTS, Radio One is doing a quick turnaround on the signal it’s moving into Boston. W231BI (94.1 Utica NY) will go to 106.1 in Boston, where Radio One had paid EMF $40,000 to use it as a relay for WILD (1090). But now Beasley is paying Radio One ten times as much – $400,000 – to instead use the translator to relay its own WRCA (1330 Watertown). Will WRCA stay with its leased-time ethnic format, or will Beasley use the powerful translator to add a new FM format to the cluster it’s acquiring from Greater Media? *In western MAINE, Dick Gleason is making some big changes today at his station group. Here’s how it all goes down: the successful new “Z105.5” format that’s been running on WEZR (1240 Lewiston) and its 105.5 translator is getting a new simulcast on WOXO (92.7 Norway), which becomes “Maine’s Big Z 92.7 & 105.5” as it changes calls to WEZR-FM. WOXO’s country format stays on simulcast WTBM (100.7 Mexico, which takes the WOXO calls), and it also relocates to WKTQ (1450 South Paris), which adds new translator W245CQ (96.9 South Paris). The new branding there will be “96.9/100.7 the Ox.” Five Years Ago: July 30, 2012 *In a year that’s been full of natural disasters from coast to coast, the tornado that cut through Elmira, NEW YORK on Thursday didn’t get much national attention. But the 110-mph, EF-1 twister took a damaging course for the city’s broadcasters, knocking out power to the Hawley Hill TV/FM site on Elmira’s west side and then partially toppling a tower just south of downtown. The storm’s immediate aftermath Thursday evening found power out in much of the city and most of Elmira’s radio and TV dial dark as a result. NBC affiliate WETM (Channel 18) was especially hard-hit, losing both power to its transmitter on Hawley Hill and the fiber connection to its hubbed master control at WSYR-TV (Channel 9) in Syracuse. WETM was back on Time Warner Cable screens late Friday, but it wasn’t until Saturday that the over-the-air service (which also feeds satellite viewers and outlying cable systems) was fully restored – and in the meantime, it was ABC/CBS affiliate WENY-TV (Channel 36) providing coverage of the storm to viewers lucky enough to have power. On the radio, most of the FM dial, including WENY-FM (92.7) on South Hill and WLVY (94.3)/WOKN (99.5) on East Hill, was also off the air Thursday night in the absence of generator power, returning on Friday as power was restored. Pembrook Pines’ WELM (1410)/WEHH (1600) remained on the air from their Lake Avenue studio/transmitter facility just north of the storm’s path.   But the worst damage came just south of downtown on Milton Street, where the city’s oldest AM tower, home to WENY (1230), did not survive the tornado’s fury. The storm bent the top of the 430-foot self-supporting tower, damaging it beyond repair and taking the 1230 signal off the air indefinitely. It also ended a long chapter in Elmira’s radio history, dating back to the early 1920s when the Elmira Star-Gazette (the first paper in the Gannett chain) partnered with Cornell University in Ithaca, 35 miles away, to put WESG radio on the air. As a 1000-watt daytimer, WESG was licensed to Elmira, owned by Cornell, leased to the Star-Gazette and operated from studios in both Elmira and Ithaca in what must have been a most unusual arrangement for the time. It wasn’t long afterward when the newspaper and the university went their separate ways: Cornell kept the 850 facility (moved to 870 in 1941) for what became WHCU, while the Star-Gazette won a new full-time license on 1200 (soon moved to 123o) under the WENY callsign. It was right about then – 1939 – that the Milton Street tower went up to serve WENY, and it had been there ever since, becoming a landmark for drivers along nearby Route 17. Now owned by Sound Communications, WENY plans to replace this tower as soon as it can work out the insurance details; it’s not yet clear whether the new tower will be another self-supporter or a guyed tower, or whether it will be as tall as the now-damaged 1939 tower was. We’ll keep you posted… *The week’s other big development from upstate New York was up in Utica, where what initially appeared to be an LMA of Roser Communications Network’s two AM signals instead has turned into a sale. CNYRadio.com reports former WKTV (Channel 2) executives Tom Coyne and Frank Abbadessa will pay Roser $350,000 for WUSP (1550 Utica, formerly WUTQ) and WRCK (1480 Remsen, returning to its WADR calls while Roser keeps “WRCK”), along with FM translator W238CA (95.5). Roser moved his soft AC/talk “WUTQ” format from the AM/translator combo to what’s now WUTQ-FM (100.7 Utica) earlier this year, and Abbadessa and Coyne’s “Good Guys Broadcasting Corporation” is already running the AMs and 95.5 under an LMA, programming a mix of sports and leased time. *In Owego, Dave Radigan had plenty to celebrate last Friday: his WEBO (133o) marked both its 55th anniversary on the air and the grand re-opening of its downtown studios after last year’s flood forced Radigan and his staff out of their storefront studio across the street. The flood came less than five years after Radigan had bought the station and built the new studios (and a new transmitter site, plus a new FM translator at 107.9), and it’s a tribute to his dedication to the Owego community that he’s put everything back together so quickly.
After weeks of intense secrecy about Clear Channel’s plans for 101.7 (pierced only by our discovery of the WHBA calls a week or so ago and Lance Venta’s confirmation a few days later on Radio Insight that the new station would be called “The Harbor”), the reality turned out to be not very surprising at all. When Clear Channel finds a formula that works, it tends to repeat that format around the country – and so the recent launches of adult hits as “the Lake” in Cleveland and Charlotte ended up being pretty good previews of what was coming to Boston. “Safe” is probably the best description of the new format, which is running jockless and commercial-free for the rest of the summer. It launched with Dierks Bentley’s “5-1-5-0” followed by the Standells’ “Dirty Water” and Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion,” and the music that’s played since then has all been carefully-tested hits from the 1970s through today, interspersed with liners by actor Ken Hudson Campbell. It’s about as far opposite as it gets from the modern rock that WFNX played, and ‘FNX (now in its online-only incarnation) isn’t holding its tongue about what’s become of its old FM home: in a Facebook post over the weekend, it referred to “the awful nonsense that now resides on 101.7 FM,” and then went on to take a slap at Boston.com’s “RadioBDC” (where many former WFNX staffers are now toiling) as “that New York-owned corporate newspaper’s knockoff station that hasn’t launched yet. ” Ten Years Ago: July 30, 2007 *A venerable set of MASSACHUSETTS call letters will move to yet another spot on the dial (just over the state line in NEW HAMPSHIRE, actually) on Wednesday. That’s when Costa-Eagle will move the WCCM calls and talk format down the dial from its present home on Haverhill-licensed 1490 to the 1110 signal that’s licensed to Salem, NH. 1110’s current occupant, Spanish talk “Impacto” WCEC, will take over the 1490 signal – and listeners who’ve been following the “WCCM” identity around the dial will have to adjust their presents for the second time in five years. It was back in August 2002 that Costa-Eagle dislodged WCCM from the most potent signal in its cluster, the Lawrence-licensed 800 facility that had operated as WCCM since 1947, in order to install Spanish tropical WNNW (previously at 1110) on the 800 signal. WCCM in turn replaced the equally venerable WHAV on 1490 – but that signal, while licensed for fulltime operation, was hard to hear in much of the Lawrence area even by day, and nearly impossible at night. That, in turn, made it vaguely pointless for WCCM to carry some of the Lawrence-oriented programming it had carried, not to mention Lowell Spinners baseball, which was heard on 1490 for several years as well.
*In Worcester, Clear Channel has signed on a new translator for WJMN (94.5 Boston). W235AV (94.9 Tatnuck) runs 235 watts from the WSRS (96.1) tower in Paxton, reinforcing the “Jam’n” signal in Worcester County at the expense of the fringes of WHOM (94.9 Mount Washington NH). *Back in 1980, NEW YORK‘s WNBC-TV (Channel 4) blazed a new path for TV news when it debuted “Live at Five,” one of the first local TV newscasts to air an hour earlier than the usual 6 PM slot. Now the station is getting out of the 5 PM news race, effective September 10. That’s when it will pull the plug on the latest version of “Live at Five,” moving anchors David Ushery and Linda Baquero to the 6 PM slot long held by Chuck Scarborough and Sue Simmons. That, in turn, frees up Scarborough to anchor a new 7 PM newscast, leading out of the Brian Williams national news at 6:30, while Simmons will cut back her schedule to 11 PM only. The 5 PM slot will be filled by “Extra,” followed by the “News 4 You” feature-laden 5:30 newscast anchored by Perri Peltz. The station will also add hourly news updates from 11 AM until 5 PM on weekdays. Fifteen Years Ago: July 29, 2002 *The long-rumored sale of WBEC (1420) and WBEC-FM (105.5) in Pittsfield, MASSACHUSETTS, from Tele-Media to Vox is finally becoming a reality – and it includes WZEC (97.5 Hoosick Falls NY) as well. The move puts Vox in a new market not far from its existing strongholds in southern Vermont, the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts and New York’s Glens Falls market, and leaves Tele-Media with only WKBE (100.3 Warrensburg NY) remaining from its former Albany-centered cluster. Elsewhere in Massachusetts, what started out as a quiet summer is heating up – literally and figuratively – with a new program director and a new morning show vacancy in Boston. We’ll start with the vacancy, created when WZLX (100.7 Boston) sent morning guy Tai (Thomas A. Irwin) packing last week. Tai and comedian Steve Sweeny had held down mornings at the Infinity classic rocker for two years, following Charles Laquidara’s decamping to Hawaii in 2000. Sweeny remains on WZLX’s morning shift, with a new co-host not expected for a few weeks, at least. (One reason for the delay: WZLX’s new program director, Beau Raines, is just settling into the job, officially. Raines was picked for the post back in April [NERW 4/17], but contractual issues with his old employer, Greater Media’s WROR, kept the move from becoming official until just last week. And speaking of Greater Media and Infinity, we have it on good authority that the possibility of Loren and Wally making the jump from Greater’s WROR to Infinity’s WODS was more than just a rumor – it came close to happening before Greater came through with the contract Loren and Wally wanted!) Tai will likely surface elsewhere on the Boston radio scene; in addition to his best-known gig as “Morning Guy Tai” on WFNX, he spent some time doing talk at WRKO as well. A long-disputed FM channel has been granted in MAINE. Robert Scott Hogg (former owner of WMDI in Bar Harbor) and Lyle Robert Evans both wanted 93.7A in Millbridge, way down East between Bangor and Calais, and now a settlement has put the CP in the hands of Evans. Up here in Rochester, WBBF (950) continues to stunt as “Swifty 950,” still playing a music-test tape of 70s and 80s pop and classic rock – but we now know at least one of the local personalities who’ll be heard on the station when it relaunches as a news-talker. Allan Harris left WHAM (1180) last week, ending a long career at the Clear Channel news-talk outlet, where he’d been a traffic reporter, fill-in news guy and late-night/weekend talk host. We hear he’ll show up on WBBF whenever the new format launches; in the meantime, the Michael Savage show has appeared in his old late-night slot on WHAM. Twenty Years Ago: July 31, 1997 NBC will soon be reunited with one of its oldest owned-and-operated TV stations. Paramount agreed today to trade WVIT (Channel 30) New Britain-Hartford to NBC in exchange for WLWC (Channel 28) New Bedford-Providence and WWHO (Channel 53) Chillicothe-Columbus OH, which are owned by Fant Broadcasting and LMA’d to NBC. The deal would bring channel 30 back into the NBC family after nearly four decades. NBC bought what was then WKNB-TV (along with WKNB 1410 AM) back in 1956, as part of a project to develop UHF owned-and-operated stations by the major networks (NBC also owned a station in Buffalo, while CBS owned UHFs in Hartford and Milwaukee). The TV calls were changed to WNBC-TV, and then to WHNB-TV in 1959 when NBC sold the station to Transcontinental Properties. In 1978, WHNB-TV was sold to Viacom (now Paramount), becoming WVIT. NBC and Paramount would both need waivers to make this swap work, since WVIT’s signal overlaps with NBC O&Os WNBC-TV (Channel 4) in New York and WJAR (Channel 10) Providence, while the WLWC signal overlaps with Paramount’s WSBK (Channel 38). If the deal is consummated, WLWC and WWHO would switch affiliations from The WB to UPN. An ownership change on the way in MASSACHUSETTS: Curt Gowdy is preparing to bow out of Bay State broadcasting after nearly 35 years of ownership (and years of on-air work before that). Gowdy has reportedly reached a deal to sell WCCM (800) in Lawrence to Costa-Eagle Broadcasting, the partnership that owns WNNW (1110) Salem NH and operates WHAV (1490) Haverhill. Costa-Eagle may switch WNNW’s Spanish-language format to the WCCM signal, which covers the Hispanic market in Lawrence much better, while moving WCCM’s English-language talk to the less-potent 1110 operation. Auto dealer Charles Daher is reportedly upset with Gowdy; he says he was close to signing a purchase agreement for WCCM when Costa-Eagle stepped in with a higher offer. Gowdy bought WCCM and then-WGHJ (93.7) back in 1963. The FM was later WCCM-FM and WCGY; Gowdy sold it to American Radio Systems several years ago. Long retired and living in Wyoming, Gowdy still owns several stations in the Laramie area. |
Related Posts
NorthEast Radio Watch 12/16/2024: No More “Radio Boston”
In this week’s issue… WBUR backs off local talk - EMF's expansion in NY, nationally - Rochester broadcasters honored - Russell finds new PA radio home - Remembering Bruce Stevens - The new calendar's here!
NorthEast Radio Watch 12/9/2024: Two Big Losses in Western NY
In this week’s issue… Remembering WNY's Palvino, Harris - Will King sell Bangor stations? - Kay moves earlier - New signal on LI - Cumulus cuts hit PA, New England - Frizzell sells in NH
NorthEast Radio Watch 12/2/2024: Wingham’s Main Radio Man Retires
In this week’s issue… Saluting a small-town radio vet - Bell moves CP24 - Scott heads west - Burlington gets Air 1, "Experimental Radio" - Family Life heads down I-86
