NorthEast Radio Watch 9/23/2019: Deep in the Heart of Texas

In this week’s issue… We’re headed to the Radio Show – Saga adds NH translator – Toronto TVs request repack change

By SCOTT FYBUSH

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

*BRYAN, Texas – We’re on the road again this week, enjoying the hospitality of the great state of Texas en route to the Radio Show later this week in Dallas.

That means an abbreviated NERW column while we’re busy collecting photos and stories from Waco, San Antonio, Houston, Bryan and more Site of the Week – plus interviews you’ll enjoy hearing soon on the fall season of the Top of the Tower Podcast.

While we’re away, this week’s abbreviated headline edition of NERW is free for your enjoyment (and, we hope, for you to tell friends and colleagues about, so they’ll subscribe, too!)

*What’s Saga up to in NEW HAMPSHIRE? Adding another translator – what else? Ed Christian’s group is paying $200,000 to pick up W295BL (106.9 Manchester) from Jeff Shapiro’s Basic Holdings. The translator has been relaying classical WCRB (99.5 Lowell-Boston), but will switch to a relay of the HD3 from Saga’s WZID (95.7), bringing “Outlaw” classic country to Manchester as a simulcast of the 103.1 translator up in Concord.

Over at New Hampshire Public Radio, there’s a replacement for the departed Betsy Gardella, who exited the statewide network at the end of 2018. Jim Schachter moves to Concord from New York City, where he’s been director of news at WNYC for the last seven years, a post he took after many years at the New York Times. 

*Where are they now? Veteran New England programmer Jerry McKenna appears to be headed to Atlanta, where Rodney Ho of the Journal Constitution reports he’s being named PD of Entercom’s WSTR (94.1). McKenna was most recently programming the Cape Cod Broadcasting cluster, but worked at multiple Boston stations including Kiss 108 and WZOU.

*Who’s replacing the retired Steve Hausmann at the top-rated morning show in Rochester, NEW YORK? None other than his former morning partner, Terry Clifford, who moves from middays back to the “Bee Morning Coffee Club” at Entercom’s WBEE (92.5), returning to the chair there (alongside Newman and TJ Sharp) after four years.

*There’s sad news from Jamestown, where Media One’s cluster is mourning the death of station manager/business manager Rick Brodowski. After a career that included business management at several companies, as well as operating his own firm, Brinson Management, Brodowski came to the Media One group and developed a passion for radio. He was just 52 when he died Sept. 14, of cancer.

*Public broadcasters on the move at both ends of PENNSYLVANIA: at WXPN (88.5 Philadelphia), there’s a new “World Cafe” host on the way to replace Talia Schlanger, who’ll leave the syndicated national show later this year. Maybe you, like us, detect a certain pattern here – just like Schlanger, new host Raina Douris heads to World Cafe from CANADA and the CBC, where she’s just stepped down as morning host on the CBC Music (formerly Radio 2) network. Douris had also worked at CFNY in Toronto and CBC Radio 3.

Pittsburgh Community Broadcasting is realigning its leadership, creating two new station manager positions for each of its stations. At AAA WYEP (91.3), that’s Mike Sauter, who’d been director of content; down the hall at news/talk WESA (90.5), GM John Sutton moves to a new post as VP/audience and revenue development, with a search underway for a new station manager.

There’s a price we can now put on Twilight Broadcasting’s purchase of WBYN (1160 Lehighton): Robert Lowe’s company will pay Connoisseur $50,000 for the signal, which mostly simulcasts another new Twilight acquisition, WEEU (830 Reading).

*In central NEW JERSEY, Beasley’s WCTC (1450 New Brunswick) replaces former local morning host Bert Baron with a national show hosted by two veterans of the station. “This Morning – America’s First News with Gordon Deal” may not be as local as Baron’s show was, but at least its hosts know WCTC well; Deal is a Rutgers alum who did play-by-play for the school’s game broadcasts and anchored news and sports at WCTC in the 1990s, while newscaster Jennifer Kushinka also worked at WCTC early in her career. (“We’re comin’ home,” she tweeted when the announcement went out last week.)

*A DTV repack note from CANADA: in Toronto, Rogers is asking to swap future RF channels between CFMT (Channel 47/OMNI 1) and CITY-TV (Channel 57). When Canada contracts its UHF dial next spring, CFMT was supposed to move from RF 47 to RF 18, while CITY goes from RF 44 to RF 30. Instead, Rogers wants to put CITY on 18 with higher power, using 30 for CFMT. Why more power on 18? Because it’s adjacent to the post-repack channels 19 and 17 for CICA (TVO) and CIII (Global), which CITY says will present interference issues unless it can have 49.4 kW instead of 12.2 kW on 18.

*We’ll be back with a full NERW, including all the news from the show in Dallas, next Monday – see you then!