NorthEast Radio Watch 11/9/2020: iHeart Cuts, Entercom Swaps

In this week’s issue… iHeart's latest round of job cuts - Entercom adds, R1 drops in Philly - WTIC host plans exit - Format change in NE PA - Remembering a legend's early Canadian TV and radio days By SCOTT FYBUSH Jump to: ME - NH - VT - MA - RI - CT - NY - NJ - PA - Canada *It was a busy news week as November began - and we're not just talking about all the dedicated newspeople (your editor included) who went sleepless for days waiting to nail down the results of a certain high-profile election. We'll spend some time later in the column exploring one huge story, the latest round of job cuts at iHeart clusters around the country. That would have been our lead this week, except for another Friday surprise: a multi-market station swap that rearranges several clusters for both Entercom and Radio One. In our neck of the woods, the big piece of this new puzzle affects Philadelphia, where Radio One is trading one of its three FM signals to Entercom. That's WPHI (103.9 Jenkintown), the class A signal from the Roxborough tower farm that's been doing hip-hop as "Hip-Hop 103.9." On November 23, Entercom will take over operation of 103.9, flipping it to a simulcast of all-news KYW (1060) as it becomes the fifth FM to fill out Entercom's Philadelphia cluster, where it joins sports WIP (94.1), hot AC WTDY (96.5), classic hits WOGL (98.1) and AC WBEB (101.1). This is a particularly important FM addition for Entercom's stable of all-newsers, because KYW's directional signal is challenged in some of the areas (especially north and east of Philadelphia) where the 103.9 signal reaches clearly; as with other Entercom all-newsers now heard on FM (WBBM in Chicago, KCBS in San Francisco), KYW hopes to benefit from its new ability to reach younger FM listeners who simply might never find it on the AM dial. (Like WBBM and KCBS, KYW may well end up with an awkward legal ID; it's not clear whether the licensing agreement that allows Entercom to use the CBS-owned KYW callsign on AM will easily extend to making 103.9 into "KYW-FM.") Radio One will still have two signals in its Philadelphia cluster, R&B WRNB (100.3) and R&B oldies WPPZ (Classix 107.9) - and iHeart will have a little less competition for its hip-hop station, WUSL (Power 99). Radio One also picks up Entercom's Charlotte cluster - news-talk WBT (1110)/WBT-FM (99.3), hot AC WLNK (107.9) and sports WFNZ (610) - in exchange for WPHI, WTEM (980) in Washington, WHHL (104.1) in St. Louis and the intellectual property of WFUN (95.5) in St. Louis. Some pieces of this puzzle still don't fully add up: those formats in Charlotte aren't exactly Radio One's strongholds, which leads us to wonder if there are some additional swaps on the horizon. We'll be watching closely... [bucket id="8276" title="Calendar Ad"] [pmpro_login show_menu="false" show_logout_link="false"] [membership level="1,3,5,7,8,9,10,11"] *There's never a good time for one of the big broadcast companies to do another round of mass job cuts - but there are certainly better and worse ways to go about doing it, and by that standard, the water torture iHeart employees have been experiencing over the past week has been among the worst. How many iHeart employees are seeing their jobs eliminated this time ? We don't know. How many markets are affected? Good question. How long will the cuts continue to be dribbled out, one by one? That's the most difficult question, and it may explain why we're hearing stories of some managers who've packed up their offices just in case they're next and haven't found out. Here's what we do know as we launch into yet another one of those lists we never want to have to make: the cuts started coming on Monday, without much in the way of pattern or logic. One of the first indications that something was up came from Boston, where Doug "VB" Goudie was missing from his usual noon airshift on talker WRKO (680), replaced by a simulcast of Rush Limbaugh from sister station WXKS (1200). (This is where we're obligated to note that WRKO just turned in one of its best ratings performances this century, while WXKS... did not.) Goudie's dismissal came with no official notice to listeners, many of whom had followed him through a long WRKO career that included many years as producer of Howie Carr's afternoon show (whence came his moniker, which originally stood for "Virgin Boy"), as well as a few years in mornings and some time across town at WFXT (Channel 25). It wasn't just VB at WRKO: in Boston, the cuts at iHeart last week also included KJ Carson, who'd been doing mornings as one of the few local voices on R&B WKAF (Hot 97.7); production director Shelby Taranto, who also did middays up at WGIR-FM (101.1) in Manchester, NH; and Brittany Jennings, who was WRKO's morning show producer and hosted there on weekends. *In Philadelphia, Brian Check was one of the bigger names caught in this round of cuts: the PD of WISX (106.1 the Breeze), who also served as VP of programming, had been with the cluster for 18 years. WISX also lost its afternoon host, Dan Blackman, while Eliott King is out as night talent and music director at WIOQ (Q102). (The cuts renewed speculation that iHeart is continuing to move toward nationally-programmed music formats - but if that's the case, why not just do it, rather than making more piecemeal moves in that direction?) *One pattern we can identify in iHeart's waves of cuts has been the elimination of high-seniority talent, especially outside morning drive, and that's what happened in Pittsburgh to Sheri Van Dyke, who's gone after 30 years with WWSW (3WS 94.5), most of that time in middays. *In Hartford, iHeart veteran Jagger is out after four years as PD/afternoon jock at WKSS (Kiss 95.7) - and a much longer career with the company that included a decade in New York at Z100 and WKTU. (He's still being heard on weekends with his syndicated "Weekend Throwdown" show.) Down the hall at WHCN (105.9 the River), David Fisch is out as morning host, with no replacement named yet. Down the road in New Haven, Ashley Cavaliere is out as middayer at WKCI (101.3), where she was also a local producer and worked with iHeart's national imaging team. *Some smaller markets were affected, too: in the Hudson Valley, Chase Daniels had landed with country WRWD in 2018 after spending years in the Finger Lakes and Southern Tier, and had more recently become PD of WPKF (96.1 Kiss FM) and WBWZ (Z93) as well. He's out now, as is long-serving production director Scott Kunda. In Albany, Terry O'Donnell is gone as senior VP/programming. He programmed WRVE (99.5 the River) and WKKF (102.3 Kiss FM) and had also worked for iHeart in Poughkeepsie and Springfield, Mass. The Albany cluster also lost marketing director Jill Manti and online content director BJ Ragone. And in Syracuse, Justin Miller is out as a digital producer and WWHT (Hot 107.9) weekend host. (His "Web Guy" work extended west to sister station WKGS, "Kiss-FM 106.7," here in Rochester, too.) *And the cuts affected some former NERW-land names within iHeart, too: Mike "McCabe" Kerr, whose iHeart tenure started in NEW HAMPSHIRE and then took him to the PD chair at WZFT in Baltimore, was hit by the cuts. So was Tim "Romeo" Herbster, whose career included stints at Q102 in Philadelphia and Z100 in New York before his latest role programming another Z100, KKRZ in Portland, Oregon, where he served as SVP/programming and also oversaw KXJM (Jam'n 107.5). Jared Fallon, another former WIOQ PD, was also cut from his job programming KBKS (Hits 106.1) in Seattle. *Is the company done with its cuts for now? Are there more coming this week, or closer to the holidays? And what does it do to internal morale to have all that uncertainty looming for those who remain at work? It doesn't seem to us to be a very healthy position for one of the industry's biggest players, and we're hoping for more clarity ahead. *The aftermath of Election Day may lead to the end of a long tenure for a veteran voice at Entercom talker WTIC (1080) in Hartford, CONNECTICUT . "I’m not allowed to let my opinions known. I’ve told management, when my contract is up in June, my time with WTIC will be over," Joe D'Ambrosio told co-host Ray Dunaway on the air Tuesday, reported the Hartford Courant. The paper reports D'Ambrosio declined to comment further about his on-air frustration, which apparently followed a caller promoting election-related conspiracy theories. Best known for his many years as a UConn play-by-play voice, D'Ambrosio migrated from sports to talk in 2018 to do mornings alongside Dunaway. *Over in the Danbury market, we're hearing Cumulus' WINE (940 Brookfield) has switched from CBS Sports Radio to a simulcast of country sister WDBY (Kicks 105.5). *In RHODE ISLAND , the Marconi Foundation has taken WWRI-LP (95.1 Coventry) silent, telling the FCC it needs to work out compliance with the consent decree that it recently signed, addressing underwriting violations and cross-ownership issues involving operator Chris DiPaolo. WWRI's "I-95" classic rock format recently moved to DiPaolo's new acquisition, the former WPVD (1450 West Warwick) and its 105.5 translator. (WPVD has changed calls to WWRI, and the WPVD calls have been picked up by public radio WPPB 1290 in Providence.) *More flips in PENNSYLVANIA : in Scranton, Shamrock's WFUZ (92.1 Nanticoke) flipped to Christmas music on Wednesday, and it's not just a temporary move. After a decade with various flavors of alt rock (first as "FM 92.1," then "Fuzz 92.1" and most recently as "Alt 92.1"), the alt is gone, and it's not yet clear what will replace it after the holidays. Did we mention last Monday was the 100th birthday for Pittsburgh's KDKA (1020)? If you wanted to know a little more about our (carefully socially-distanced) travels, and learn more than a little about the history of KDKA's transmitter facilities along the way, check out our special Tower Site of the Week feature that posted late last Friday. And if you wanted the answer to the biggest remaining mystery about KDKA's new FM translator, we've got you covered there, too: you were, of course, waiting in suspense to find out what would go on the HD3 of Entercom sister station WBZZ (100.7) once it was no longer needed to originate the "WAMO" R&B format for the 100.1 translator. (That was the reason you didn't sleep all last week, wasn't it? No? Well, 100.7-HD3 is now running a radio.com classic Christmas format. Now you know anyway.) *There's a new slate of officers for the NEW YORK State Broadcasters Association: Karen Carey, market president for Townsquare in Utica-Rome, takes over as chair, assisted by vice chairs Amy Collins (WSTM-WTVH Syracuse) for TV and Roberto Yanez (Univision New York) for radio. Chris Musial of WBBZ Buffalo is the new secretary, with Finger Lakes Radio owner Alan Bishop as treasurer. New board members include Ron DeCastro of Emmis New York, Chris Oliviero of Entercom New York, Bart Feder of WPIX, Katelin Tinley of Cox Long Island and Jim Riley of Cumulus Buffalo. *There's a coastal format change in NEW JERSEY , in both senses of the word: Coastal Broadcasting is the owner of WJSE (106.3 North Cape May), and the FM station down the shore has now returned to the alt-rock format that has long defined that callsign. "106.3 the Shore" had flipped to classic hits back in 2017, but it's now back to just "106.3 WJSE" with the return to its alt roots. *And in Newark, Steve Williams arrives at the start of 2021 as the new president/CEO of WBGO (88.3), hoping to restore some stability to the public radio jazz institution. WBGO has been in the hands of an interim leader, station founder Bob Ottenhoff, since Amy Niles resigned back in January amidst staff outcry about diversity concerns. Williams returns to WBGO, where he was PD from 2015 until 2018, from KUOW in Seattle, where he was director of audio production. He's been serving as a consultant to WBGO for much of this year. *And we remember Ed Hurst, whose career in radio went back to 1943 at WFPG in Atlantic City. By 1946, Hurst was in Philadelphia, working with Joe Grady on "The 950 Club" on WPEN. In 1958, Hurst and Grady took their show to WRCV (1060, now KYW) and WRCV-TV (Channel 3, now KYW-TV); in later years, he hosted TV shows on KYW-TV, WPHL (Channel 17) and WPVI (Channel 6). Hurst was 94 when he died Oct. 30 at his home in Margate, N.J. *Alex Trebek is being mourned far and wide, as he should be, remembered for his record-setting tenure hosting the syndicated Jeopardy! But he honed his impeccable broadcasting skills during his early career in his native CANADA , where he worked for the CBC from 1961 until 1972. Music shows, quiz shows, national newscasts? The young Trebek did it all, including a stint in 1971-72 as the host of the local morning show on Toronto's CBL (740), then known as "I'm Here till 9," but later rebranded "Metro Morning." By 1973, Trebek had made his big move south, where he began to make a name for himself as a smooth-as-silk host; within not much more than a decade, he'd landed the Jeopardy! gig, and the rest was TV history. Trebek died Sunday morning, following a two-year battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 80. [/membership]

NorthEast Radio Watch 11/9/2020: iHeart Cuts, Entercom Swaps

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Site of the Week 11/6/2020: KDKA At 100

Site of the Week 11/13/2020: Wrapping up Houston

Scott Fybush

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