NorthEast Radio Watch 4/19/2021: More Reach for HV’s “Wolf”

In this week’s issue… HV’s Wolf adds third signal – New FM signal over NYC – Remembering Cary Pall – One more AM gone – Another AM simplifies its pattern

By SCOTT FYBUSH

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*The drive down I-84 from NEW YORK‘s Hudson Valley to the Danbury market it western CONNECTICUT takes less than an hour when traffic is light, but culturally and economically, those areas have remained distinct as separate radio markets – at least until now.

As it tries to streamline operations and save expenses, Townsquare Media is consolidating its country brands in the Hudson Valley and Danbury. On Wednesday, it killed off the “Kicks” brand it had been using in the Danbury market since 2010 on WDBY (105.5 Patterson NY), replacing it with a simulcast of its Poughkeepsie-based “Wolf” stations serving the Hudson Valley and Catskills, WCZX (97.7 Hyde Park) and WZAD (97.3 Wurtsboro).

The move actually turns the Danbury-market WDBY more local, or at least more regional, as it attempts to bolster ratings that have flagged against a local competitor, “The Bull,” which is heard on an HD subchannel of Berkshire Broadcasting’s WDAQ (98.3) and two translators. CJ McIntyre and Jess Buono, the Poughkeepsie-based morning hosts on WKXP/WZAD, replace Danbury-based Bill Trotta, who’d been the only local host on WDBY before it picked up tracked hosts from other Townsquare markets.

Trotta, a veteran of Danbury radio who’d worked on WDAQ before WDBY, has moved to afternoons on all three signals, and Paty Quin will do middays from Poughkeepsie.

Townsquare also quietly shifted another Danbury-market signal last week: WINE (940 Brookfield) had been simulcasting “Kicks” country, but is now instead simulcasting classic rock “I95” (WRKI 95.1 Brookfield).