In this week’s issue… Cumulus sells off Keystone State AMs – Remembering Canada’s Allan Slaight – VT’s Messner sets retirement – Cox makes radio cuts
By SCOTT FYBUSH
Jump to: ME – NH – VT – MA – RI – CT – NY – NJ – PA – Canada
*As AM radio enters its sunset years, we’re seeing some big operators simply turning off their smaller AM signals when they can’t make a strong business case to keep them operating.
For four of Cumulus’ stations in central and eastern PENNSYLVANIA, however, there’s a new lease on life on the way as the company prepares to sell them to a smaller but growing broadcaster. Andrea and Pat Cerullo’s Major Keystone LLC operates the “Loud” hip-hop stations via AMs and translators in Allentown and Reading and recently (with the help of Fybush Media) acquired a translator in State College.
Now Major Keystone is about to make some bigger growth. It’s paying $179,500 for WARM (590 Scranton), WTKZ (1320 Allentown), WIOV (1240 Reading, plus a translator at 98.5) and WGLD (1440 Manchester Township-York, plus a new translator at 107.1).
Under Cumulus, the stations had been carrying sports talk – CBS Sports Radio on WARM, WIOV and WGLD, while WTKZ was simulcasting Fox Sports Radio with WEEX (1230 Easton), which stays with Cumulus (and which will continue to be heard on FM via a 94.7 translator in Allentown.)
What will Major Keystone do with its new acquisitions? We’ll be watching…
SPRING IS HERE…
And if you don’t have your Tower Site Calendar, now’s the time!
If you’ve been waiting for the price to come down, it’s now 30 percent off!
This year’s cover is a beauty — the 100,000-watt transmitter of the Voice Of America in Marathon, right in the heart of the Florida Keys. Both the towers and the landscape are gorgeous.
And did you see? Tower Site of the Week is back, featuring this VOA site as it faces an uncertain future.
Other months feature some of our favorite images from years past, including some Canadian stations and several stations celebrating their centennials (buy the calendar to find out which ones!).
We still have a few of our own calendars left – as well as a handful of Radio Historian Calendars – and we are still shipping regularly.
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 Tower Site Calendar. (And we have the Broadcast Historian’s Calendar for 2025, too. Why not order both?)
Visit the Fybush Media Store and place your order now for the new calendar, get a great discount on previous calendars, and check out our selection of books and videos, too!