NERW 8/20/2012: Clear Channel Digests WOR

by SCOTT FYBUSH

In this week’s issue: Clear Channel’s plans for WOR – Kimble sells in the Finger Lakes – Foreclosure pressure builds on Pfuntner – “Virgin” launches in London – Swidler adds Carlisle FM

*Before we get to the week’s news, a quick note about the small world of those of us who toil, week after week, to bring you the latest developments about TV and radio. There aren’t many of us, and this week two of them hung up their keyboards, at least temporarily. Out in San Diego, Chris Carmichael wrote about the industry for the North Country Times and then on his own SDRadio.net blog for more than a decade. It was Chris behind the wheel for one of our rare Tower Site of the Week voyages south of the border a few years back, and his decision to stop writing SDRadio.net means the radio community there loses one of the few links keeping it informed. Here’s hoping Chris’ absence from the site is just temporary.

And then there’s Radio-Info.com, which went through one big transition a few years back when co-founder Doug Fleming died, too young. His death brought some big changes: his co-founders were ousted (with several forming RadioInsight.com) and the site was reinvented with some big-name talent, most notably in the form of Tom Taylor. There’s not much we can say about Tom that anyone in radio doesn’t already know. Nobody in the industry works harder or is better connected – and there’s nobody else in radio who’s as universally loved as Tom. His move to Radio-Info five years ago affected me personally, because he was shifting over from editing Inside Radio, where I had the privilege of being his colleague and working with him on a weekly basis. Tom’s departure opened the way for me to become editor of The Radio Journal (the former M Street Journal), which I edited until that publication’s unfortunate demise at the end of 2011.

Now things are changing again at Radio-Info, which the Fleming family has sold to Springfield, Massachusetts-based Talkers magazine. Tom’s departure on Friday from Radio-Info gives him the chance for some much-needed time away from the laptop, where he was keeping up an unbelievable single-handed million-word-a-year pace. He’ll no doubt be back writing about the industry sometime soon, and maybe we’ll even get to be colleagues again somewhere.

And in the meantime, amidst yet another round of upheaval, we at NorthEast Radio Watch are still here, eighteen years into our mission of providing a “tribal drum” linking the often isolated communities that make up the radio and TV industry across the northeastern U.S. and eastern Canada. It’s not always an easy task, and this year has brought some especially difficult struggles, but Lisa and I remain grateful to all of you who’ve shown your support for the column through subscriptions and advertising, Thank you – and on with the week’s news:

*The NEW YORK City radio market is still digesting last Monday’s bombshell news: Clear Channel’s addition of WOR (710) to its five-FM cluster for a price that, we learned on Friday, is $30 million. Clear Channel will take over the talk station’s operations in November, under an LMA if necessary, and while there’s been no formal announcement yet about the station’s future, we can offer some well-educated speculation:

Clear Channel’s primary motive for the purchase was obvious – the larger its Premiere Radio Networks syndication arm becomes, the more vital it is for Clear Channel to own its own talk station to clear Premiere programming in the nation’s biggest market. WOR came with an added incentive in the form of the WOR Radio Network, once a major player in talk radio. The network’s weekday programming is much reduced these days (headlined by Dr. Joy Browne’s advice show), but it retains a cluster of weekend service shows (food, travel, etc.) that will make a lucrative addition to the Premiere lineup.

So what becomes of WOR’s existing programming? We’d be surprised to see Clear Channel replace John R. Gambling’s morning show, part of a family tradition at WOR that dates back to the 1920s; we’d be equally surprised if Clear Channel doesn’t move quickly to shift Premiere’s biggest name, Rush Limbaugh, from Cumulus’ WABC (770) down the dial to WOR.

It’s the rest of the day that gets interesting: will Clear Channel return Premiere’s Glenn Beck to New York in the late-morning slot now occupied by Mike Gallagher? And what about the afternoon slot, where WOR runs former governor David Paterson up against Sean Hannity on WABC. The Hannity show is jointly owned by Cumulus and Premiere, with Clear Channel holding distribution rights in markets where Cumulus doesn’t have stations.

*The WOR purchase may just be the first act in a broader Clear Channel-Cumulus battle: Cumulus has been deeply intent on pursuing a strategy that emphasizes its in-house content. The launch earlier this year of the midday Mike Huckabee show was a perfect example: even before Cumulus knew it would be facing off directly against Clear Channel on the New York AM dial, it wanted an in-house option in the Limbaugh timeslot, and it’s highly likely Huckabee will show up on 770 as soon as Limbaugh moves to 710.

The action may soon move to Chicago. In market three, Premiere now clears Limbaugh on Cumulus’ WLS (890) – but Tribune’s bankruptcy is expected to put rival talker WGN (720) on the market later this year. Will Clear Channel be eyeing that 50-kilowatt prize, too?

*In the meantime, life goes on at WOR for now; so far, there have been no staffing or scheduling changes, and it seems likely WOR will stay put at the 111 Broadway studios where it moved in 2005, since there’s no readily-available space for an AM talk operation at Clear Channel’s existing five-FM studio cluster in the old AT&T building at Sixth Avenue and Canal Street.

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*Russ Kimble has been a Finger Lakes radio fixture since his teenage days in the 1960s, when he was a disc jockey on his father’s WCGR (1550 Canandaigua). Kimble and his twin brother George inherited WCGR at a young age when the elder Kimble died suddenly at age 4o; while George went on to build the Finger Lakes Radio Group that’s now the region’s biggest cluster, Russ settled in with ownership at WFLK (101.7 Geneva) and WYLF (850 Penn Yan).

Last year, Russ Kimble sold WFLK to his brother’s group, and last week he exited broadcast ownership with the $450,000 sale of WYLF to first-time owner Jeff Pearce, who’s been living in Florida and Montana. The sale comes as Russ turns his attention to a family health issue: after his wife Debbie survived an initial diagnosis of pancreatic cancer four years ago, she’s once again battling both pancreatic and lung cancer. Russ Kimble had been WYLF’s morning man, too, a post he exited on August 3; we wish him (and Debbie) all the best in their fight.

*For decades now, Robert Pfuntner has been a high-profile station owner in New York’s southern tier and vicinity. Now he’s being forced to sell three of his signals, with several others possibly to follow. Pfuntner’s Pembrook Pines stations in Bath (WVIN 98.3/WABH 1380) and Wellsville (WQRW 93.5) were recently forced into receivership, and station broker Richard Foreman is taking bids on the properties. There’s a “stalking-horse” bid of $510,000 for the Bath stations and $75,000 for WQRW from Corning’s Sound Communications, which already owns stations in Elmira/Corning and Hornell.

There’s also a foreclosure in the works against Pfuntner’s Elmira/Corning stations (WLVY, WOKN, WELM and WEHH), his Olean/Salamanca signals (WOEN/WMXO Olean, WGGO/WQRS Salamanca and WZKZ Alfred) and his partial interest in Waynco’s WACK/WUUF in Wayne County, as creditors attempt to recover more than $1.8 million in unpaid loans.

*In Utica, there’s a changing of the guard at the helm of the Townsquare cluster as Karen Carey returns to radio. Carey was well-regarded as the market manager at Clear Channel Rochester before family issues took her out of the market a few years back. Now she’s replacing Mary Jo Beach as VP/market manager at Townsquare Utica, where she started work last Tuesday, reports CNYRadio.com.

(CNYRadio’s Peter Naughton also catches us up on some TV changes in his territory: former WUTR Utica anchor Caroline Gable replaces Kaylea Nixon at Syracuse’s WSYR-TV, where Nixon did morning traffic and co-hosted the “Bridge Street” talk show.)

Here in Rochester, WHAM-TV (Channel 13) is about to get more company on the HDTV local-news landscape. Time Warner’s YNN made the conversion earlier this year, and now Nexstar is building out an HD facility at CBS affiliate WROC-TV (Channel 8), which also produces news for Sinclair’s Fox affiliate, WUHF (Channel 31). That will leave only Hubbard’s NBC affiliate, WHEC-TV (Channel 10), still doing news in SD.

There’s another new HD newscast in upstate New York, and in a small market at that: Binghamton Fox affiliate WICZ (Channel 40) debuted its new HD look with its 10 PM show on Sunday night, beating eternal market leader WBNG (Channel 12) to the punch.

*It’s the callsign that won’t die: after many decades on Albany’s AM 1540 (where it stood for original owner “PaTRoon Broadcasting”) and a detour to several spots on the FM dial, the WPTR calls are landing on Schenectady’s WVKZ (1240) as that station changes hands from Ernie Anastos to Joe Reilly’s new Empire group. Reilly has also requested the calls “WJKE” for Anastos’ WQAR (101.3 Stillwater) – is a return to 101.3’s old “Jockey” identity around the corner?

Over at Townsquare Media in Albany, are changes coming to “Crush,” WQSH (105.7 Malta)? The station parted ways last week with PD Terry O’Donnell, less than a year after crossing over from Pamal’s WFLY. It also appears that PD Rob Dawes is out at sister station WQBK/WQBJ (103.9 Rensselaer/103.5 Cobleskill).

Up in Plattsburgh, WXMR (100.7 Plattsburgh West) has dropped the “Bistro 100.7” community block-programmed format that launched earlier this year. The station has relaunched as adult contemporary “B-100,” with new calls WPLB and new management, too: it’s being leased out to North Country Broadcasting, which runs a similar format (with much of the same talent) down the road at WSLP (93.3) in Saranac Lake.

In Richfield Springs, south of Herkimer, Mars Hill Network has picked the calls WMHY for its new 88.7, part of its ever-growing network based at WMHR (102.9 Syracuse); in Speculator, up in the Adirondacks, the calls for Joe Tesiero’s new 96.5 will be WYVS.

*Back in New York City, Barry Siegfried retired from WCBS (880) on Friday, ending a 37-year run in the engineering department of 880, sister station WCBS-FM (101.1) and the CBS Radio Network. We wish him all the best on a well-deserved retirement.

*And we offer a belated obituary for Don Roberts, who ran Binghamton-market WENE (1430)/WMRV (105.7) and Atlantic City, NEW JERSEY‘s WMID (1340)/WGRF (99.3) for Merv Griffin in the 1980s. Roberts had owned stations in northern Michigan and Wisconsin before working for Griffin, and after Griffin sold his stations, Roberts became a well-known station broker, working with Elmira’s Dick Kozacko. Roberts died July 23 in Virginia, at age 85.

*Over-the-air TV viewers in eastern MASSACHUSETTS are once again scrambling for decent signals from Boston’s NBC, ABC and PBS outlets, but with any luck the latest work on the tower they share in Needham will be the last for a while. The 50-foot-long, 1600-pound upper master antenna on the tower burned up back in April, and it’s taken several months to get the antenna down from the tower and shipped north to the factory in Maine to be rebuilt.

The antenna came back to the Needham site last week, allowing rigging to begin for the arduous task of re-mounting the antenna at the top of the 1300-foot tower. While the upper master antenna was down, WBZ-TV (Channel 4/RF 30), WCVB-TV (Channel 5/RF 20), WSBK (Channel 38/RF 39) and WGBX (Channel 44/RF 43) moved to the lower master antenna that’s usually home to WGBH (Channel 2/RF 19), sending WGBH to a temporary side-mounted antenna for the duration. On Tuesday, crews are scheduled to begin hoisting the new antenna to the top, and that will mean reduced power for WGBH and the master-antenna signals while crews are on the tower. The work is expected to be completed by next weekend, and you can keep track of its progress on WGBH’s tower page.

As Boston.com’s new “RadioBDC” settles in as an online replacement for the old WFNX (101.7, now WHBA), the Phoenix is making moves to keep its own streaming WFNX.com relevant after many of its staffers migrated to the Globe: WFNX.com has hired Kurt St. Thomas to be the streaming station’s new “executive producer”, returning him to WFNX after a very successful 1987-1995 run as program director there.

We’re sorry to report the death of Tighe Jensen, who was most recently doing voiceover work on Cape Cod. Johnson was the son of longtime Boston announcer Leif Jensen, who died in June, and the brother of former WBZ (1030) anchor Gregg Jensen. Tighe Jensen started out doing voices for several Boston morning shows, including Dale Dorman on the old WVBF (105.7), and he’d worked in radio at WCOD on Cape Cod and at stations in New Hampshire and Buffalo, NY. Jensen was killed in a car crash on Cape Cod Monday night. He was 53.

*CONNECTICUT talk host Dan Lovallo lost his gig at Buckley’s WDRC (1360 Hartford) in a round of budget cuts this past February, but now he’s back on the air on the noncommercial FM dial. Starting today, Lovallo and George Gombassy will be heard from 3-5 PM weekdays on WAPJ (89.9 Torrington), where they’re doing a show that’s a spinoff of their CTTalking.com blog.

(And no, we don’t know whether Buckley’s sale of WOR augurs changes at the company’s remaining signals, including WDRC, its AM talk network sister stations and oldies WDRC-FM in Hartford.)

*In RHODE ISLAND, perpetual controversy magnet John DePetro spent part of last week from his talk show on Cumulus’ WPRO (630 Providence)/WEAN (99.7 Wakefield-Peace Dale) after commenting off the air about a lawsuit filed against him for allegedly sexually harassing a co-worker. DePetro is expected to be back on the air this morning.

*Callsign news from VERMONT: Bruce James’ new 94.5 in Irasburg (relocated from Albany) will take calls WQJQ.

*One of the central PENNSYLVANIA stations being spun off in Cumulus’ merger with Citadel has found a new owner. WCAT (102.3 Carlisle) went into a divestiture trust when the Citadel-Cumulus deal closed, and now it’s going to Harold Swidler for $405.000.

Swidler already owns “Country Legends” WIOO (1000 Carlisle) and an FM translator there, as well as an AM/translator combo in Shippensburg, and his purchase of “Red 102.3” WCAT takes that FM signal full circle: before it became part of Citadel’s Harrisburg-based cluster, 102.3 was WHYL-FM, paired with Swidler’s AM competitor, WHYL (960 Carlisle). Swidler isn’t planning any changes to WCAT’s “New Country and the Legends” format, which nicely complements WIOO’s classic country.

The Potential Broadcasting trust is still trying to find a buyer for the other former Cumulus FM being sold in the Harrisburg market, WTPA (92.1 Palmyra).

*Speaking of Cumulus’ plans to take its content in house, it’s shuffled the schedule at WSBA (910 York): Premiere’s Glenn Beck and TRN’s Michael Savage are gone, and in their place WSBA is now airing Cumulus’ Geraldo Rivera from 9 AM-noon and Mike Huckabee on delay from 9 PM-midnight.

*On TV, what’s now the Pittsburgh market’s CW outlet, CBS-owned WPCW (Channel 19) licensed to Jeannette, started out many decades ago to the east in Johnstown  – and now it once again has a signal over there. Earlier this month, the FCC licensed a 15-kilowatt “digital replacement translator” on RF channel 27 in Johnstown (operating from Laurel Summit on US 30) to augment WPCW’s RF 11 signal from the North Hills tower of sister station KDKA-TV.

*In southern NEW JERSEY, Family Radio’s former Cape May translator, W222AL (92.3), has returned to the air with new programming. W222AL wasn’t part of the sale of its parent station, WKDN (106.9 Camden, now WWIQ), to Merlin Media, and now it’s instead relaying the oldies from WIBG-FM (94.3 Avalon).

*There’s a format change in CANADA, where Astral flipped CIQM (97.5 London) from “EZ Rock” to “Virgin Radio” Friday morning.

The high-energy top-40 “Virgin” is the sixth partnership between Astral and Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin group, following on the heels of successful “Virgin” launches in Toronto (CKFM 99.9) and Montreal (CJFM 95.9) and a less-successful attempt to use the branding on a classic rocker, CKQB (106.9 Ottawa).

*On the shores of Lake Erie, the CRTC has approved the first DTV multicast in Canada. CFTV (Channel 34) is the community station in Leamington, Ontario, and it asked the CRTC to allow it to go from one stream of programming to four streams when it converts from analog to digital. The new CFTV will include one channel that duplicates the existing Channel 34 programming, another that’s French during the day and Spanish at night, another that’s “specifically produced for people with intellectual, mobility, hearing and visual disabilities, as well as Aboriginal programming from the local Caldwell First Nation”, and a fourth that serves as a local government channel.

The CRTC says CFTV’s application will  “bring considerably more local programming to the service area and to underserved audiences within the community, thereby making a positive contribution to the community of Leamington and, by extension, to the Canadian broadcasting system as a whole.” And the agency says it won’t require separate licenses to be issued for each multicast channel, though it will require each channel to meet strict programming guidelines.
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