NERW 9/3/2012: Crawford Buys Buffalo’s 970

In this week’s issue: Syracuse’s Jackie Robinson retires – WNED sells its AM – CKGM tests new 690 signal – Remembering Dave MacNeill, John Battison – Long Island format flips

*When the University of Buffalo sold WBFO (88.7 Buffalo) to its erstwhile public broadcasting rival, WNED, questions began swirling almost from the start about the fate of WNED’s AM signal. AM 970, the former WEBR, was the first commercial station in many decades to be sold to a public broadcaster when WNED bought it and its sister FM station (now classical WNED-FM 94.5) in 1976, but the AM station’s signal deficiencies had made it hard for WNED’s news-talk AM format to compete with WBFO’s big FM signal – and once WBFO came into the WNED orbit and began simulcasting with AM 970, it was pretty clear that the AM station would be on the block just as soon as WNED could find a buyer.

Last week, that buyer emerged, and it turns out to be another established Buffalo broadcaster. Crawford Broadcasting, the Denver-based owner of religious WDCX-FM (99.5), will pay WNED $850,000 for the AM signal, returning it to commercial operation after 36 years. The AM station’s 5000-watt signal is probably a better fit for WDCX than for any mass-market commercial operator: from a five-tower directional array in Hamburg, south of Buffalo, it shoots most of its signal in a tight pattern due north over Buffalo and Niagara Falls and over the lake into Canada. Like WNED, WDCX has long depended on listeners across the border, and it’s faced increasing problems with getting its FM signal heard in Canada as the CRTC keeps crowding the dial there. The AM signal won’t be a complete solution (especially with new CKNT 960 due to sign on in Mississauga sometime soon), but it should give WDCX another way to be heard in at least some of the Toronto area, which is about the only explanation we can find for Crawford’s reported plan to simulcast the superpower 100 kW FM signal’s programming on AM 970.

(A few more notes here: first, the WDCX calls will apparently remain in use on AM on Rochester’s 990, which means Buffalo’s 970 will take other new calls. Second, while Crawford has been a big booster of HD Radio on AM, it’s highly unlikely 970 will add HD. That’s because of point number three – its five-tower array in Hamburg would already be a complicated place to add AM HD even if it didn’t also have another AM signal, Citadel’s WHLD 1270, diplexed on all five towers. And finally, the same Canadian FM crowding issues that have made things difficult for WDCX-FM have made WBFO’s FM signal all but impossible to hear in the greater Toronto area, which in turn means Canadian listeners who’ve depended on AM 970 for an NPR fix will have to turn to streaming audio or, if they’re at home, to the WBFO audio feed on Rogers Cable.)

*At the other end of the state, JVC Media’s WRCN (103.9 Riverhead) went into the Labor Day weekend with a new format. It’s traded classic rock for “everything that rocks,” with a new mainstream rock format that starts with currents and goes back to the mid-1980s.

Another retirement from the engineering ranks at CBS Radio in New York: Dick James went back many years with what’s now WFAN (660) – in fact, he was the guy who gave us our tour of the transmitter site a few years back. James retired last week as WFAN’s chief engineer, and a station memo about the occasion became fun on-air fodder for the morning team of Boomer & Carton.

Meanwhile at Hudson Square, CBS extended the “where will the Yankees eventually end up?” guessing game for another season by signing another one-year extension of its deal to keep the team on WCBS (880), complete with John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman back in the announcers’ booth for the team’s 12th season on 880. Will the Bombers eventually reach a longer-term deal with either CBS or archrival ESPN Radio (WEPN-FM 98.7)? It’s bound to happen eventually, but a lot will now depend on what sort of deal the Mets reach for next season and whether they stay in place for the long term on WFAN or move to WEPN.

This will be a big week for WEPN: on Thursday afternoon at 2, it will leave its longtime home at 1050 on the AM dial and go FM-only on 98.7; 1050 will become the new New York home for the ESPN Deportes Radio Spanish-language sports network.

Radio People on the Move: Gloria Broussard is leaving SBS Radio’s WPAT-FM (93.1) in New York and relocating to Orlando, where she’ll do mornings on WHKQ (KQ103), beginning tomorrow. And at Emmis’ WQHT (97.1), they’re mourning Chris Nadler, who was Hot 97’s Lifestyle Engagement Director when he died unexpectedly on August 24 at age 53.

*In Binghamton, Townsquare Media has received special temporary authority to run WYOS (1360) at 1000 watts day, 100 watts night, non-directional while it replaces one of the three towers in the directional array. The tower was downed a few weeks back by an errant tractor, and Townsquare says it’s working to get the stick back up and return WYOS to its usual 5000 watts day, 500 watts night.

WYOS, incidentally, is the former WKOP, and that array was where the legendary Charlie Hallinan worked. Charlie founded the first chapter of the Society of Broadcast Engineers back in the early 1960s – and he did so after reading an article by John Battison proposing the need for the new organization. Battison, who went on to become the SBE’s founding president, died August 28 at his home in Ohio, just a few weeks shy of his 97th birthday. Born in England, where he watched mechanical TV as a child, Battison moved to the U.S. after the war, achieving notice when he built out ABC’s local TV and FM stations (including WJZ-TV 7 and WJZ-FM 95.5, now WABC-TV and WPLJ, atop New York’s Hotel Pierre in 1948). Battison went on to build stations in Saudi Arabia and in Canada, where he was the general manager of CHCT-TV in Calgary in the 1950s; he was also a longtime contributor to Broadcast Engineering magazine and its spinoff, Radio magazine, where he was still an active contributor earlier this year. Battison was honored in 1998 as NAB’s Engineer of the Year, and the SBE named its Lifetime Engineering Award in his honor as well.

Another obituary, this one a delayed one: we’re just now learning of the August 11 death of Alex Lamutis, the authoritative news voice on Rochester’s top-40 giant WBBF (950) through much of the 1960s and 1970s. Lamutis also had worked at WBBF’s sister station in Geneva, WGVA (1240). Lamutis was 92.

*On the TV front, the big news this week comes from Syracuse, where Peter Naughton over at CNYRadio.com broke the news that a Syracuse TV institution is leaving the airwaves. After 34 years at the anchor desk on WSTM-TV (Channel 3), Jackie Robinson was strangely absent from the station’s State Fair coverage this week, and if you don’t think that’s a big deal, you’ve never worked in Syracuse TV.

The official word came out over the weekend: Tuesday’s newscasts will be Robinson’s last at Channel 3, where she became the market’s first black anchor not long after joining the station’s staff as a reporter in 1978. Naughton reports morning anchor Megan Coleman appears to be in line to take over from Robinson on the station’s evening newscasts, and he says WSTM isn’t saying much about reports that Robinson’s departure is less than voluntary.

On to subchannel news: when August slipped away Friday night, so did The Cool TV’s carriage on Sinclair’s stations around the region. The music-video network had aired in Buffalo (WNYO 49.2), Rochester (WUHF 31.2), Syracuse (WNYS 43.2), and Portland, Maine (WGME 13.2); its remaining carriage in the region is on LIN stations in Providence, Hartford/New Haven and Springfield, which are among fewer than two dozen remaining affiliates nationwide. (Closed circuit to Sinclair: Maybe now we can have Antenna TV instead? Please?)

And speaking of Antenna TV – its parent company, Tribune, remains jammed up in a carriage dispute with Cablevision, the dominant provider in much of suburban New York City. That dispute, now entering its third week, has removed WPIX (Channel 11) and its Antenna TV subchannel from those systems, and it’s pulled WCCT (Channel 20) from some Cablevision systems in Connecticut and Philadelphia’s WPHL (Channel 17) from some New Jersey systems. Tribune has also pulled its WGN America cable channel from Cablevision, or perhaps vice-versa, depending who you ask. And while the Cablevision system in Fairfield County, Connecticut kept carrying Tribune-owned Fox affiliate WTIC-TV (Channel 61) from Hartford as the dispute began, “FOX CT” was also pulled last week, though Fox-owned WNYW (Channel 5) remains available to Cablevision customers. And WPIX’s disappearance from Cablevision in southwest Connecticut has also cost it its carriage on Cox’s systems closer to Hartford, which were getting their backhaul of the WPIX signal via Cablevision.

*In NEW JERSEY, modern rock WJSE returned to the airwaves south of Atlantic City last week. Those calls and that format last graced the 102.7 spot on the dial (now top-40 WWAC) from 1994-2006, and as of Friday they’ve replaced “Fun 106.3” classic hits on the former WFNE (106.3 North Cape May).

*Bill Rehkopf is coming home to western PENNSYLVANIA once again. The newsman has been bouncing back and forth between the DC-Baltimore corridor for a while now, from Baltimore’s WPOC (93.1) to Pittsburgh’s KDKA (1020), then to CBS Radio sister station WNEW (99.1) in Washington as the all-news signal’s morning man when it launched last year. Now Rehkopf is making the trip back to Pittsburgh once again to take over afternoon anchor duties at KDKA.

Around the corner in Green Tree, Clear Channel is seeking a new program director at talker WPGB (104.7) and sports WBGG (970) after the departure of Jay Bohannon. One more change at WBGG: David Todd moves up from fill-in duties to host a new local talk show, heard from 2-4 PM weekdays on 970 in place of ESPN Radio’s Scott Van Pelt.

Up I-79 in Cambridge Springs, Family Life Network has applied for a license to cover for its newest outlet, WCGF (89.9). The 7.3 kW/328′ DA facility will serve an area around Edinboro, picking up to the west where FLN’s other Erie-area signal, WCGM (102.7 Wattsville), fades away.

*On Philadelphia TV, Tribune’s WPHL (Channel 17) is changing newscast partners. Since shutting down its own news operation in late 2005, WPHL’s 10 PM newscast has been produced by NBC’s WCAU (Channel 10), but that will change this fall when Tribune enters into a new deal to have ABC’s WPVI-TV (Channel 6) produce “Action News at 10” for channel 17. WCAU hasn’t yet said whether it will continue production of the 10 PM newscast for its own “Nonstop Philly” 17.2 subchannel, which already has its own 7 PM newscast.

*The largest affiliate of the new NBC Sports Radio network when it launches tomorrow will be in MASSACHUSETTS: as widely rumored, WWZN (1510 Boston) will be one of the network’s charter outlets, and one of only eight nationwide to carry the full 7 PM-5 AM weekday lineup. WWZN won’t carry all three shows in pattern, though; instead, it will delay the overnight Dan Schwartzman show into morning drive, running 6-10 AM ahead of a local sports show from 10 AM-noon. Jeff Santos, who’d been programming most of WWZN’s airtime with progressive talk until the summer, will continue to be heard for now from 3-7 PM, but that slot will also go to sports before the end of the year.

Other NBC Sports Radio affiliates in the region will include CONNECTICUT‘s WPOP (1410 Hartford), which will switch from Fox Sports Radio to NBC in the evening hours; WEAV (960 Plattsburgh), which will carry the evening lineup for the Burlington, VERMONT market; WPSE (1450 Erie), WPDC (1600 Elizabethtown) and WOYK (1350 York) in Pennsylvania carrying some of the talk lineup; and several signals carrying only the new network’s hourly updates, including WBBR (1130 New York), WENT (1340) in Gloversville and WJTN (1240)/WKSN (1340) in Jamestown.

*Few radio people have ever been more closely associated with a single station for as long as Dave MacNeill was with WCRB. MacNeill was stricken with polio right after his 1949 graduation from Waltham High School, and after spending a year recuperating and listening to WCRB (then on AM 1330) in the hospital, he went down to the station and was hired. With the exception of a brief detour to the west coast to launch a classical format on KCBH (98.7, now KYSR) in Beverly Hills, MacNeill stayed put at WCRB, eventually becoming a fixture as the station’s Boston Pops announcer. MacNeill also served for a time as WCRB station manager and ended up owning a small piece of licensee Charles River Broadcasting. Even after Charles River sold WCRB’s 102.5 facility and the intellectual property shifted to Nassau and to Lowell-licensed 99.5, MacNeill continued to be heard on the classical station. He died Tuesday (August 28) in Framingham, at age 80.

*Once again this week, the big news from CANADA comes from Montreal’s AM dial, where a signal is once again back on the air at 690 as Bell begins testing its new facility for “TSN Radio” CKGM. The timing here is, admittedly, a little weird – if Bell had its way, it wouldn’t be migrating its English-language sports audience down the dial from CKGM’s present home at 990 on the dial just to turn around and flip 690 to French-language sports as “RDS Radio.” But Bell doesn’t have a choice, either: the move from 990 to 690 had already been approved before Bell announced its proposed purchase of Astral’s Quebec radio properties, putting Bell over the English-language ownership limits and leading to the application to shift 690 to French. That application will undergo CRTC scrutiny later this month, and the outcry from Montreal’s Anglo community promises to make it a contentious process.

So why is Bell moving ahead at all on moving CKGM down the dial right now? First, because the same process that granted CKGM its frequency change also yielded a new license for 990, and Evanov is eager to start getting the new “Radio Fierte” on the air at 990. And second, we suspect, because Bell wants to put some muscle behind its threat to the CRTC that if it doesn’t get the language change granted or a waiver to keep a fifth English-language signal, it will simply surrender CKGM’s license. That’s something of an empty threat if CKGM is still on 990, which will be silenced no matter what; it gets some teeth if Bell can show that it’s just spent the money to reactivate 690. (And third: if there does end up being an NHL season this fall, and if CKGM is still broadcasting in English at that point, Bell surely wants the lucrative Canadiens play-by-play firmly ensconced at its new home at 690 by the time the first puck drops.)

Here’s how the logistics play out: after running a test loop of older “TSN 990” programming on 690 over the weekend, CKGM will begin simulcasting on both 990 and 690 Tuesday morning. The simulcast is set to last for 90 days, but that’s of course highly subject to change: if the CRTC approves the switch to French, we’d expect 990 to sign off as soon as the language changes. (And in the meantime, the 990 signal was experiencing technical glitches that had it off the air for much of the weekend.)

The 50,000-watt 690 signal is, as best we can tell, the same facility Cogeco used for the former CINF, a directional signal emanating from the old CFCF/CIQC 600 array in Kahnawahke, south of Montreal. After two years of silence, that facility is getting crowded again: the Tietolman-Tetreault-Pancholy group has struck a deal to use the former CINW (940) transmitter there for its new French-language news-talk station, which was originally proposing to diplex on the CJMS (1040) tower site a few miles to the southeast in Saint-Constant. (And the 1040 site, in turn, is the same one CKGM used back when it was on 980, before moving southwest to its present seven-tower 990 site near Mercier, Quebec.)

Not enough turmoil on the Montreal dial yet? Add a big studio move to the mix, then: on Friday, Astral moved CJAD (800), CJFM (Virgin Radio 95.9) and CHOM (97.7) from 1411 Fort Street in Montreal’s West End to the Astral headquarters at 1717 Rene-Levesque Est. The stations’ new home is far from the Anglo part of the city – but it puts them squarely in the middle of Montreal’s unofficial “media district,” nestled between Maison Radio-Canada and CTV/TSN. For CJAD and CJFM, it’s the first studio move in just over three decades; they came to Fort Street in 1981.

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