August 26, 2002

O&A: The Fallout

By SCOTT FYBUSH

*It's rare for one story to so completely dominate the week's news (at least on the U.S. side of the border) as l'affaire Opie and Anthony has done this week. But then - as we'll explore in a commentary at the end of this week's issue - the downfall of the shock-talk duo raises plenty of interesting issues for the industry to confront, at a time that could hardly be worse.

The hard news, as you've no doubt already read in other trades, is that Infinity announced last Thursday afternoon, under a great deal of public relations pressure, that the show had been cancelled. Gregg ("Opie") Hughes and Anthony Cumia are apparently fired, although there's no doubt some contract-related legal wrangling in their future; WNEW GM Ken Stevens (who also oversaw WJFK in Washington and WYSP in Philadelphia) is on suspension.

Infinity's move helped to pacify the Catholic League, which had filed the initial FCC protest about the "Sex for Sam 3" contest which found a couple from Virginia, accompanied by O&A staffer Paul Mercurio, getting busy inside St. Patrick's Cathedral. At week's end, the League withdrew its petition for revocation of the WNEW(FM) license - but it didn't stop FCC commissioner Michael Copps from promising a full investigation.

With rumors of a format change at WNEW in the absence of its star ratings-grabbers swirling, programmers across the region had to scramble to fill O&A's afternoon slot. WNEW is running the Tom Leykis show; Boston's WBCN (104.1) is doing jockless music, Philadelphia's WYSP (94.1) shuffled evening jock Couzin Ed into afternoons, moving Matt and Huggy from late nights to evenings, and Buffalo's WBUF (92.9) moved midday jock Bob Galli ("the Godfather") to afternoons. (We can only imagine the sighs of relief at Rochester's WCMF, which axed its tape-delayed evening broadcast of O&A earlier this month after less than a year on the Flower City airwaves...)

More thoughts on the WNEW mess later on in this week's NERW...

*We'll start the rest of the week's news in PENNSYLVANIA, where two of the three stations Brill Media ran in the Harrisburg/Lancaster/York/Reading area are getting new owners. The bankrupt broadcaster's stations went up for auction last week, and the winner - for $62 million - was Regent Communications, which will now get to add country WIOV-FM (105.1 Ephrata) and sports WIOV (1240 Reading) to its portfolio. Regent doesn't get oldies WSOX (96.1 Red Lion), which was being LMA'd by Brill and was not among the 11 stations in the auction.

Over in the suburbs of Philadelphia, WPWA (1590 Chester) is adding a hefty dose of gospel music to its Korean-language religion format. The station will go gospel nights and weekends beginning next month.

*Two NEW JERSEY stations owned by Nassau are in the process of swapping formats. Fans of the ESPN sports format that had been heard on WJHR (1040 Flemington) for the last few months (after moving from WTTM 1680 Trenton when Nassau sold that station) woke up this week to the sounds of religious preaching on the dial, courtesy of WCHR (920 Trenton), a sister Nassau station. According to announcements being heard on the new 920/1040 simulcast, the religion is moving to 1040 for good, with ESPN to resurface down the dial on 920. (Those with longish memories will note that this is the second move for WCHR's format as well; it started on 94.5 FM, later oldies WNJO and now classic rock "Hawk" WTHK.)

An alert NERW reader heard the new religious LPFM on 102.3 in Arrowhead Village (down in Ocean County, near Brick) on the air this week; WUPC-LP is the call listed at our sister site 100000watts.com for this one. (Thanks, Paul!)

Working our way up the shore, Big City's WWZY (107.1 Long Branch) wants to boost power from 625 watts to 1200 watts at its new tower site in Atlantic Highlands. The "Rumba 107" quadcaster tells the FCC it's trying to improve its signal in its community of license after moving its tower north earlier this year; NERW notes that the power boost would also help 107.1's coverage across the water in Brooklyn and Queens...

*Beyond the obvious, it's been a quiet week in NEW YORK. Here in Rochester, our dial has been glued to 950 for the first few days of Entercom's new talker, WROC(AM). In addition to the schedule we ran here last week, we're also hearing WOR's Joey Reynolds overnight (a most welcome addition to the dial) and weekend simulcasts of some of the gardening and car shows from Entercom sister WBEN (930) in Buffalo. NERW wonders whether WROC's debut was rushed to take advantage of all the political advertising flowing in in advance of next week's primary elections; the first few days of the format were marked by more dead air, double audio and other blunders than we've heard on a commercial station in quite a while, including one long run of dead air Saturday night that finally ended with a temporary switch back to the simulcast with WBBF-FM (93.3 Fairport) that 950 had been doing until the format change. Things are sounding smoother at 950 this week, we're pleased to report...

More Rochester news: after losing its computer show, "Sound Bytes," to commercial rival WHAM (1180), public radio WXXI (1370) is launching a new technology show next month. "What the Tech" will be hosted by former "Sound Bytes" contributor Stephen Jacobs, along with Elouise Oyzon and Rick Scott; it debuts September 14 on WXXI, with hopes of broader distribution to follow.

Over in the Albany market, the absence of WGY (810 Schenectady) afternoon host J.R. Gach has prompted plenty of message-board chatter this week. Gach's wife handled fill-in duties last week during what was announced as a vacation - but the show's Web site at jrshow.com is also missing, pointing right back at WGY's own site. Hmmm...

And down on Long Island, look for changes coming after Labor Day at the bottom of the AM dial, with the standards format now heard on WLUX (540 Islip) rumored to be on its way out, replaced with talk programming, most of it live and local, under new calls WLIE. More on this next week; stay tuned...

*The big news from CONNECTICUT is the apparent end of the modern rock format on WMRQ (104.1 Waterbury). The station's airstaff, including morning host Dee Snider, was laid off last week, and the station has been stunting with liners pointing to a format change Monday afternoon at 5. Details here at fybush.com as soon as it happens...

*Just a few small talk show announcements from MASSACHUSETTS this week: on all-sports WEEI (850 Boston), morning team Callahan and Dennis have signed for another five years of wakeup duties, quelling rumors that they're headed to the competition; up in the Merrimack Valley, the "Computer Report" show that's been airing on WCAP (980 Lowell) since 1995 will be leaving the airwaves at month's end, with hosts Dave Sciuto and Bill Dubie moving their show to a Webcast at theReport.com.

And remember WODS (103.3 Boston) jock Harvey Wharfield? He's returning to the airwaves up at Nashua's WSMN (1590), where he'll be hosting an afternoon talk show called "Veritas: The Truth is Out There" beginning September 19...

*Alert NERW readers in NEW HAMPSHIRE are hearing new calls on 1220 in Keene, which officially made the change from WKBK to WZBK this week. The next shoe will drop any day now, when WKNE (1290) picks up the WKBK calls and talk programming, with 1220 changing to a new talk lineup as "WKBK-2."

*Across the river in VERMONT, we hear WXKK (93.5 Springfield) has been heard with a simulcast of hot AC WGXL (92.3 Hanover NH), instead of its usual country sister "Kixx" WXXK (100.5 Lebanon NH).

And the Vermont Department of Transportation has been granted two more LPFMs: add 97.1 Milton and 98.1 Williston to the list - and say goodbye to any chance of hearing the Rutland stations on those frequencies up in the Burlington area...

*Just one MAINE note this week: WPOR (101.9 Portland) wants to move its antenna to another tower just a bit to the southeast of its current site, adjusting power slightly from its current 33 kilowatts at 604 feet to 32 kilowatts at 607 feet above average terrain.

*And untroubled by the news of Opie and Anthony, the radio business in CANADA produced plenty of news of its own last week. We'll start east of Toronto, where Corus announced it's selling talker CKDO (1350 Oshawa) and modern AC CKGE ("Magic @ 94.9" Oshawa) to Durham Radio, which already owns the only other station in the Oshawa area, country CJKX (95.9 Ajax) and its repeater CJKX-1 (89.9 Sunderland).

CKGE has been through some big changes in the last few years; it ditched the "Magic" identity to go CHR as part of Corus' "Energy" network, then went back to "Magic" a few months ago. ("Energy," of course, disappeared from the Toronto area completely last week, when CING 95.3 Hamilton went country...)

And we note that CKGE, on 94.9 east of Toronto, is first-adjacent to smooth jazz CIWV (94.7 Hamilton) southwest of Toronto - and that CIWV and Durham Radio share common ownership. Simulcast on the way? Stay tuned...

Meanwhile at the CRTC, October 28 will be the date for a hearing on a slew of new applications to serve the Kitchener/Waterloo area and surrounding region. Here's the rundown of would-be new FMs in the market:

  • On 91.5, Telephone City Broadcast Ltd. (owner of CKPC 1380 and CKPC-FM 92.1 in Brantford) wants 4000 watts for a new modern country station in Brantford; Global wants a 3600-watt CHR in Kitchener, which would be its first radio outlet in Ontario.
  • On 93.9, CKMW Radio Ltd. (owner of CIDC "Z103.5" and CIAO 530 in the Toronto market) wants a 436-watt urban CHR in Kitchener-Waterloo.
  • On 94.3, Kitchener Sound of Faith wants a 50-watt Christian station.
  • On 94.5 up in Wingham, Blackburn wants to add a 21.2 kW rock station to its CKNX 920 and CKNX-FM 101.7 there.
  • On 97.9, Rogers wants a 3720-watt CHR in Kitchener.
  • On 99.5, Trust Communications Ministries wants a 379-watt Christian station in Kitchener; Doug Kirk (of Durham Radio and CIWV, above) wants 1120 watts for new country in Kitchener-Waterloo; Edward Bauman and Rae Roe want 518 watts for country in Kitchener-Waterloo; and Larche Communications (owner of CICZ in Midland) wants 3900 watts for country in Kitchener.
  • On 102.5, Aboriginal Voices Radio wants 460 watts in Kitchener-Waterloo (and we hear they're getting ready to finally begin testing on their 106.5 license in Toronto soon...)
  • On 107.7, Raedio Inc. wants a 2805-watt AC station in Stratford to accompany its CJCS 1240 there.

One more application is part of this hearing: CIZN in Cambridge wants to move to 107.5 with 2500 watts. The station, the former CIAM 960, says its current FM home on 92.9 with 560 watts suffers "severe technical limitations"; funny, we predicted that here in NERW when that FM move was first granted a few years ago, just 75 miles from Buffalo's powerful WBUF on the same frequency.

A few more applications: the CBC wants to add Radio Two service north of Toronto with 70 kW on 104.7 in Huntsville, 17.5 kW on 97.1 in Owen Sound and 4800 watts on 90.7 in Orillia. Also up that way, Haliburton County Community Association wants a new community station on 100.9 with 3400 watts, filling the frequency recently vacated by CFBG in Bracebridge, now on 99.5.

Just in time for the 50th anniversary of television in Canada, the tower where it all started in Toronto is gone. We saw the old CBC tower on Jarvis Street last week, when about half of it was still standing; the rest was dynamited over the weekend to make room for the new "Tower City" condo development. (Plenty of pictures of this site, the CN Tower and Montreal's Mont Royal are coming September 5 on Tower Site of the Week, just in time for the anniversary celebrations the next weekend...)

The CRTC granted CISS (92.5 Toronto) a power change from 9870 watts to 9100 watts - still an increase from the station's current power, which will help overcome interference from Rochester's co-channel WBEE-FM when the trops kick up...

Down in St. Catharines, Milkman Unlimited reports news director Karen Moncur is out at CKTB (610), with no replacement to be named.

And another big Canadian AM signal is getting ready to move to FM. Yarmouth, Nova Scotia's CJLS (1340) has applied to move to 95.5 with 18 kW. Just another 1340, you say? Not so...the station at the terminus of the ferry from Maine is running 10 kW on the "graveyard" channel, and is widely heard in the northeastern U.S.

CJLS will keep its two existing FM relayers in southwestern Nova Scotia if the move is approved.

*Stay tuned right here for a NERW Commentary and more on the WMRQ flip, later today....

*Finally this week, we're happy to announce that our good friends at M Street have released the 11th edition of the M Street Radio Directory. With the disappearance of the old Vane Jones log and the declining accuracy of the Broadcasting Yearbook, the M Street directory is widely regarded as the most accurate, most comprehensive source of information on the US and Canadian radio scene - and we're thrilled to be able to offer it to you at a substantial discount!

The directory includes power, frequency, ownership, key personnel, formats, ratings and much more information for every radio station in the U.S. and Canada, and now runs almost 900 pages in an 8.5" x 11" softcover book. List price is $79 (plus $7 shipping/handling), but if you order through fybush.com/NorthEast Radio Watch, you can get this invaluable resource on your shelf for $69 (plus $7 s/h) - a $10 savings! And your purchase benefits the continued publication of NERW and Tower Site of the Week, so everybody wins!

You can order in either of two ways: to order by major credit card, call 1-800-248-4242, ask for Irene, and tell her you want the "NorthEast Radio Watch" discount. Or, send check or money order for $76 ($69 + $7 s/h) to Scott Fybush, 92 Bonnie Brae Ave., Rochester NY 14618. Either way, you'll put the most trusted, accurate information about the radio industry in print today on your bookshelf.

*And that's it for another week - back with more next Monday right here at fybush.com!

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