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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