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May 2, 2005
Pamal To Buy WBEC-FM, WNYQ
*There's been plenty of speculation - present
space included - that the big move of WBEC-FM (105.5) in western
MASSACHUSETTS would lead to the sale of some of the
last remaining assets of Bruce Danziger and Jeff Shapiro's Vox
Media.
That will indeed be the case, as Vox files to sell WBEC-FM
to Jim Morrell's Pamal Broadcasting, which will take over operation
of the station when it completes its move from Pittsfield to
Easthampton, where it will serve Northampton, Amherst and Springfield.
 Pamal already owns
adult rock WRNX (100.9 Amherst) in the market, as well as WPNI
(1430 Amherst), which is leased to public radio WFCR. It'll pay
$7 million to add WBEC-FM to the group - and if we're reading
the sales contract right, Pamal gets the WBEC-FM calls and the
intellectual property that includes the "Live 105"
nickname and top 40 format, which we'd expected to stay with
Vox in the Berkshires on a different frequency. (Which it may
yet do; there's little question that the remaining Vox stations
in Pittsfield, Great Barrington and North Adams will be sold
as well, as Shapiro and Danziger dissolve what's left of the
company.)
That leaves one more station remaining in Vox: WNYQ-FM (105.7),
which is moving from Queensbury, in the Glens Falls market, to
Malta, in the Albany market, as part of the WBEC-FM move. Pamal
has been LMA'ing WNYQ from Vox since last year, and the WBEC-FM
filing reveals that Pamal has an option to buy WNYQ as well,
though there will be market-concentration issues in Albany, where
the company already has five FM stations and two AMs.
(NERW wonders: could this be why nothing's happened with WZMR
104.9 Altamont/Albany since Pamal pulled the plug on its "Love"
format last fall? At last check, WZMR was still a straight simulcast
of Pamal's country WFFG 107.1 Corinth/Glens Falls, with no mention
of the Albany market at all, which seemed odd to us.)
*More news from the Bay State: Fans of the now-defunct "Star
93.7" (WQSX 93.7 Lawrence/Boston) may be somewhat mollified
to learn that Entercom is keeping the rhythmic format going on
the Web, at www.star937fm.com/star937fm/,
albeit without jocks.
 A very
happy 50th anniversary to New England's first public TV station.
WGBH-TV (Channel 2) signed on May 2, 1955 from studios at 84
Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge and a transmitter atop Great
Blue Hill; half a century later, it's one of the most significant
TV production facilities in the nation and is getting ready to
move to new studios in Allston.
While it doesn't appear that WGBH has much planned in the
way of on-air celebrations, you can make up for it with a visit
to wgbhalumni.org, where
veterans of the station's early days have posted numerous photos
and reminiscences of the dawn of noncommercial TV and radio in
Boston.
Out in Worcester County, the morning team of Joe Grivalski
and Derek Moison, who left WESO (970 Southbridge) amidst a dispute
with management three months ago, has resurfaced down the dial
at WGFP (940 Webster), moving Mike Roberts to middays.
And we're sorry to report the death of Tom Star, who was the
founder of the old Talk America network in Canton. Star had been
living in Las Vegas, where he died April 22 at age 56.
*In MAINE, it's the end of the line
for Mark Persky and WBLM (102.9 Portland) after 28 years together.
The veteran morning man has been off the air at WBLM since February,
when he disappeared from the "Captain and Mark" morning
show, which still features PD "Captain" Herb Ivey along
with former midday jock Celeste. Last week, the station announced
it had parted ways with Persky; there's already plenty of noisy
speculation that he's headed for Nassau's "Frank" WFNK
(107.5 Lewiston), which has been eating away at WBLM's ratings.
(NERW irony alert: When Persky joined WBLM way back, it was still
operating on that very 107.5 signal...)
On the TV side, Dave Santoro is leaving the weather desk at
WGME (Channel 13) in Portland after 15 years to spend more time
with his family.
*A former NEW HAMPSHIRE DJ is on his
way to western Virginia. Jim Clark was morning man at WHOB (106.3
Nashua) before it flipped to "Frank"; he'll start May
16 as morning man at WZZI (101.5 Vinton)/WZZU (97.9 Lynchburg),
which do oldies as "Bob" for the Roanoke/Lynchburg
market.
*A RHODE ISLAND talk host is off the
air because of election-law issues. Cranston mayor Steve Laffey
was doing three hours of talk every Friday morning on WPRO (630
Providence) - until city council president Aram Garabedian (a
Democrat, who lost to Republican Laffey in a mayoral race) asked
the state Board of Elections for an opinion. The board ruled
that the airtime constituted a tangible donation to Laffey from
the station, and so WPRO's pulled him off the air for now.
*One of CONNECTICUT's biggest TV stations
has found a new home in the suburbs. Meredith Corp. announced
last week that it will move WFSB (Channel 3) from its current
home at Constitution Plaza in Hartford to the Corporate Ridge
office park in Rocky Hill, where it will build a $23 million,
65,000-square foot studio and office building. WFSB had originally
planned to sell the Hartford property to the city in exchange
for another piece of land in Hartford, but Meredith decided the
Hartford site wasn't big enough to accomodate its expansion plans,
so it's off to the 'burbs instead.
Over at WTIC-FM (96.5 Hartford), former morning co-host Christine
Lee is rejoining the "Craig and Company" show after
taking four years off to raise her two kids.
 *It's the end of an era in NEW YORK radio
history: At 1:00 Saturday afternoon (April 30), WOR (710 New
York) began broadcasting from its new home at 111 Broadway, closing
the book on almost eight decades of radio from 1440 Broadway.
Bob Gibson did the last newscast from 1440 at noon Saturday,
followed at 1 PM by the first newscast from 111 with Dara Welles
- and the word is that engineers Tom Ray and Kerry Richards had
very little sleep over the weekend as they got everything in
place at the new digs.
(And you can see pictures of 1440, preserved for posterity,
at Tower Site
of the Week...)
Out on Long Island, WGSM (740 Huntington) has been on and
off the air after the end of the Korean-language programming
from K Radio Licensee. We're hearing that there's been some classical
music on the air to keep the transmitter humming, but otherwise
it's dead air until new owner Atmor takes over.
Way, way, way out on Long Island, we hear WPKM (88.7 Montauk)
is now on the air, simulcasting WPKN (89.5 Bridgeport CT) and
its freeform programming.
Upstate, WWKB (1520 Buffalo) shuffled its schedule on Thursday,
moving Jackson Armstrong from his old 6-10 PM shift to the afternoon
shift formerly occupied by ex-PD Hank Nevins. Armstrong's shown
on the schedule as doing 3-7 PM, but he's been tracking through
at least 8 PM when we've tuned in, perhaps to pacify all his
skywave fans out there to the east.
Here in Rochester, Terese Taylor is promoted to PD at WRMM
(101.3 Rochester), where she's been doing middays for a few years.
And in the Southern Tier, WCLI (1450 Corning) gives up the
only calls it's ever known to become WENI, reflecting its talk
simulcast with WENY (1230 Elmira).
*In NEW JERSEY, Scott Edwards has
departed the night shift at the "Breeze" stations (WWZY
107.1 Long Branch/WBHX 99.7 Tuckerton/WKOE 106.3 Ocean City)
- he's headed for the South Seas and morning drive at KKHJ (93.1)
in Pago Pago, American Samoa (a station that was recently featured
on Site of the Week...)
And we'd write about the latest flap with the "Jersey
Guys" at New Jersey 101.5 if we didn't think they were just
in it for the publicity...
*A PENNSYLVANIA court has freed
former WPLY (100.3 Media) morning team Preston Elliot and Steve
Morrison from their six-month noncompete deal with Radio One.
The duo had argued that Radio One's format change at the station
(now urban WPHI) removed any financial interest that the company
would have in keeping them off the air at their new employer,
Greater Media's WMMR (93.3 Philadelphia), and the court agreed,
dismissing Radio One's argument that Preston and Steve on WMMR
might take advertising dollars from the Radio One stations. There's
no word yet on when the two might make it on the air at WMMR.
In Williamsport, WLYC (1050) is changing hands again, as Jeffrey
Andrulonis' Sentry Communications pays James McKowne $75,000
for the station.
Down in the Chambersburg market, it's the end of modern rock
on "The Revolution," as WEEO-FM (103.7 McConnellsburg)
has flipped to top 40 as "Hot 103.7."
And a former general manager of WQED (Channel 13) in Pittsburgh
has died. John F. White joined WQED in 1955 and left a few years
later to run the organization that became National Educational
Television, the forerunner of today's PBS. White left NET just
ahead of the creation of PBS, departing in 1969 to become the
president of New York's Cooper Union. White died Friday (April
29) in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He was 87.
 *In
CANADA, there are some morning show shifts on the way
in Toronto, as Erin Davis and Mike Cooper move from CJEZ (EZ
Rock 97.3) to CHFI (98.1). Cooper has a six-month noncompete
that will keep him off the air at CHFI until the fall, but Davis,
who had been filling in at EZ Rock after being fired from CHFI
last year, will return there immediately.
In Montreal, Ken Connors moves from CJAD (800) to the afternoon
anchor shift at CINW (940 News). And over on the Francophone
side, former CJMF (93.3 Quebec) morning host Robert Gillet is
suing former CHOI (98.1 Quebec) morning hosts Jeff Fillion and
Andre Arthur for the remarks they made on the air after Gillet
was arrested in a sex scandal a couple of years ago. (One NERW
reader compared this to Howard Stern being sued by Don Imus -
but you'd have to imagine that both Stern and Imus had lost their
jobs in the meantime to make the analogy work...)
*Our special clearance pricing continues
for fans of the Tower Site Calendar 2005. We're well aware
that many of the calendar's fans buy it for the pictures, not
the actual calendar pages...but that doesn't change the fact
that by this time of the year, we're not exactly shipping 'em
out the door at a breakneck pace, and Mrs. NERW would very much
like a corner of her living room back.
So while she rediscovers the floor beneath those boxes of
calendars and we begin to line up the images for Tower Site Calendar
2006, you get the very first crack at our Calendar
Clearance Deal for 2005.
 Here's how it works:
instead of our list price of $16 for this fabulous, full-color,
glossy calendar, you can now pick one up for just $8,
postpaid. ($8.66 to New York State addresses.) Better yet, if
you order two calendars at this special clearance price, we'll
throw in a third for free - $16 for THREE calendars, with nine
exciting months of 2005 yet to go. (That's $17.32 in NYS.)
Maybe you've already hung your original 2005 calendar on the
wall, and you're thinking it would be nice to have another copy
to stick away in pristine condition. Maybe you really want to
frame that spectacular September page right now - but you still
need a calendar later this year. Maybe you just want to help
Mrs. NERW clean out the living room and give happy NERW baby
Ariel more space to practice walking.
Whatever your motive, now's your big chance, because while
there are still 2005 calendars left, there may not be any in
a few weeks. (Remember, the 2002 and 2003 editions were total
sellouts, and I've had to turn away several of you who were hoping
to add these now-rare calendars to your collections.)
And we've got two more great deals for you, too. We still
have a few 2004 calendars left, and while they're getting rare,
Mrs. NERW wants them gone - so they're yours, in pristine condition,
for just $5 postpaid. (Buy two and the third is free!) Or order
the 2004 and 2005 calendars together for just $10, postpaid.
(What a deal!)
(New York orders pay $5.41 for the 2004 calendar, $10.83 for
the 2004 and 2005 together.)
And as always, the calendar's free with your $60 or higher
subscription to NorthEast Radio Watch/fybush.com. In fact, we've
got a great deal for new or renewing $60 subscribers: we'll send
you two 2005 calendars if you subscribe now. Or,
if you'd prefer, we'll hold a brand-new Tower Site Calendar
2006 for you with your subscription, and you can be among
the very first to see the 2006 edition when it's released this
summer. Remember, we count on your subscription dollars to keep
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