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May 23, 2005
"Jack" Arrives at Buffalo's WBUF
*Just a few hours after NERW went to press
last Monday, upstate NEW YORK got its first domestic taste
of the real live licensed "Jack FM" that's been so
much the rage around North America over the last couple of years,
as Infinity dumped the talk format on WBUF (92.9 Buffalo) and
flipped the station to "92.9 Jack FM."
This is a slightly unusual Jack, since it keeps one element
of the old talk format from WBUF, retaining Howard Stern in morning
drive (at least until the end of the year, when Stern's show
leaves terrestrial radio) before segueing into the "Playing
What We Want" format that alert Buffalo listeners may already
have sampled via nearby CJAQ (92.5 Toronto).
Out the door, however, are the late-morning Brother Wease
show imported from Rochester's WCMF (96.5), as well as Don &
Mike (who made a big deal about losing their Buffalo audience
on Monday's show), Tom Leykis, Lovelines and all the other FM
talk staples. In Wease's case, it was already a long shift (morning
drive at WCMF, then the post-Stern hours on WBUF) even before
the veteran Rochester talker began treatment for a rare form
of nasal cancer, so losing the Buffalo shift might be a blessing
in disguise; on the other hand, Wease was widely seen as the
likely successor for Stern in the morning had WBUF not flipped.
As with all new Jack startups, WBUF is running jockless for
now.
*Buffalo made radio headlines again on Friday, when former
WKSE (98.5 Niagara Falls) PD Dave Universal, ousted earlier in
the year amidst a payola investigation, was named U.S. programming
and sales consultant for CKEY (Wild 101.1), the Fort Erie, Ontario
station that's been in the CRTC's crosshairs for allegedly having
too much of its programming and sales handled across the border.
CKEY has unwound its joint sales agreement with Citadel, and
now it appears that Universal will take a less formal role (Citadel
treated the station as almost a full member of its Buffalo cluster)
in tweaking Wild to appeal to a Buffalo audience while not running
afoul of Canadian regulators. (And NERW notes that there's probably
nobody alive who has better insight into how to compete with
WKSE for listeners...)
In Corning, WCBA-FM (98.7) and WGMM (97.7 Big Flats) have
applied to swap callsigns, which we suspect means an eventual
format swap, too, with WGMM's oldies going to 98.7 and WCBA's
standards to 97.7.
From the Southern Tier, we jump (way) downstate to Long Island
and WHLI (1100 Hempstead), where one of the two towers that has
so long greeted commuters on the Southern State Parkway came
down last week. WHLI's two-tower array dates back to 1947, when
the station signed on, and until the tower can be replaced the
station will be running at reduced power (we've heard 1000 watts)
non-directional instead of the usual 10 kilowatts of directional
daytime power.
(The tower on the left side of the photo - for which we thank
Mike Erickson - is sister FM station WKJY 98.3, which also signed
on in 1947 from that pylon antenna that still sits atop the remaining
WHLI tower.)
In New York City, they're getting ready for the annual WABC
(770) "Rewound" special, which will again present twelve
hours of classic Musicradio 77 airchecks from 6 AM-6 PM on Memorial
Day (May 30), followed by the annual "Rewound Talk Show,"
this year a pre-recorded two-hour affair hosted by WABC PD Phil
Boyce and featuring Bruce Morrow, Harry Harrison and New
York Radio Message Board proprietor Allan Sniffen. (As always,
kudos to WABC production director Johnny Donovan and archivists
Peter Kanze and Rob Frankel for making the whole thing happen!)
Meanwhile on the FM dial, WNEW (Mix 102.7) will spend Memorial
Day weekend reliving the history of...a completely unrelated
radio station. The station will welcome back veterans of New
York's original disco FM, the old WKTU (92.3), for the "First
Disco Explosion Reunion Weekend." But of course there's
one thing you won't hear from jocks like Paco and Freddie Colon,
and that's "WKTU," since those calls were resurrected
a few years back at 103.5 on the dial. So it'll be just "Disco
92" all weekend - and of course no mention, either, of the
bad blood that existed between "Disco 92" and the old
rock-and-roll WNEW back in that era...
More nostalgia: the Museum of Television & Radio hosted
what we hear was an awfully nice tribute to the late Scott Muni
on Thursday.
That new sort-of-FM-signal on 87.76, otherwise known as LPTV
station WNYZ-LP (Channel 6), came to life late last week, playing
"Hurban" music on the audio channel and showing the
videos on the video channel; we understand the bulk of the promotion
will be as "WNYZ-FM 87.7," though.
On the TV dial, WCBS-TV (Channel 2) fired Arthur Chi'en after
the much-publicized incident last week in which the reporter
responded angrily to a couple of hecklers who disrupted an early-morning
live shot he was doing. While we won't try to defend the use
of the F-word in front of what Chi'en should have known was still
a live mike, there's also no excuse for the way in which these
and other hecklers attempt to sabotage broadcasters in order
to draw publicity for a certain pair of satellite talk hosts
(who will therefore go unnamed here.)
Before Chi'en came to WCBS, he was a reporter for NY1, Boston's
WFXT (Channel 25), and before that he was a producer at NBC.
And we're sorry to report the death, at the far-too-young
age of 30, of former WSLB (1400 Ogdensburg)/WPAC (92.7 Ogdensburg)/WGIX
(95.3 Gouverneur) news anchor Nate Townsend. Townsend suffered
a brain aneurysm May 12, the day after his birthday; he was rushed
to a Syracuse hospital where he died May 16. A service celebrating
his life was held Wednesday near his family home in Rossie, New
York.
 *Down
the shore in NEW JERSEY, Press Communications is asking
the FCC to allow it to move WKOE (106.3 Ocean City) to Bass River
Township, in Burlington County north of Atlantic City. If granted,
the move would shift WKOE from 106.3 to 106.5, though it would
remain a class A signal.
The new WKOE signal at 106.5, which would really be more of
an Ocean County signal, would overlap sister "Breeze"
soft AC station WBHX (99.7 Tuckerton), which would then free
up one or the other of those signals to take on a new format.
(And NERW notes that it would also ease up some co-channel
interference with co-owned WHTG-FM on 106.3 in Eatontown...)
*In PENNSYLVANIA, Greater Media's
WPEN (950 Philadelphia) is one step closer to a better night
signal. Last week, the FCC granted its application to move its
night transmitter from the current 5000-watt, three-tower facility
in southwest Philadelphia to the five towers of WWDB (860 Philadelphia)
on Germantown Pike in Montgomery County. The new 21 kW night
signal could be on the air within a few months; since WWDB is
strictly a daytimer and WPEN will use the facility only after
dark, there will be no need to build complicated diplexing filters
at the site. WPEN is still pursuing plans to build a six-tower,
50,000-watt daytime facility at another Montgomery County location.
Over on the Maryland line, Dan Savadove, the former Root Communications
executive who also managed Harrisburg's WNNK a while back, is
buying Dame's five-station cluster in the Chambersburg-Hagerstown
market. Savadove's Main Line Broadcasting will pay $22.5 million
for standards WCHA (800 Chambersburg)/WHAG (1410 Halfway MD),
rock WQCM (94.3 Greencastle), hot AC WIKZ (95.1 Chambersburg)
and top 40 WDLD (96.7 Halfway MD).
 And over on the
Ohio line, there are strong rumblings suggesting that WEXC (107.1
Greenville) will flip from oldies back to contemporary Christian
sometime this week (perhaps as early as today), as former station
manager Michael Arch buys out other investors in station owner
Beacon Broadcasting. Arch just did a similar flip last week across
the state line, replacing Air America talk with contemporary
Christian at Beacon's WANR (1570 Warren OH.)
*In RHODE ISLAND, Cranston mayor Steve
Laffey will be back on the air this Friday on WPRO (630 Providence),
but instead of hosting the 9-noon shift, he'll be appearing as
the guest of host Steve Kass. The move's intended to get around
the state election board's ruling that found that the airtime
for Laffey's Friday show was an improper political donation by
WPRO owner Citadel; meanwhile, Laffey continues to appeal the
ruling and the denial of a court injunction he'd sought to keep
the ruling from taking effect.
 *A pair of Ocean State night jocks are now broadcasting
to NEW HAMPSHIRE as well. The "Quinn and Cantara"
show has been heard on WHJY (94.1 Providence) for a few weeks,
and now their 7-midnight shift is being simulcast on Clear Channel
sister stations WHEB (100.3 Portsmouth) and WGIR-FM (101.1 Manchester).
Steve Cantara was part of the "Morning Buzz" on WHEB
and WGIR-FM before he joined Quinn a few years back at WLZX (99.3
Northampton MA); the PD who put the team together there, Scott
Laudani, is the same one who's now at WHJY.
*In MASSACHUSETTS, WBUR-FM (90.9 Boston)
is making some management changes under interim GM Peter Fiedler.
Fiedler hired the consulting firm of Grant Thornton to review
WBUR's management structure after he was brought in to clean
up the mess that surrounded the departure of former GM Jane Christo;
at Grant Thornton's suggestion, WBUR will reduce the number of
senior staffers reporting directly to the GM from eleven to four.
Corey Lewis has been promoted from Director of Senior Support
to Station Manager; he'll join Sam Fleming (director of news
and programming), Jeff Hutton (director of engineering) and Jean
Wong (director of finance) in reporting to Fiedler.
You probably never realized that WRKO (680 Boston) ran the
syndicated "Newsweek On Air" on Sunday nights, and
the station certainly never went to any trouble to publicize
the show - but it didn't hesitate to make some publicity hay
last week by pulling the program from its schedule amidst the
controversy over Newsweek's retraction of the Koran-abuse
story. The station's putting regular Howie Carr caller "Kevin
from Danvers" (Kevin Whalen) on the air in the 9-10 PM slot
for now.
*And in MAINE, WGAN (560 Portland)
is looking for a new news and program director as Doug Tribou
departs after six years in the job; he's now in Boston as PD
of soon-to-launch "ESPN Radio 890/1400" (WAMG Dedham/WLLH
Lowell). Tribou also handled programming for Saga sister stations
WZAN (970 Portland), WBAE (1490 Portland) and WVAE (1400 Biddeford.)
*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
NERW coming each and every Monday morning!
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