Sporting News for sale: What now for WWZN, WSNR?

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February 28, 2005 -

• BOSTON - If the measure of a man is in the lives he touched, then the late David Brudnoy lived a full life indeed. On Sunday afternoon, Brudnoy's friends - and even his casual listeners on WBZ (1030) counted themselves as friends - lined up around the block to fill the Cutler Majestic Theater for a tribute to one of the most eclectic personalities ever to grace a microphone. For two and a half hours, the crowd - including Boston mayor Tom Menino and other local notables - heard from friends and family across the many facets of Brudnoy's life. "He did all things all the way," said Peter Meade, Brudnoy's close friend and former WBZ host, as he introduced the speakers. To judge from the stories Brudnoy's family shared, that was a trait that distinguished David as far back as his childhood in Minnesota. His cousin Rachel Brudnoy shared the tale of how a 12 year old Brudnoy worked the phones and persuaded a Minneapolis hotel, a car dealer and a luxury restaurant to prepare for the state visit of a fictional "Grand Emir of Aden." Brudnoy's doctors spoke of the incredible strength that brought him back to life after the 1994 illness that left him all but dead. Several of his students at Boston University spoke of the energy, enthusiasm and wit he brought to the classroom, including his attack on the use of the word "like" in students' speech. In the last years of his life, Brudnoy was adopted by the Emerson College chapter of the Phi Alpha Tau fraternity, whose members were in turn adopted by "Brother Bruds," who brought them into the whirl of what student Roman Sturgis called "the Brudnoy-centric universe." Brudnoy's former producer, Kevin Myron, shared the nickname that the erudite, scholarly Brudnoy bestowed on him ("Yo"), saying Brudnoy's direction to him when planning the memorial service was,"Yo, make it something I'd like to be at." There's no question that Brudnoy ("whose favorite topic was David Brudnoy," as one speaker said) would have laughed and cried along with the crowd at the Majestic, especially as his longtime partner Ward Cromer closed out the afternoon with his stories of life and travel with Bruds. One of Brudnoy's few unfulfilled wishes in a life he lived with incredible fullness was to visit India and the Taj Mahal, a wish Cromer said he'll fulfill later this year when he travels there to sprinkle some of David's ashes at the site. And in thanking those who mattered most to David, it's worth noting that Cromer singled out the callers, the "vox populi" who carried on a dialogue that lasted for decades. Cromer spoke movingly of Brudnoy's final show on WBZ the night before his death, when Meade took calls from listeners while Brudnoy listened intently from his hospital bed at Mass General. Of one such call, from a listener named Keri who credited David for getting her started in radio (and that would be NERW reader Keri Rodrigues of WHJJ in Providence), Cromer said "callers such as Keri meant the world to David." David, in turn, meant the world to so many of us, who miss his voice every night on the radio and the joy of his presence, and you'll forgive your editor for the personal aside, I hope, in saying just how much it meant to be in the company of so many of those who loved David Brudnoy.
• WLLH (1400 Lowell and Lawrence) and WAMG (890 Dedham) have spent the last few years doing Spanish tropical under the ownership of Mega Communications, but Mega's been selling off many of its facilities, and now the company's exiting New England completely. The investment firm of Waller Sutton is backing the $9 million purchase, but so far we know nothing about who'll be running the stations or what happens next. Stay tuned...
• We now know where Pittsfield's WBEC-FM (105.5) will be transmitting from when it completes its move eastward to the Springfield market. The FCC has already approved the allocation change that moves WBEC-FM to Easthampton, and last week Vox applied for new technical facilities for the station, which will run 850 watts at 602 feet above average terrain from a tower in Westhampton, where it should do well into Northampton and Amherst (but may have less signal into Springfield and vicinity than we'd initially expected.)
• A RHODE ISLAND high school station may soon be sharing its channel. WCVY (91.5 Coventry) had been the target of several competing applications for its frequency, citing its limited broadcast schedule. And while at least one of those applications was withdrawn, the FCC last week accepted for filing an application submitted way back in 1997 from "Educational Radio for the Public of a New Millennium" (that wouldn't be a religious broadcaster, now would it?) to share time on 91.5. ERFTPOANM, or whatever we're supposed to call them, would run 100 watts on the channel, with a city of license of East Greenwich. It's still not too late, NERW believes, for WCVY to go full-time on 91.5 and thwart the ERFTPOANM application, and we'll keep watching this one for developments.
• The last shoe has dropped in the Nassau call changes in Concord, NEW HAMPSHIRE, where the former "Outlaw Country" WOTX (102.3) changes calls to WWHK, for its new "Hawk" classic rock format.
• And with that we come to PENNSYLVANIA and the week's other top story. It was no secret that WPLY (100.3 Media) was losing the Preston and Steve morning show at the end of February; after sitting out a six-month noncompete, the pair will reappear this fall on Greater Media's WMMR (93.3 Philadelphia). But it was something of a surprise even to Y100's staffers when the end of the Preston & Steve show Thursday morning was followed just hours later by the complete demise of the station's modern rock format. The duo's final Y100 show was peppered with clues about the impending end, including their last song, "Alive" by Pearl Jam, which was the last song played on the old WDRE (103.9 Jenkintown) before it dropped modern rock in 1997. There's a powerful irony at work: upon its purchase by Radio One, 103.9, of course, went urban as "the Beat," WPHI - and now those calls and that format are being heard on the more powerful 100.3 facility. Two hours after Preston and Steve signed off, dropping a mention of a new website at y100rocks.com, middayer Bret Hamilton noted "it's my last day, too," and at noon became the last live voice heard on Y100. After not quite 12 hours of automation, WPLY went to dead air at 11:55 Thursday night, resurfacing minutes later as "the Beat."

February 26, 2001 -

• It's gone from AC to smooth jazz to modern AC to rhythmic oldies -- and now Buffalo's WBUF (92.9) has come full circle to the rock format they last had more than twenty years ago. The Infinity-owned station abruptly killed off its "Dancin' Oldies" format and "B92.9" nickname on Thursday, slipping into a day of stunting with Queen's "We Will Rock You" and taunts against Citadel's "97 Rock" (WGRF 96.9) before relaunching Friday (2/23) at noon with Genesis' "Abacab" (not, as the Buffalo News had it, "Turn It On Again"!) The new "Rock 92" brings Howard Stern back to the Buffalo airwaves half a decade after his less-than-successful stint on WWKB (1520), filling the rest of the day with a mix of rock tunes that seems, thus far, to lean rather heavily towards the 80s. (Buffalo listeners have had access to Stern for the last year and a half through Toronto's CILQ, Q107, for whatever that's worth...)
• Next stop in NEW YORK? Binghamton, where the FCC approved Clear Channel's purchase of WINR (680) from dentist Paul Titus this week, over the strenuous objections of commissioner Gloria Tristani. By adding WINR to its existing cluster (sports WENE 1430 Endicott, rock WKGB 92.5 Susquehanna PA, AC WMXW 103.3 Vestal, CHR WMRV 105.7 Endicott and country WBBI 107.5 Endwell), Clear Channel brings the combined Binghamton market share of its stations and those of rival Citadel to a whopping 91.2 percent, reducing Binghamton to a duopoly in Tristani's view. By not considering whether or not the market can support three competitors and whether there were other potential buyers for WINR, Tristani writes, "we may never know if the cementing of a duopoly in Binghamton was inevitable, or simply another case of regulatory malfeasance by the FCC. While WINR today is far from a major player in the market (it's been decades since the station's days as an important top-40 outlet), NERW thinks it will be interesting to see how Clear Channel rebuilds the station to take on Citadel's dominance of the AM dial in Binghamton. (Those paying close attention to Binghamton in the last year or two will recall that it was originally Citadel that planned to acquire WINR, moving its news-talk WNBF from 1290 down to the superior 680 signal, then moving standards WKOP from 1360 to 1290 and leaving Titus with 1360, the weakest AM in town. Now WNBF faces the likelihood of a competing news-talker on 680, drawing resources from Clear Channel's Premiere talk lineup and its upstate network of radio newsrooms. This should be interesting!)
• NEW HAMPSHIRE is next on NERW's agenda, and have we ever been hearing a lot about that religious pirate on 88.7 somewhere around Londonderry! It's been on the air just about every night, we're told, with nary an ID to be heard. The end could be in sight, though: one NERW reader checked in to report that the pirate's second harmonic, at 177.4 MHz, was wreaking havoc with his reception of WHDH-TV, whose channel 7 occupies 174-180 MHz. WHDH has been alerted to the problem, and that's the sort of complaint that tends to send the Enforcement Bureau running.
• The big news in MAINE is a new simulcast in the Bangor area. WNSX (97.7 Winter Harbor) dropped its relay of former sister station WMDI (107.7 Bar Harbor) this week to join its new Clear Channel sister station in Searsport with classic rock as "The Fox at 97.7 and 101.7." The Searsport station gets new calls, too, changing from WBYA to WFCX.
• A few tidbits from across PENNSYLVANIA: Pittsburgh's own Clarke Ingram checked in with a format shift at the station he programs in the Steel City. Don't call "The Beat" (WJJJ 104.7) "Jammin' Oldies" anymore; the new phrase is "Jammin' Hits," with an added emphasis on more recent rhythmic tunes.

New England Radio Watch, March 3, 1996 -

• Veteran WBZ newsman Darrell Gould died of colon cancer on Friday, March 1. Darrell was 57, and had been ill for quite a while with various ailments. I worked with Darrell at the end of his WBZ career, and I've rarely met anyone friendlier or more fun to work with. Darrell was always ready with an impromptu song or a bad pun, and he and another 'BZ reporter were famous around the building for their doo-wop duets. Professionally, Darrell was BZ's statehouse reporter for much of the '70s and '80s, and then the evening anchor until his retirement last year. Before coming to WBZ in 1966, Darrell had worked at WHYN in Springfield, WICE in Providence, WPOP in Hartford, and WHOU in Houlton, Maine, to name a few. Funeral services will be held Tuesday morning. Darrell leaves his wife and three daughters...and a saddened group of friends and colleagues.
• WCMX(AM) 1000 in Leominster MA is back on the air after being dark for more than three years. The 1kw daytimer is now owned by a local church and programming religion. The old WCMX tower and ground systems, near the intersection of Mass. Route 2 and I-190, were torn out and replaced by a new tower and ground system at the same location last summer. I'm not sure where the new WCMX studios are. The signal is adequate but far from strong at my Waltham MA listening post, some 25 miles southeast of Leominster. WCMX is now the third religious outlet in the Leominster-Fitchburg market, along with WFGL 960 Fitchburg and the "Greenville NH" 94.3 translator for WGLV Hartford VT. The only other stations in the market are WEIM 1280 Fitchburg, with a local AC/news format; WXLO 104.5 Fitchburg, which functions as a Worcester station (the much larger city of Worcester is about 20 miles south of Fitchburg); and college station WXPL 91.3, with a very erratic broadcast schedule.
• Also west of Boston, there's word that currently-dark WBIV 1060 Natick MA has found a new transmitter site. WBIV was ousted from its old site in Ashland MA when WBPS (then WBMA) took over the equipment last year. Now the station wants to return as a 50kw daytimer from a site on US20 on the Wayland/Sudbury town line, near the towns' waste-transfer station. WBIV's new owner is one Alexander Langer of Florida; I'd be interested to know if anyone has ever heard of him. (We soon would! - Ed.)