June 4, 2007
Davidson Buys WWZN, WSNR
TOWER SITE CALENDAR 2007 - SOLD OUT!!!
*It took several years, but one of the more
star-crossed AM signals in MASSACHUSETTS has found a buyer.
 WWZN (1510 Boston)
has had a difficult last few years, as One-on-One Sports and
its successor Sporting News Radio have tried to make a go of
it as the market's number-three sports radio station, in the
shadow of behemoth WEEI and feisty upstart WAMG/WLLH, with a
signal that misses many of the growth areas in the market and
what we hear is a very unfavorable transmitter-site lease to
boot.
Over the years, WWZN has attempted to compete with a variety
of local shows, including several years with veteran talker Eddie
Andelman and a few seasons as the Celtics' flagship. Those stabs
at local programming failed to draw ratings or profits, and last
year the station let most of its local staff go and switched
to a combination of Sporting News Radio network feeds and leased-time
shows while owner Paul Allen (through his "Rose City Radio")
put the station and its SNR sisters in Los Angeles and New York
up for sale.
The Los Angeles station, KMPC (1540), found a buyer earlier
this year, switching to Korean-language programming. And now
WWZN and WSNR (620 Jersey City NJ) are also being sold, to a
new company formed by Davidson Media principal Peter Davidson.
His new "Blackstrap Broadcasting" will spend $20.5
million (and probably a little more, as we'll explain later in
the column when we get to the WSNR piece of the deal) to acquire
the two stations - and no sooner had that news broken last week
than the message boards and mailing lists were aflame with speculation
about the future of WWZN after Blackstrap takes over.
The new company inadvertently fueled some of that fire with
a press release that touted Davidson's committment to serving
the needs of recent immigrants with programming in their languages,
a description that fits the WSNR format (mostly Russian), but
which would seem to portend a format change away from sports
at WWZN after more than seven years with the format. That was
on Tuesday, and by Thursday WWZN GM Anthony Pepe had issued a
follow-up release saying first that "we are excited about
the opportunity to continue with sports programming at 1510 The
Zone" - and then that "1510 The Zone has been brokering
time since 2005 and that will continue to be the business model
under the new owners."
So what happens now? It's a pretty good bet that the leased-time
sports programming on 1510 will continue, at least for a while.
But given the programming that predominates on the rest of Davidson's
stations (including WKKB in Rhode Island, WSPR and WACM in Springfield,
WXCT in Hartford and a whole slew of signals down south, nearly
all of them programmed in Spanish), it's also a decent bet that
it won't take long for 1510 to end up speaking a language (or
languages) other than English. We hear some pretty solid rumors
that suggest that the Russian-language broadcasters leasing most
of the airtime at WSNR are interested in reaching Boston as well,
and we'd note that however restricted WWZN's signal is over the
fast-growing English-speaking parts of the market, it's rock
solid over a whole lot of immigrant communities within Route
128 and up north into the Merrimack Valley.
As always...stay tuned.
You can have
your ad here! Click
here
for information on the most economical way to reach tens of thousands
of Northeast radio and TV people each week. |
 *In
other news from around the Bay State, it appears that the owner
of WESX (1230 Salem) and WJDA (1300 Quincy) has died.
Just a year after Otto Miller bought those stations from their
longtime local ownership, flipping them to Spanish-language religion
from new studios in Quincy, we're told that Miller recently passed
away, and we can say with certainty that Mercury Capital Partners,
which funded Miller's Principal Broadcasting, is advertising
for a new CEO for the chain. (Miller also owned WDJZ in Connecticut,
and had a pending purchase of WLIE on Long Island.)
Inquiries to Mercury have not been answered at press time,
and there's been no sign of any obituary or death notice for
Miller anywhere in the region, so we can't tell you much more
about when or where Miller died, or even how old he was.
It does appear that Mercury intends to keep operating WESX,
WJDA and WDJZ with their current formats; we're less certain
as to whether the WLIE sale will be consummated, or whether Principal
will make good on what we hear were plans to add a third Boston-area
signal.
Two other bits of Bay State news about which we're more certain:
first, Grace Blazer is indeed the new PD at Greater Media's WTKK
(96.9 Boston), moving up the coast from WPHT in Philadelphia;
and second, Salem's WROL (950 Boston) has dropped its application
to boost night power from a new city of license of Saugus. Difficulties
with local permitting doomed that plan, we're told.
And Mike Demos has won the WAMG/WLLH "Dream Job"
contest, which means the Siena College sports announcer will
be moving east to be the play-by-play voice of the Lowell Spinners
on WLLH this year. (We'll have complete New York-Penn League
radio information in a couple of weeks, when that short-season
league's season finally gets underway.)
*A new PD in RHODE ISLAND: Dan Hunt
comes to WWKX (106.3 Woonsocket) from Wisconsin, where he held
the PD post at WWHG (105.9 Evansville/Janesville WI).
Over in Burrillville, WALE (990 Greenville) remains off the
air as we go to press Sunday night, and we're not putting much
(or, frankly, any) stock in the message-board rumors that have
the station returning to the air in a week or so with a lineup
of has-been local talkers.
|
MANDATORY SUBSCRIPTION FEES?
They've become a fact
of life for many of the most popular radio and TV websites out
there. Just a few weeks ago, our pal Dave Hughes put part of
his excellent DCRTV.com site
behind a pay wall, and mandatory subscriptions are an established
way of life at LARadio.com
and reelradio.com, too,
just to name a few.
Here at fybush.com/North East
RadioWatch, we've managed to hold off from imposing a password
and mandatory subscription fee, but we depend on your support
- and that of our advertisers - to keep it that way.
If you still haven't subscribed
yet for 2007, do it right now at our Support
page - and enjoy another exciting year of NERW, guilt-
(and password-) free. And if you have become one of our
many subscribers, thank you! |
 *It
was almost three years ago that MAINE radio listeners
staged a noisy protest against a plan to flip WLVP (870 Gorham)
from Air America talk to ESPN sports, persuading Nassau to stick
with the progressive talk format for a while longer. With the
recent changes at Air America, most notably the recent end of
the Al Franken show, Nassau faced little opposition last week
when it tried the flip again. On Friday morning, WLVP dropped
Air America and began picking up the 24/7 ESPN feed as "ESPN
870," and this time Nassau says there were only a few complaints.
The station says it will also add some local high school sports
to the schedule.
*VERMONT Public Radio has switched
network feeds on its southwestern Vermont FMs. While WBTN-FM
(94.3 Bennington) continues to carry VPR's main feed, which is
predominantly news and talk, the recently-purchased WJAN (95.1
Sunderland) quietly flipped to VPR Classical, simulcasting with
WNCH (88.1 Norwich) and giving the all-classical network a broader
reach in the region, where it had previously been heard on translators
in Bennington and Manchester. Is the long-sought Burlington outlet
for the classical network the next announcement? Stay tuned...
*In NEW JERSEY, there's a call change
in the Atlantic City area, where WTKU (1490 Pleasantville) has
become WTAA. So far, no word of any format change at the signal,
which has been simulcasting oldies WTKU-FM (98.3 Ocean City).
Up the shore a bit, the morning team at "G-Rock Radio"
(WHTG-FM 106.3 Eatontown/WBBO 106.5 Bass River Township) is out.
Brian Phillips and Jenn Ursillo had been with G-Rock for four
years, and Phillips was also APD/music director at the station.
Promotions director Frank Canale is out at "G-Rock"
as well.
Over in the Philadelphia suburbs, noncommercial WBZC (88.9
Pemberton) has added a second translator. W264BH (100.7 Mount
Holly) will improve the Burlington County College station's signal
in the county seat; it joins W236AF (95.1 Burlington), which
transmits from the Burlington-Bristol Bridge over the Delaware
River.
*Across the river on the PENNSYLVANIA
side, Matt Nahigian is the new PD at WPEN (950 Philadelphia),
moving to the Greater Media sports talker from the PD chair at
Sporting News Radio.
At the other end of the state, the Pittsburgh morning team
of "Quinn and Rose" have lost an affiliate. As of this
week, WWVA (1170 Wheeling WV) is going local in morning drive;
it's changing hands from Clear Channel to Goodradio.TV and will
no longer be a sister station to Quinn's flagship, WPGB (104.7
Pittsburgh).
*As we noted above, the other half of the
big Blackstrap Broadcasting deal last week was in the NEW
YORK market, where WSNR (620 Jersey City NJ) joins the new
Blackstrap group. Its call letters notwithstanding, it's been
a few years since WSNR carried very much Sporting News Radio
programming. Instead, its very directional signal - beamed narrowly
to the east from Lyndhurst, New Jersey across lower Manhattan
and into Brooklyn and southern Queens - has been largely occupied
with leased-time Russian programming, a perfect fit for the huge
Russian community in Brighton Beach and nearby Brooklyn neighborhoods.
 We don't expect that
to change under the new ownership, but it does appear that WSNR
will move forward with plans to abandon the "temporary"
transmitter site that it's called home for more than a dozen
years, since the station lost the old (and far superior) site
in Livingston, N.J. that had carried 620 since its WVNJ days.
The Lyndhurst site is being claimed by the enormous EnCap
golf/hotel/housing project, the same development that led to
the demolition of the old WOR site just down the road earlier
this year, and Rose City had already been working to move WSNR
a few miles north to a new site adjacent to the WBBR (1130) directional
array. That project will continue, with Rose City paying for
geotechnical surveys of the new site and Blackstrap and Rose
City splitting the rest of the costs of the move from now until
the sale closes. Rose City will then get half of the money EnCap
is paying WSNR to move from its current site.
There's another interesting engineering story developing on
the TV dial in the New York market, where the FCC has approved
a proposal by the Metropolitan Television Alliance (the umbrella
group representing the market's major TV players) to experiment
with what's called "distributed transmission" of DTV
signals in the challenging New York market. The MTA's experimental
system will operate on WPIX-DT's Channel 33, as well as on the
channel 12 frequency that WPIX-DT used as a temporary signal
after the World Trade Center was destroyed, supplementing WPIX-DT's
Empire State Building signals on both channels with lower-powered
fill-in transmissions from the Brooklyn sites. (MTA will also
operate from the Brooklyn sites, but not from Empire, on channel
65.)
MTA tells the FCC that its goal with the project is to determine
whether distributed transmission can help remedy the DTV signal
issues that most of the New York stations have experienced in
Brooklyn because their DTV antennas at Empire are side-mounted
due to space restrictions; it also says it expects those signal
issues to be resolved after 2011, when the new Liberty Tower
at the WTC site is complete and the TV stations return there
from Empire.
The New York State Broadcasters Association has named six
new inductees to its Hall of Fame. ABC's Barbara Walters, WLNG
(92.1 Sag Harbor) owner Paul Sidney, former WVOR/WHAM/WBUF owner
Bud Wertheimer, Buffalo legend Danny Neaverth, Albany anchor
Ed Dague and WNYW (Channel 5) anchor/station owner Ernie Anastos
will all be honored June 25-26 at the NYSBA executive conference
in Lake George.
The latest news from the "Not Don Imus" sweepstakes
found MSNBC anchor Joe Scarborough doing his "Morning Joe"
show from WFAN's Astoria studios over both WFAN and MSNBC for
a few days last week; this week, WFAN's Mike Francesa will be
doing the iron-man thing, holding down both morning drive on
660 and half of the "Mike and the Mad Dog" afternoon
show on 660 and the YES Network. There's no evidence to suggest
that this arrangement will be permanent, either - and the rumors
keep quietly swirling of an Imus return (with plenty of apologies
and contrition) after a few more months of interim hosts. (NERW
suspects that, at least right now, such a move would still be
politically all but impossible for CBS Radio and for MSNBC.)
Another staffing change at WQXR (96.3 New York), which has
seen a lot of them lately: afternoon news anchor Steve Powers is retiring, after a long career that's included stops at WICC/WJZZ in Connecticut, WMCA, WNEW-TV
/WNYW, WFAN and ABC Radio News.
In Utica, Bill McAdams is the new operations manager at the
Regent cluster, as well as the new PD at WFRG (104.3 Utica).
McAdams moves back east from KSED (107.5) in the Flagstaff, Arizona
market to replace Tom Jacobsen, who recently moved from Utica
to Albany's WGNA.
(And as long as we're thinking northern Arizona, here's this
week's update on station owner Dennis Jackson as he recovers
from a nasty motorcycle crash: he's out of the hospital in Flagstaff
and recuperating in Prescott, where he's walking more than a
mile each day and building up strength to come home to the northeast
soon.)
Over at WZMR (104.9 Altamont), assistant PD Nik Rivers has
been promoted to PD.
 *Just
one tremendously obscure bit of news from CANADA this
week, and it has to do with TV in eastern Quebec:
CJPC (Channel 18) in Rimouski is changing hands, with the
CRTC approving a transfer that deletes the Rimouski transmitter
from the license of TQS flagship CFJP (Channel 35) in Montreal
and adds it as a relay of Television MBS' TQS affiliate CFTF
(Channel 29) in Riviere-du-Loup.
Why make the move? It allows CJPC to sell local advertising
in Rimouski, where it will eventually add a bit of local programming
as well.
(And yes, obscure though it may be, NERW really has been to
CFTF - that photo comes from a 1998 swing through the St. Lawrence
Valley that brought us to Riviere-du-Loup, though not quite all
the way to Rimouski.)
|
From
the NERW Archives
(Yup, we've been doing this a long time now, and
so we're digging back into the vaults for a look at what NERW
was covering one, five and ten years ago this week, or thereabouts
- the column appeared on an erratic schedule in its earliest
years as "New England Radio Watch," and didn't go to
a regular weekly schedule until 1997. Thanks to LARadio.com
for the idea - and thanks to you, our readers, for the support
that's made all these years of NERW possible!)
June 5, 2006 -
- Some big changes are underway at Clear Channel's big New
York City cluster, most notably in mornings at WKTU (103.5 Lake
Success), which is pulling the plug on the current Baltazar and
Goumba Johnny morning show at the end of July, in favor of Whoopi
Goldberg's new syndicated offering. Whoopi will have a new sidekick,
too, as Paul "Cubby" Bryant moves over from CC sister
station WHTZ (100.3 Newark), where he's now afternoon jock and
music director, to join her on the new morning show. Baltazar
and Goumba had been together on WKTU since 2002, and Boston listeners
might remember Baltazar from an earlier stint in mornings on
WJMN (94.5). (He's also worked at New York's WQHT and Chicago's
WBBM-FM.)
- Another change at Z100: PD Tom Poleman (who's also CC's SVP/programming)
moves up to the operations manager position, with APD Sharon
Dastur, a 10 year veteran at Z, replacing him in the PD chair.
- Longtime Rochester viewers have fond memories of Al White,
the "Troubleshooter" consumer reporter on WOKR (Channel
13, now WHAM-TV) in the seventies and early eighties. White moved
to New York's Channel 9 (WWOR-TV Secaucus) in 1987, then ended
up in North Carolina after a big staff purge at WWOR a few years
later - and we're sorry to report that he died on May 9 in Charlotte,
North Carolina, at 68.
- In NEW JERSEY, a Seton Hall University audit uncovered what
appears to be a long pattern of embezzlement by former WSOU (89.5
South Orange) station manager Michael Collazo. He was arrested
Thursday and charged with money laundering and theft by deception,
which could lead to as much as 10-20 years behind bars if he's
convicted. The university says Collazo, who ran WSOU from 1984-2004,
set up a shell company in 1991 called "Warren Sound Options
Unlimited," which spells out "W.S.O.U." Collazo
is accused of diverting $550,000 in underwriting revenue and
subcarrier lease payments from the station's own account to his
phony "W.S.O.U." account. Collazo had been working
as a flight attendant since he was fired from Seton Hall two
years ago, when problems with the station's accounts began to
surface. The university says its insurance has repaid the missing
money to the proper WSOU accounts.
June 3, 2002 -
- A tornado that swept across eastern NEW YORK Friday afternoon
took down the tower of Gloversville's WENT (1340), temporarily
silencing the local voice of Fulton County. The National Weather
Service says winds at the height of the storm measured at least
73 miles per hour, enough to topple the 180-foot self-supporting
tower behind WENT's Gloversville studios. Crews were at work
over the weekend to repair the antenna to allow WENT to get back
on the air; a new tower will be needed for permanent use.
- Time Warner Cable is getting ready to launch its "Capital
News 9" all-news channel in the Albany market, and that
means hiring a staff to get things going this fall. In addition
to former WNYT (Channel 13) staffer Chris Brunner as news director,
the station has named Mary Rozak, formerly assignment manager
at Fox affiliate WXXA (Channel 23) as assistant news director.
The station also has a logo - borrowed almost exactly from its
Tampa sister operation, Bay News 9!
- MASSACHUSETTS radio listeners will have to try a little harder
to find Laura Schlessinger on the radio. After bumping the Premiere
talker from mid-mornings to an 11 PM delayed broadcast, Entercom's
WRKO (680 Boston) ditched the program completely last week. Occupying
the 11 PM - 1 AM slot, beginning tonight (June 3), will be "VB's
Pleasure Palace," a local talk show hosted by the Howie
Carr producer formerly known as "Virgin Boy." (And
if you were hoping to tune into VB over the Internet, sorry;
WRKO, along with the rest of Entercom's stations around the country,
suspended its streaming audio last week, citing the continuing
questions about copyright issues.)
- A familiar PENNSYLVANIA voice is returning to Philadelphia's
FM airwaves. John De Bella, the longtime morning voice of WMMR
(93.3), will begin doing morning drive at classic rocker WMGK
(102.9) June 10. De Bella's been off the air in Philly for a
few years, since the end of a stint at WYSP (94.1). Ironically,
WMGK and WMMR are both under the same Greater Media corporate
roof these days...
June 5, 1997-
- It's been a very big week for Steve Dodge and the folks at
American Radio Systems. The largest New England-based broadcaster
picked up four more stations in its own back yard last week,
paying a reported $6 million for Precision Media's two AMs and
two FMs on the New Hampshire seacoast. ARS gets standards WZNN
(930) Rochester, standards WMYF (1540) Exeter, adult AC WSRI
(96.7) Rochester, and CHR WERZ (107.1) Exeter. This is the second
time in two weeks that a New Hampshire Seacoast station's been
bought by an out-of-town broadcaster; WSTG (102.1) Hampton, now
under Fuller-Jeffrey control, ended its computerized countdown
Tuesday afternoon and launched a simulcast with F-J's classic
rock WXBB "Arrow" (105.3 Kittery ME).
- There is no word yet on any possible format changes at American
Radio Systems' new seacoast properties; it will be interesting
to see whether the AMs begin picking up sports or talk from ARS's
WEEI and WRKO Boston, and whether the near-CHR of ARS' WBMX (98.5)
Boston shows up as a simulcast up the coast. It will also be
interesting to see whether ARS can exploit WERZ's dial proximity
to another new ARS station, WAAF (107.3 Worcester). WAAF's signal
into Boston is notoriously bad, although it got a boost this
week when ARS took over operation of WNFT (1150 Boston) from
Greater Media and flipped it from a simulcast of country WKLB-FM
96.9 to WAAF's hard rock. WERZ had been one of the factors limiting
a possible eastward move of WAAF (the others are 107.1 WFHN Fairhaven
and third-adjacents WMJX 106.7 Boston and WXKS-FM 107.9 Medford).
Could ARS slide WAAF to the northeast by turning WERZ off? Could
Boston be treated to the sounds of "WAAF Methuen"?
Only time will tell...and NERW will be here to let you know.
- In VERMONT, correspondent Doug Bassett reports Brattleboro's
WKVT-FM (92.7) has dropped the satellite classic rock in afternoon
drive to go live with longtime staffer Bill Howard at the mike.
Crosstown WTSA-FM (96.7) had been the only live voice in town
in the afternoons with John Ashley. This is the first big change
at WKVT since it was bought by Keene NH's WKNE AM/FM earlier
this spring.
- Just over the border, by the way, there will soon be some
new TV signals coming out of Quebec. Quebec City's CKMI (Channel
5) is switching from CBC to Global, and will put relay stations
on the air in several Quebec cities this September. The CKMI
relay in Montreal will be on Channel 67, and may just make it
into northern Vermont. Montreal's CBMT (Channel 6) is expected
to get a relay in Quebec City to maintain CBC English TV service
there. Also expected on the air soon will be Ottawa relays for
Hamilton's CHCH-TV ("ONtv," Channel 11) and Toronto's
CITY-TV (Channel 57). The CHCH relay will also be on channel
11, while Ottawa viewers will get Citytv on 60.
- In MASSACHUSETTS, we find Boston's WGBH trying for an experimental
television license from the WGBH-FM transmitter on Great Blue
Hill. The proposed station, which NERW guesses will be a test
of DTV, will operate on channel 17 with 6.839 kW visual power.
NERW research director Garrett Wollman notes that the DTV Table
of Allocations recently released by the FCC gave WGBH spots at
channels 19 (WGBH-TV) and 43 (WGBX). The table also includes
a channel 18, for WMFP (NTSC channel 62) Lawrence-Boston.
You
can sponsor this new weekly feature! Click here for information! |
*If you were waiting for Tower Site
Calendar 2007 to go on clearance sale - sorry! As of June 1,
the shipping department (which would be Mrs. Fybush, with an
occasional assist from Ariel) informs us that the 2007 edition
is now SOLD OUT.
Many thanks to all of you who've supported the calendar over
the past six years, and stay tuned for details on the even better
Tower Site Calendar 2008, for which ordering will begin
later this summer. (You can be first on the list for the new
edition, which will be back from the printer in early August,
by subscribing or
renewing at the $60 professional level!) And in the meantime,
visit the Fybush.com
Store for information on remaining back issues of the
Tower Site Calendar.
NorthEast Radio Watch is made possible by the generous
contributions of our regular readers. If you enjoy NERW, please
click here to
learn how you can help make continued publication possible. NERW
is copyright
2007 by Scott Fybush. |
