*It was a huge week in broadcasting at both
ends of the Boston-New York axis, and if you're looking for the
big developments from the Big Apple, you may want to keep scrolling
down a bit - we're leading off this week with some even bigger
surprises from eastern MASSACHUSETTS.
The
first came on the radio side of things, when lawyers for veteran
WRKO (680 Boston) afternoon talk host Howie Carr announced last
Monday that he would leave the Entercom talk station when his
contract expires September 19. Instead, Carr's representatives
said, the Boston Herald columnist would take over the
morning shift formerly occupied by Don Imus on Greater Media's
WTKK (96.9 Boston), the FM talker that's been rapidly eroding
the comfortable hold WRKO once had on the city's talk audience.
For Carr, the move would mean head-to-head competition with
WRKO's floundering Tom Finneran morning show - not to mention
a higher salary, a more prominent role in a WTKK lineup that's
live and local most of the day, and no more pre-emptions for
afternoon Red Sox games. For Entercom, which spent hundreds of
millions of dollars to renew its deal with the Red Sox in part
to provide a promotional boost for the WRKO lineup, Carr's departure
is a potential disaster, since his show represented the biggest
revenue draw on the talk station's schedule (as well as a lucrative
syndication offering to other stations around New England.)
As news of Carr's planned move splashed across the headlines
in Boston, things started getting even testier. WRKO, which apparently
had declined to exercise a one-year renewal clause in Carr's
contract, told the Globe that it had the right to match
any offer Carr received from Greater Media. Carr's lawyers responded
with a lawsuit seeking to declare that clause unenforceable,
thanks to the state's new ban on non-compete contracts - and
they noted that while WRKO was willing to match WTKK's salary
offer, it couldn't match the other terms of the new deal, most
notably the morning slot on the FM dial.
Carr was off the air at WRKO for most of the week, but returned
on Thursday with a prepared statement that had been drafted for
him to read. Any illusion that Carr might have agreed with the
words he was reading ("My job is to provide you with the
most entertaining and compelling show that I can do each day,
not to discuss my personal matters") was carefully shattered
with a few "it says here" comments inserted in the
reading - and at week's end, the only certainties were that the
lawyers on both sides will be paying for plenty of summers on
Cape Cod with whatever time they'll lose this summer hashing
this mess out, and that we'll be hearing a lot more about Carr's
planned move in the next few weeks.
*Even as Carr's news was all over the papers and websites
Tuesday, an even more veteran Boston broadcaster was making headlines
of her own. Natalie Jacobson, who's been part of the news team
at WCVB (Channel 5) since the station's first day on the air
more than 35 years ago, announced that she'll retire from the
Hearst-Argyle ABC affiliate after next Wednesday's 6 PM newscast.
Jacobson
has been an anchor on WCVB since 1976, much of that time spent
sharing the anchor desk at 6 and 11 with her former husband,
Chet Curtis. He moved to New England Cable News after their 2001
divorce, while Jacobson slowly eased back on her workload at
Channel 5, giving up the 11 PM newscast and concentrating on
the 6, which she'd been co-anchoring with Ed Harding.
Jacobson, 63, told the Globe that she'd been contemplating
retirement for a while, and that her decision not to seek renewal
of her contract at the end of July came as a surprise to WCVB
management when she informed them in late June. We're hearing,
though, that the decision may not have been Jacobson's - and
the rather abrupt timing of her departure would seem to bear
that out. (On the other hand, WCVB has no designated successor
to Jacobson, and it will rotate reporters in her anchor chair
for a while.)
In any event, Wednesday's farewell will include a special
edition of "Chronicle" devoted to Jacobson's career.
After that, Jacobson says she's going to work on a multimedia
venture aimed at baby boomers in their retirement years.
We expect plenty of tributes to Jacobson in the next few days
- and indeed, the parade has already started, including a national
mention of her retirement from former WCVB colleague Keith Olbermann
on his MSNBC "Countdown" show Thursday night, in which
he suggested that she'd have been a better national news anchor
than Katie Couric.
*In other MASSACHUSETTS news, the market manager for
Clear Channel's Boston stations has moved up. Mike Crusham is
headed to Minneapolis to become VP/market manager for the Clear
Channel stations there; no replacement has been named yet for
the Boston cluster, which includes "Kiss 108" WXKS-FM,
"Jam'n" WJMN and "Rumba" WKOX/WXKS.
Out west, Justin Tyler is leaving WPKX (97.9
Enfield CT), where he's spent the last year as PD/afternoon jock,
to become PD/midday jock at WWGR down in Fort Myers, Florida.
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*There was just one big radio story in NEW
YORK last week, of course, and we pointed the NERW-mobile
south and east for the day on Thursday so we could be there as
WCBS-FM (101.1 New York) relegated "Jack FM" to its
HD2 subchannel and brought the oldies - beg pardon, the "classic
hits" back to the main FM channel they'd occupied from 1972
until the abrupt switch to "Jack" in June 2005.
That format change two years ago took place with no advance
warning and no fanfare, but this time was different. Outside
in Times Square, we spotted one lone CBS-FM fan holding a "welcome
back" sign (with "Hit the Road, Jack" on the flip
side), an echo of the street protests that quickly formed back
in 2005 to protest the format flip.
Up on the 40th floor of the Viacom building at 1515 Broadway,
guests stepping off the elevators saw no sign of "Jack"
- just the new-old WCBS-FM logo all over the place, and more
than a few magnets and stickers bearing the 2005-era logo adorning
cubicles and filing cabinets as well.
In the sales office, there was food (including an authentic
New York hot dog cart) for invited guests and top CBS Radio management,
at a level rarely seen for your usual format change. That included
programming VP Greg Strassell, engineering honcho Glynn Walden
- and, of course, Dan Mason, the CBS Radio president who's set
in motion a whole series of changes since returning to that post
a few months ago, including this format flip.
Half an hour before the scheduled 1:01 PM format change, the
assembled media (including Daily News radio columnist
David Hinckley, at left above, and most of the city's TV stations)
began moving down the hall toward the studios.
At 12:40, general manager Jennifer Donohue (below, left) and
PD Brian Thomas (in the background, below left) entered the air
studio to administer the last rites, as it were, to Jack.
After
a series of joking liners during the last day in which "Jack"
(voiced by Canadian VO artist Howard Cogan) gets flowers from
Bob Shannon ("Who's Bob Shannon?") and an unexpected
delivery of moving boxes, the final "Jack" bit found
him on the phone with Tony Soprano - and after an abrupt "gotta
go," the strains of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'"
blasted from the speakers, the room applauded, and Jack was off
to HD2 retirement.
In good "Sopranos" finale fashion, the Journey tune
abruptly cut off before its end - and the next sounds heard on
101.1 were radio static, the noise of a jukebox coming up to
speed, and the strains of Frank Sinatra singing "Summer
Wind," the infamous last song played on the old CBS-FM back
in 2005. That, in turn, gave way to a long montage of songs,
soundbites and news clips tracking the years from 1964 into the
eighties, and as the montage plays on, the crowd in the studio
kept growing.
As 1:01 PM approached, the montage wrapped up with a greeting
from former mayor Ed Koch, acknowledging how rare it is for a
big corporation to admit it "blew it," followed by
"I Love New York" and the booming WCBS-FM legal ID,
voiced - just as in the old days - by Ziggie Pelzer. The room
cheered, the Beach Boys' "Do It Again" started playing,
Shannon started dancing, and CBS-FM was back on the air.
The mikes finally opened after the Beach Boys song, as morning
man Dan Taylor led the room in a shout of "We're back!,"
which led into Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons' "December
1963 (Oh What A Night.)" After that, Shannon's first on-air
words in two years - "As I was about to say..." - poked
fun at the afternoon shift he never got to do on that fateful
day in 2005. Shannon then introduced the new DJ lineup, including
former WKTU jock Broadway Bill Lee in afternoons, Joe Causi on
weekends (and, for this first day, at night as well), and Jeff
Mazzei, who programmed the HD2 incarnation of CBS-FM during the
"Jack" era, on overnights. (From left to right, that's
Lee, Taylor, Mazzei, Causi and Shannon in the jock photo above.)
After Donohue joined Shannon to read a proclamation from Mayor
Michael Bloomberg, who had publicly proclaimed back in 2005 that
he'd never listen to the station again, the guests eventually
begin filing out of the studio, letting Shannon and then Lee
bring the music (and, perhaps more important, the personality)
back to CBS-FM.
In good early 21st-century multimedia fashion, here's a short
video montage of the scene in the studio in the minutes leading
up to the big format change:
The revived CBS-FM includes a big online component of its
own, and there's plenty more video of the jocks and the format
change over at the station's
new website. Beyond the station's official web presence,
we've also got to acknowledge the influence that Allan Sniffen's
New York Radio
Message Board had on the return to oldies - even Lee and
Taylor, in talking about the flip Thursday afternoon, noted how
vocal the online community had been about the flip to Jack in
2005, and how dedicated they'd been to the oldies format during
its exile. Sniffen's site, which spawned a WCBS-only board to
discuss the return of oldies, lit up with messages from around
the world (and from Bob Shannon himself, too) commenting on the
transition, speculating on DJ lineups, criticizing the lack of
50s music (and the abundance of 80s tunes) on the revived CBS-FM,
and celebrating the return of personalities to the station.
We're not above a bit of speculating here, too: while the
biggest weekday shifts on the station are solidly filled by Taylor,
Shannon and Lee, much of the rest of the lineup remains up in
the air. Pat St. John (more closely identified with rock stations
such as WNEW-FM and WPLJ) took the reins Friday night, but no
permanent evening host has been chosen. Nor have most of the
weekend shifts been filled - which leaves plenty of room to wonder
whether market veterans such as Dan Ingram, "Cousin Brucie"
Morrow, Harry Harrison and Don K. Reed might come out of retirement
(or satellite radio) for a few hours back on the airwaves.
(One more note, just because nobody else has mentioned it,
and because we'd hate to think we dragged our HD tuner down to
the city for nothing - over on WCBS-FM's HD2 channel, the oldies
ended very abruptly a little after 12:40, as the HD2 shifted
into a simulcast with the main channel partway through "Don't
Stop Believin'." The simulcast ended just before 2, with
some production-room audio (congratulatory phone calls from listeners
being edited) finding its way on to the HD2 airwaves before Jack
resumed with Tom Petty's "The Waiting" right around
2.)
*Upstate, EMF Broadcasting has closed on the $3.5 million
purchase of WOOB (93.7 Scotia), WBOE (94.5 Ravena) and WSCP-FM
(101.7 Pulaski) from Galaxy Communications. EMF has been LMA'ing
the stations since February, running its "K-Love" format
on Albany-market WBOE and Syracuse-market WSCP and its "Air
1" on Albany-market WOOB. WSCP-FM had already changed calls
(to WGKV) when we drove through on Thursday night on the way
home from New York; the Albany stations will soon change calls
to WYKV (on 94.5) and WYAI (on 93.7), if they haven't done so
already.
In Buffalo, Adam-12 has departed the night shift at WEDG (103.3),
moving south to take over nights at WBBB-FM (96.1) in Raleigh,
North Carolina.
West of Binghamton,
Dave Radigan's WEBO (1330 Owego) was granted its CP last week
to go to 3500 watts days, 36 watts nights, non-directional -
and Dave's wasting no time getting a new tower built to replace
the temporary antenna that WEBO's been using for the last few
years at a power much lower than its licensed daytime 5 kW. Dave
checks in with NERW to let us know he's expecting a tower crew
this week, and hopes to have the new tower just across the Susquehanna
River from downtown Owego up and testing by next weekend. (We'll
try to get some pictures for you soon...)
On the TV side of things, Rochester's WHAM-TV (Channel 13)
said farewell to weekend meteorologist Richard McCullough last
night; after a long run in Rochester that's also included stints
at WHEC (Channel 10) and as a fill-in talk host on WXXI (1370),
he's heading to South Carolina, where we understand he'll be
producing a show for the deaf and hard of hearing.
*The CBS-FM format flip is having side effects
in NEW JERSEY, where the oldies torch has been carried
for the last couple of years by Press Broadcasting's "Breeze,"
WWZY (107.1 Long Branch)/WBHX (99.7 Tuckerton). Former WCBS-FM
PD Joe McCoy is down at the Breeze now, as are jocks Mike Fitzgerald
in mornings and, as of this week, Randy Davis in afternoons,
where he replaces Captain Jack (no relation to the 101.1 "Jack"!)
Meanwhile, the Breeze loses its weekend midday guy, a certain
Bob Shannon, to the big city. ("I had a little vacation
at the Jersey Shore," Shannon noted during his first hour
back on the air at WCBS-FM as he played Bruce Springsteen's "Glory
Days.")
Over in Hunterdon County, WCVH (90.5 Flemington) at Hunterdon
Central High School has a new director, as Chris Puorro comes
to the school to teach broadcasting and run the station. Puorro
had been PD for Nassau's Hagerstown, Maryland cluster (WWEG/WAFY/WARK),
and he'll continue to do some work for Nassau, where he had previously
been APD/music director at Trenton's WPST.
BEAT THE PASSWORD RUSH! We've been holding out against the inevitable
for many years now, but the time has come. After six years of
giving away NorthEast Radio Watch for free, and six more years
of asking for voluntary subscriptions from our loyal readers,
we can no longer deny reality: if NERW is to continue on as the
authoritative source of Northeast radio and TV news that it's
become, the burden has to be shared across all our readers,
not just those who pay for it voluntarily. So this fall, current
issues of NERW and most of the NERW archives from 2003 onward
will become password-protected for access by paid subscribers
only.
(A few recent issues will remain
accessible without a password, and we have no intention of excluding
anyone who's truly unable to pay from reading the site. You'll
be hearing more about those plans in the months to come.)
If you're already a NERW subscriber,
nothing will change for you. Before the transition takes place,
you'll receive a password and you'll continue to have full access
to the site.
If you're not already a NERW
subscriber, now's the time to do something about it. By becoming
a charter subscriber now, you'll get the benefit of our current
low subscription rates, and you'll have no worries about waiting
for a password when the changeover happens this fall. And did
we mention that you'll be first in line for the Tower Site
Calendar 2008, free to our premium subscribers?
We've tried for many years to
hold off this financial reality, but it's become hard to ignore.
Not long 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. And even with a subscription model, we've just
received word that the respected and venerable FMedia! newsletter
has gone on what's likely a permanent hiatus.
We have every intention of keeping
NERW going strong as we head for our 15th anniversary in 2009,
and for many years thereafter, and we're deeply grateful to the
many readers who've already come forward with their support in
recent years, as well as to the advertisers who've learned how
advertising on NERW can reach one of the best audiences in broadcasting
at a very economical rate.
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-free.
And if you have become one of our many subscribers, thank
you!
*There's a new radio owner in northeast PENNSYLVANIA,
as Robert Cordaro sells WITK (1550 Pittston) to Wilkins Communications
for $400,000. Cordaro had been leasing WITK to Holy Family Communications,
which was simulcasting its Catholic religious programming (also
heard in the area on WQOR 750 Olyphant) on the 1550 signal.
Wilkins runs religion on its two other Pennsylvania AMs, WYYC
(1250 York) and WWNL (1080 Pittsburgh), and on 13 other AMs around
the country, and we expect a format change at the Scranton-market
signal once the deal closes, too. (John Pierce & Co. was
the broker for Wilkins, while Richard A. Foreman and Associates
represented Cordaro.)
Radio One has named a new operations manager at its Philadelphia
cluster, replacing the departed Daisy Davis. Elroy R.C. Smith
takes over the Philly job, moving from Chicago, where he was
operations manager at Clear Channel's WVAZ.
*VERMONT is getting its first 10 PM
TV newscast, and not from the station you'd expect. Burlington
Fox affiliate WFFF (Channel 44) has been advertising for a news
director and staff as it prepares to launch a 10 o'clock show,
but it's getting beaten to the punch tonight when market-leading
CBS affiliate WCAX-TV (Channel 3) launches its own early late
news. WCAX's 10 PM newscast will air on its local weather channel,
seen on DTV 3.2 and on Comcast digital cable.
In southern
Vermont, WTSA (1450/96.7 Brattleboro) is moving this fall. After
14 years in a converted house in West Brattleboro, the station's
taking over the former Roller Drome building on Putney Road,
not far from its AM and FM transmitter sites. The 5,000 square
foot facility is just down the road from the old Putney Road
studios where the stations were located before their 1993 move.
*Heading up to CANADA, the CRTC's
been busy approving new signals. In Sudbury, Ontario, six applicants
(including incumbent broadcasters Haliburton and Newcap) responded
to a call for applications last fall. The CRTC heard from the
applicants at a hearing in March, and last week it ruled that
Sudbury should get one new FM. Larche Communications was the
winner, and it'll do country (probably under its "KICX FM"
brand) on its new 50 kW signal in Sudbury.
In Leamington, Ontario, Blackburn Radio is getting a second
signal to add to its existing CHYR-FM (96.7). The new station
will run 960 watts on 92.7, with a country format.
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!)
July 17, 2006 -
It was a bad week at NEW YORK's Black Rock - but even more
so for more than a hundred CBS Radio staffers around the country,
including some veterans of the company, whose jobs were cut in
a mass layoff. Among the biggest names in New York City to fall
under the budget-cutting axe were Chad Brown, general manager
of "Jack FM" WCBS-FM (101.1 New York) and Rob Barnett,
president of programming at CBS Radio. Out in Los Angeles, where
he led KROQ to revenue dominance, general manager Trip Reeb (a
veteran of Rochester's WCMF, way back when) lost his job.
Across town in Poughkeepsie, the old WKIP (1450) building
at 20 Tucker Drive was demolished last Tuesday. Chief engineer
Bill Draper tells NERW that Clear Channel originally planned
to keep the building (which dated from 1968), but with no easy
way to connect it to the two-year-old studio complex next door
that now houses WKIP and its sister stations, the decision was
made to demolish it and replace it with a new addition to the
current studio building. (Longtime WKIP/WRNQ morning man Van
Ritshie came up from Florida to take the first whack at the old
building.)
What's up with Mario Mazza? The WCRB (102.5 Waltham) programming
VP took issue with reports here and elsewhere last week that
he had exited the classical station to take a new job running
public radio WHIL (91.3) down in Mobile, Alabama. We're always
happy to correct errors when we make them, so we'll note that
Mazza is still at WCRB right now. But the president of Spring
Hill College, which owns WHIL, confirms to the Globe that they've
hired Mazza down in Mobile and still expect him to start there
this fall, so we're standing by that part of the story. Mazza
has not replied to our request for clarification. (2007 update:
Mazza is now running WHIL in Mobile.)
A happy 75th anniversary to one of the oldest stations in
VERMONT. WDEV (550 Waterbury), one of the finest community radio
outlets in New England, marked that milestone yesterday, with
tributes that included a special section in the Barre-Montpelier
Times Argus and an ice cream social for current and former staff.
It made big headlines last year in eastern PENNSYLVANIA when
Radio One pulled the modern rock format off WPLY (100.3 Media),
sending "Y100" into exile as a webcast. Now "Y"
is returning to the broadcast airwaves in collaboration with
innovative public radio station WXPN (88.5 Philadelphia). WXPN
has hired former Y100 PD Jim McGuinn to launch its "Y-Rock
on XPN" programming, which will include over-the-air segments
on WXPN's main channel on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 8-11
PM and Fridays from 7-11 PM, beginning August 30. The "y100rocks.com"
site that has carried the torch for Y since the station went
off the air last year will be merged into WXPN's "XPoNential
Music" web service, and will relaunch August 1 as "yrockonxpn.org."
July 15, 2002 -
Is the regulatory tide turning against big clusters and consolidation?
A proposed Clear Channel purchase in MAINE is one of three deals
facing a level of scrutiny the FCC hasn't employed in decades.
Clear Channel has been operating WSKW (1160 Skowhegan) and WHQO
(107.9 Skowhegan) under an LMA from Mountain Wireless for several
years, ever since Mountain's proposed sale of the stations to
Cumulus fell through due to financial problems at the Cumulus
end.
Last October, Clear Channel filed to convert the LMA to ownership,
a deal that would give Mountain Wireless $1.8 million and add
WHQO and WSKW to the rest of the Clear Channel Augusta-Waterville
cluster, a group that includes WFAU (1280 Gardiner), WCTB (93.5
Fairfield), WKCG (101.3 Augusta), WABK (104.3 Gardiner) and WTOS
(105.1 Skowhegan, another former Mountain Wireless station).
WHQO has been simulcasting the talk programming from Clear Channel's
WVOM (103.9 Howland) in the Bangor market, while WSKW has been
sharing a sports format with WFAU and WIGY (97.5 Madison, just
returned to the air this week after suffering tower damage).
For the last few months, the Mountain stations have even operated
from the same Augusta facility as the other Clear Channel central
Maine stations.
The hitch? If the deal is approved by the FCC (it already
has Justice Department clearance), Clear Channel and Citadel
(which has WMME/WEZW and WEBB/WTVL in the market) would share
a whopping 99.5% of the radio revenues in the market, with just
a handful of commercially-licensed religious stations (WMDR 1340,
WWWA 95.3) as "competition" for radio ad dollars. So
the FCC has designated the WHQO/WSKW sale, along with a Clear
Channel purchase in Youngstown, Ohio (WRTK 1540 Niles OH, WAKZ
95.9 Sharpsville PA, WICT 95.1 Grove City PA, WBBG 106.1 Niles
OH) and another one in Killeen-Temple, Texas, for a hearing on
market concentration. Stay tuned as the Commission sets what
promises to be a new precedent for acceptable levels of station
revenue and ratings share...we'll keep you posted.
Two MASSACHUSETTS PDs lost their jobs last week, both at
Entercom stations in the Boston market. Jeff Scott, who came
to "Star" WQSX (93.7 Lawrence) just this past April,
was out the door last Monday, followed shortly by Dave Douglas,
who'd helmed WAAF (107.3 Worcester) for several years. Douglas
will be replaced by Keith Hastings, inbound from Saga active
rocker WLZR in Milwaukee; no replacement has been named yet for
Scott.
The NEW YORK TV dial continues to return to normalcy as the
one-year anniversary of September 11 approaches. The latest station
to return to full power after losing its World Trade Center transmitter
is Telemundo's WNJU (Channel 47), licensed to Linden, N.J. WNJU
had been using the Armstrong FM tower in Alpine, N.J. as a temporary
site for the last few months, with a weak signal over most of
the city. It signed back on from the Empire State Building July
1, leaving only Pax's WPXN (Channel 31) operating from another
site.
July 17, 1997-
Our top story this week comes from MASSACHUSETTS, Springfield
to be exact, where Clear Channel's WHYN (560/93.1) announced
this week that its newsroom will close at the end of August,
with Metro Networks taking over WHYN's news product on September
1. WHYN employed three full-time newspeople, and all of them
(news director Denise Vozella, Sid Whitaker, and Bill Erickson)
have been offered jobs at Metro's Hartford newsroom, which will
provide news for WHYN.
WHYN's Gary James tells NERW that "this is an opportunity
for the WHYN listeners to get even more local coverage because
of the resources of Metro," and he says that while the WHYN/Metro
news staff will be based in Hartford, they'll still do street
reporting in Springfield and have an office at the WHYN studios.
Other Springfield-area radio listeners aren't quite as optimistic;
recently-retired WHYN anchor Ron Russell (DeMatteo) tells the
Springfield Union-News that the change feels "like a death
in my immediate family." And while WHYN management says
listeners won't notice any difference on the air, NERW has learned
that the current WHYN news staffers aren't in any hurry to accept
Metro's job offers in Hartford, meaning WHYN listeners could
soon hear a new set of voices at the top of each hour. NERW has
also learned that Hartford's WTIC (1080), targeted as one of
Metro's likely clients for the Hartford newsroom, has decided
to stick with its own news operation because of concerns about
the depth and quality of Metro's offerings.
Around New England: In MASSACHUSETTS, ARS has found yet another
station to simulcast over its WNFT (1150) in Boston. The latest
programming to show up on 1150 is sister sports station WEEI
(850); no word on how long this one will last. In New Bedford,
an organization called New Bedford Christian Radio has applied
for a new station at 88.1; NERW wonders whether they'll co-locate
on the Tiverton RI tower of New Bedford-licensed WLNE-TV 6 to
minimize interference....or whether WLNE will quash the application
from the start.
In VERMONT, WXPS (96.7 Vergennes-Burlington) is back on with
a sports-talk format; the calls stay where they are for now.
The FCC has granted a translator at 96.3 in Quechee. W242AG will
be the new calls for the relay of religious WCMD Barre. Just
to the north, we're told 106.3 will be the new frequency for
the CBC's CBV (980) in Quebec City, while the plans are to move
Ste.-Adele's CIME from 99.5 to 103.9, and Montreal's CBM from
940 to 88.5. The FCC is still sparring with the CRTC over plans
to move the 88.5 allocation from Cornwall ON to Montreal; they're
worried about interference to WWPV (88.7) Colchester VT and WXLU
(88.3) Peru NY.
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*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,
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2007 by Scott Fybush.
The
first came on the radio side of things, when lawyers for veteran
WRKO (680 Boston) afternoon talk host Howie Carr announced last
Monday that he would leave the Entercom talk station when his
contract expires September 19. Instead, Carr's representatives
said, the Boston Herald columnist would take over the
morning shift formerly occupied by Don Imus on Greater Media's
WTKK (96.9 Boston), the FM talker that's been rapidly eroding
the comfortable hold WRKO once had on the city's talk audience.
Jacobson
has been an anchor on WCVB since 1976, much of that time spent
sharing the anchor desk at 6 and 11 with her former husband,
Chet Curtis. He moved to New England Cable News after their 2001
divorce, while Jacobson slowly eased back on her workload at
Channel 5, giving up the 11 PM newscast and concentrating on
the 6, which she'd been co-anchoring with Ed Harding.
After
a series of joking liners during the last day in which "Jack"
(voiced by Canadian VO artist Howard Cogan) gets flowers from
Bob Shannon ("Who's Bob Shannon?") and an unexpected
delivery of moving boxes, the final "Jack" bit found
him on the phone with Tony Soprano - and after an abrupt "gotta
go," the strains of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'"
blasted from the speakers, the room applauded, and Jack was off
to HD2 retirement.
West of Binghamton,
Dave Radigan's WEBO (1330 Owego) was granted its CP last week
to go to 3500 watts days, 36 watts nights, non-directional -
and Dave's wasting no time getting a new tower built to replace
the temporary antenna that WEBO's been using for the last few
years at a power much lower than its licensed daytime 5 kW. Dave
checks in with NERW to let us know he's expecting a tower crew
this week, and hopes to have the new tower just across the Susquehanna
River from downtown Owego up and testing by next weekend. (We'll
try to get some pictures for you soon...)
In southern
Vermont, WTSA (1450/96.7 Brattleboro) is moving this fall. After
14 years in a converted house in West Brattleboro, the station's
taking over the former Roller Drome building on Putney Road,
not far from its AM and FM transmitter sites. The 5,000 square
foot facility is just down the road from the old Putney Road
studios where the stations were located before their 1993 move.