August 20, 2007

WCRB, WEEI Partner Up

• MAINE
• NEW HAMPSHIRE
• MASSACHUSETTS
• VERMONT
• RHODE ISLAND
• CONNECTICUT
• NEW YORK
• NEW JERSEY
• PENNSYLVANIA
• CANADA
• CLASSIFIEDS
• FROM THE ARCHIVES

*The future of commercial classical radio in eastern MASSACHUSETTS was supposed to have been secure after last year's big shuffle that sent the intellectual property of WCRB (102.5 Waltham) to New Jersey-based Nassau Broadcasting, landing WCRB's classical format on the former WKLB-FM (99.5 Lowell).

Last Thursday, WCRB's fate took a quick roller-coaster ride in the press and on the message boards, beginning with morning reports that Nassau was thinking of flipping 99.5 from classical to sports, challenging Entercom's WEEI (850 Boston) with a lineup that would include WEEI's current morning team of John Dennis and Gerry Callahan.

By the end of the day, though, a different picture emerged: instead of competing with Entercom and WEEI, Nassau is joining forces with the bigger broadcaster, selling a half-interest in WCRB to Entercom for $10 million in cash and a deal to put WEEI's sports programming on 11 Nassau stations on Cape Cod and across northern New England.

Here's how it plays out: WEEI's network, which already includes Entercom-owned signals in Worcester (WVEI 1440), Springfield (WVEI-FM 105.5 Easthampton) and Providence (WEEI-FM 103.7 Westerly), will expand to cover most of the rest of the region. As NERW goes to press, we've identified some - but not all - of the Nassau signals that will become WEEI relays.

On the Cape, it's rocker WPXC (102.9 Hyannis) that will go all-sports, tucking in nicely on the dial right next to the wide-coverage WEEI-FM signal on 103.7. (Will "Pixy," or at least its Opie & Anthony morning show, be reborn on one or both of Nassau's Cape Cod "Frank" simulcasts, WFQR 93.5/WFRQ 101.1?)

In Portland, MAINE, Nassau will replace ESPN sports with WEEI's New England sports talk on WLVP (870 Gorham) and WLAM (1470 Lewiston), providing a much stronger challenge to J.J. Jeffrey's "WJAB" sports trifecta (WJAE 1440/WJJB 900/WJJB-FM 95.5), and raising the strong possibility that the Red Sox will move over to 870/1470 when their contract with WJAB is up.

In Laconia, NEW HAMPSHIRE, the WEEI network will land on WEMJ (1490), replacing a combination of talk and travel information that's never caught fire in the ratings.

Over in the Connecticut River Valley, along the VERMONT border, the ESPN "Score" simulcast of WTSV (1230 Claremont NH) and WNHV (910 White River Junction VT) will join the WEEI network.

By our math, that still leaves five more WEEI affiliates yet to be named. In their press release announcing the deal, Entercom and Nassau announced the markets in question as being Cape Cod, Portland, Lebanon/Rutland/White River Junction, Concord/Lakes Region and Montpelier/St. Johnsbury. Only the last of those isn't on the list of stations we've seen so far, though it's not at all out of the question that there might be other stations in those first four markets, too, especially in the Manchester/Concord area, where Nassau has five FMs with a variety of rock, pop and country formats.

We'll know the rest of the stations involved in this deal soon enough, certainly - but the real question in our minds is what happens next.

Here are some of the questions we're wondering about, now that the door's been opened to a bigger WEEI network and a new relationship between Nassau and Entercom:

• What about the rest of New England? Even after this initial deal, the WEEI network will still be missing a few key parts of the region. Nassau can't help out much where the Hartford area is concerned, nor with Burlington, Vermont, where several move-in signals will be on the market soon enough if WEEI really needs a toehold there. But there's also Augusta and Bangor, Maine, an area blanketed by the FM signals of Nassau's four-station "W-Bach" classical network - which just happens to be quietly for sale, we're hearing.
• So what was that about a committment to classical music? It was only a year or so ago when Nassau was making big noises about its corporate passion for the classical format; in fact, we recall a press release or two that talked about using the newly-acquired WCRB intellectual property as a springboard for an expansion of classical radio to even more of its New England stations. A year later, WCRB itself was widely rumored to be flipping to sports, and W-Bach is for sale. Not that we're surprised to find out that the Red Sox trump Rachmaninoff when it comes to building a regional network - but we're not expecting any new WCRB relays anywhere, either.
• What now for Dennis and Callahan? The sports talkers can't be in a very comfortable situation right now. There's no reason to believe they had any idea about an Entercom/Nassau deal when they were negotiating to launch a sports format on WCRB. Now there's no sports WCRB as an escape hatch, which means they'll pretty much have to take whatever deal Entercom offers in order to get back on the air at WEEI, as we expect they'll do sooner or later.
• Or was the talk about sports on WCRB more than just a smokescreen? Here we're delving deep into speculation. We simply don't know - and nobody's saying, of course - whether Entercom and Nassau already had a network deal put in place before Dennis and Callahan started negotiating for what they thought would be a rival offer. Was the announcement of the expanded WEEI/Nassau network something that had been in the works for a while, or was it a hastily-arranged deal to avoid the competition that a Dennis and Callahan-led WCRB would have offered to WEEI? Why, for that matter, is Nassau selling half of WCRB for only $10 million, after spending $60 million or so to acquire the station just a year ago? Yes, Nassau gets attractive regional programming, and likely Red Sox baseball within a few years, at a number of struggling signals, but even so, that doesn't speak especially well of the value of the classical format on 99.5 going forward, and it keeps us wondering...
• ...Is 99.5 going to end up as part of the WEEI network, too? Yes, Entercom and Nassau made all the right noises in their press releases last week about being deeply committed to the classical format on WCRB, but we've heard those lofty intentions before. On the other hand, Entercom has seen huge success in Rhode Island with WEEI's sports programming on a big-coverage FM signal, and as the company struggles to make its expensive Red Sox contract pay off, we'd have to imagine that the idea of a similar FM signal just north of Boston will look increasingly good to the Entercom brass. (Did we mention that the 99.5 signal not only nicely complements the 103.7 signal from the south, but that it also fills in some gaps in the 850 signal north and west of Boston at night?) Again, we emphasize that we're in purely speculative mode here - but an eventual WEEI FM outlet on 99.5 seems like a likely possibility to us. (In fact, we'll go so far as to wonder whether the talk about a Nassau sports network on 99.5 wasn't a way of testing the waters, to see how loud the outcry would be if WCRB, already much diminished from its heyday on 102.5, were to disappear entirely, or perhaps be relegated to an HD2 somewhere.)

Enough speculation for the moment - we'll return to the land of facts with a correction from last week's NERW, in which we followed the Taunton Gazette's report of the demise of WPEP (1570) there. In a Mark Twain-esque moment, that demise turned out to have been premature. We're told by several folks in the Taunton area that WPEP is still on the air for at least a little while longer, probably about a month or so. Its morning show is, however, being simulcast on WVBF (1530 Middleborough Center), and will eventually move there, along with other WPEP shows when WPEP does go silent.

A media name on the move: Jesse Noyes has made a name for himself at the Boston Herald covering the media business beat, and now he's taking his reporting to a new venue: he's joined the Boston Business Journal, and we wish him well there.

IT'S CALENDAR TIME! Think the arrival of the new phone book is an exciting time of year? (We do, actually, with apologies to Steve Martin, but that's not the point.) Here's a really exciting spot on the calendar - in fact, it is the calendar. Yes, the 2008 Tower Site Calendar is back from the printer and ready for shipping all over the US and beyond. This year's edition is a particularly fine one, if we do say so ourselves. From the cover photo of KAST in Astoria, Oregon to the back cover shot of the Blaw-Knox diamond tower at WBNS in Columbus, this year's calendar features 14 all-new full-color shots of famous broadcast sites far and wide. There's KROQ in Los Angeles, KFBK in Sacramento, WESX in Salem, WGAN in Portland, Black Mountain in Vegas, Mount Spokane in Spokane, and many (ok, several) more. If you've been following our adventures, you know that the 2006 and 2007 editions of the calendar sold out. If you've been following postal rates and the cost of printing, you know they've both gone up. Which is to say, there's every reason to order this year's calendar right away - especially because the price will go up after September 30. Get your order in now, and you'll be able to have all this tower-calendar goodness on your wall for last year's price - just $17 with shipping and handling included. Or better yet, beat our move to mandatory subscriptions (also coming this fall) and get a free calendar with your $60 subscription to NERW for 2008. (Remember, the proceeds from both the calendar and the subscriptions help keep NERW right here on the web, as we head into our fourteenth year of news and analysis.) So click right here and you can be one of the first to have your very own Tower Site Calendar 2008! (And thank you!)

*There was pretty big news from RHODE ISLAND late last week, too, as former Providence mayor Buddy Cianci, newly freed from federal custody, announced his return to the radio airwaves. Cianci had established a successful second career (third, if you count his line of pasta sauce) as a talk host at WPRO (630 Providence) before his incarceration, and so it wasn't that much of a surprise when the mayor showed up by phone on WPRO Thursday to announce that he's returning to the Citadel talk station.

WPRO says Cianci will start Sept. 20, but it's not yet saying where he'll fit into a talk lineup that will continue to include Ron St. Pierre (5-8), John DePetro (8-12), Rush Limbaugh (12-3) and Dan Yorke (3-7). (We'd bet on DePetro and Yorke each losing time from their shifts, with Cianci landing in late mornings.)

*The worst-kept secret in NEW YORK radio became official last week, as Boomer Esiason and Craig Carton were announced as the new morning team at WFAN (660 New York). More interesting than that announcement, we think, is Tom Taylor's report that WFAN tried - and failed - to lure Bob Costas away from his St. Louis home base with a lucrative offer that would have put the NBC/HBO sports legend in Don Imus' old slot at 660.

As for Imus, the denials continue at WABC (770 New York), the station widely rumored to be the I-Man's next radio home now that he's settling his legal dispute with CBS. It bears noting that the denials, so far, have come at the local station level - not at the Citadel corporate level, where such a deal would be more likely to be negotiated.

In Albany, WEEV (1300 Rensselaer) has replaced the now-defunct GreenStone talk network with its previous format, ESPN sports. WEEV is now simulcasting sister station WTMM (104.5 Mechanicsville), except during Yankees games, which are FM-only since WTMM moved its format off 1300 earlier this year.

*In central NEW JERSEY, one talk opening has been filled, even as another opens with Craig Carton's move from WKXW (New Jersey 101.5) in Trenton to WFAN.

The filled opening is at WCTC (1450 New Brunswick), where Alan David Stein fills the 3-6 PM talk slot that had been occupied by Judith Leblein. Stein had been a fill-in host at WCTC, and before that, he worked at New Jersey 101.5.

So what happens over there now? Ray Rossi, Carton's co-host, is still on the air at the "Jersey Guys" afternoon show - and Casey Bartholomew, half of the old "Scott and Casey" show that preceded the "Jersey Guys," was back last week filling Carton's seat. Will that become permanent? 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.

*Some DTV news from PENNSYLVANIA: the FCC has released its Seventh Report & Order on the digital TV conversion, and while most of the digital channel assignments across the region remain unchanged from the last round of elections, there's one change in the Pittsburgh market. CBS' WPCW (Channel 19) won't stay on channel 49, where its present digital signal is assigned. Instead, WPCW-DT will end up on channel 11, the spot being vacated by the analog signal of NBC affiliate WPXI, which stays on its digital channel, 48. (And we'd once again remind our readers that this will all be transparent to viewers; thanks to the magic of channel remapping, WPXI's digital signal will still appear as "channel 11" on DTV tuners, while WNPA will still appear as "channel 19.")

If you're looking for a complete list of the final (for now) DTV assignments, Mike Fitzpatrick's NECRAT.com is the place to go - he's been keeping track of them all across the region.

Our friends at PBRTV.com are reporting a format change near Erie: WYNE (1530 North East) flips from a simulcast of fine arts WMCE (88.5 Erie) to an oldies format, in AM stereo no less. WYNE and WMCE are both owned by Mercyhurst College, and the AM station will be a teaching tool for radio students at the Erie school.

*In CANADA, it's moving day for CKKK (99.5 Peterborough ON), as the religious rock station (known on-air as "Radio KAOS") slides down the dial to 90.5 today. The move was approved by the CRTC and Industry Canada just a few weeks ago (July 9, to be exact), and it's happening in a hurry to allow CTV's CKPT (1420) to implement its approved move to 99.3, which should happen shortly thereafter.

Dennis Trudeau, the longtime anchor of CBMT (Channel 6)'s evening local news, as well as several CBC network shows, is joining Corus' CINW (940 Montreal) as its new morning host. Trudeau will begin Sept. 3, with Aphrodite Salas as his co-host.

There's a new PD at the CTV FM stations in Ottawa. Milkman UnLimited reports that Al Smith is inbound to CKKL (93.9 Bob FM) and CJMJ (Majic 100.3) from sister station CHST (102.3 Bob FM) in London. Meanwhile, Lisa Morgan is moving from overnights on CKKL to CKMB (107.5 KOOL FM) in Barrie, where she'll do middays.

Another move out of Ottawa finds Brad Dryden, late of CKQB (106.9 the Bear)'s morning slot, taking the morning co-host gig at CIOO (100.1 in Halifax), where he starts Sept. 4.

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