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GETCHER 2008 TOWER SITE CALENDAR - BEFORE THEY'RE ALL GONE!

Still haven't ordered your 2008 Tower Site Calendar? You do realize that it's now...er...2008, don't you? We're already down to the last 60 or so calendars, and they're going fast. The 2006 and 2007 editions of the calendar sold out, and this one will do so as well, possibly as soon as this month.

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.

The calendar is just $18 with shipping and handling included - or better yet, beat our move to mandatory subscriptions later this year 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 sure to have your very own Tower Site Calendar 2008! (And thank you!)

April 16, 2007 -

• LAS VEGAS - As this year's NAB convention gets underway, there's one topic dominating conversation across the radio industry: the maelstrom of controversy, media self-absorption and deep-seated American cultural issues that all came together last week in a perfect storm that ended - at least for now - the long career of Don Imus. When we sat down to write last week's column, we didn't even mention the remarks Imus had made the previous Thursday. At that point, it didn't look like a regional media story to us - just another set of media watchdogs trying to make political hay over what appeared then to be just another in Imus' long history of incendiary remarks.
• So what happened? Television, for one thing: Imus' MSNBC simulcast provided video of the remark, which helped turn it into the lead story across the cable news channels (especially, interestingly enough, MSNBC itself) for several days running. It also provided a pressure point for the groups that quickly allied to try to get Imus off the air. By Monday night, MSNBC announced it would suspend Imus for two weeks, and his radio flagship WFAN (660) quickly followed suit. But the suspension wasn't slated to take effect until today, to allow Imus to take part in WFAN's annual radiothon on Thursday and Friday. In a long list of bad decisions (beginning, of course, with Imus' initial remarks), that one may prove to have been the worst, since it kept Imus in the public eye just as the storm was building to its crescendo - the Tuesday news conference with the members of the Rutgers basketball team that put human faces and voices to the caricatures Imus had tried to draw with that "nappy-headed hoes" remark, making him look (if possible) even worse than he already did.
• Imus' appearance on the radio show of Al Sharpton, one of his loudest (and most powerful) critics, proved to be another bad move, yielding more questionable remarks (most notably Imus attacking "you people") and still more video to fuel the cable-news inferno through another news cycle. Another source of fuel for that fire turned out to be the considerable tension between Imus and the rest of the staff at MSNBC, which had been simulcasting Imus' radio show for a decade. In 2005, Imus began originating the show at MSNBC's Secaucus studios rather than in the cramped, TV-unfriendly basement studios of WFAN in Astoria, Queens, and the marriage was never a comfortable one, with reports of questionable behavior by Imus toward some MSNBC staffers and long-running animosity between several MSNBC hosts (most notably Keith Olbermann) and Imus.
• On Wednesday afternoon, MSNBC announced that it was cancelling Imus' TV simulcast, effective immediately, with NBC News president Steve Capus blaming the action not only on Imus' comments the previous week but on concerns expressed by many of the network's employees about Imus' history of behavior there. With a full slate of guests scheduled to travel to the Secaucus studios Thursday morning for the start of the radiothon, there was no way to move the show, which set the stage for an uncomfortable morning: Imus, off the TV airwaves, still broadcasting from the studio of the network that had just fired him - and that network devoting most of its airtime to the story, complete with live reports from outside its own building.
• Strange as that was, it was about to get stranger: on Thursday afternoon, word began circulating that Imus would lose his radio gig after the Friday show. In fact, he didn't even get to do a last show, as CBS bowed to the pressure and pulled him off the air immediately, prompting an on-air protest from WFAN's afternoon hosts, Mike Francesa and Chris "Mad Dog" Russo, attacking their bosses for what they called an over-reaction. (Behind the scenes, we hear the staff at WFAN was stunned at how quickly matters were going downhill; Imus' show was responsible for something in the neighborhood of $15 million of the station's $60 million or so in annual revenue, and until the final moments, few inside WFAN thought CBS would pull the plug on that income stream.)
• That evening, Imus met with the Rutgers team at the New Jersey governor's mansion, though without Governor Jon Corzine, whose vehicle was in an accident on the way to the meeting, leaving him hospitalized. On Friday morning, the radiothon was once again broadcast from Secaucus, this time with Deirdre Imus at the helm, in what we hear was an even stranger atmosphere than Thursday's show.
• And there's this side note from PENNSYLVANIA's Poconos region: on Tuesday morning, veteran WSBG (93.5 Stroudsburg) morning host Gary Smith decided to use "I'm a nappy-headed ho" as the morning's "phrase that pays," an ill-considered choice that led Nassau to fire him the next day, ending a 17-year run at the station. No replacement has been named yet, and there's a bit of irony here - across the hall, sister stations WVPO (840 Stroudsburg)/WILT (960 Mount Pocono) were Imus affiliates, and apparently intended to continue to carry the Imus show until it was cancelled by CBS.
• Our MASSACHUSETTS news this week starts out on Cape Cod, where Sandab Communications is swapping calls and formats at two of the stations in its newly-expanded cluster. On Tuesday, soft AC WOCN-FM (103.9 South Yarmouth) will move from its class A signal to the much more powerful class B signal of WKPE-FM (104.7 Orleans), with the "Rocket" classic rock format from 104.7 moving down to 103.9. Sandab already owns WQRC (99.9 Barnstable), and it's acquiring both WKPE-FM and WFCC (107.5 Chatham) from Charles River Broadcasting. (No changes to WFCC's classical format are expected.)
• Meanwhile, the dormant WCDJ (102.3 Truro) is getting new calls - WGTX - as it changes hands from Karl Nurse to "Dunes 102 FM," a partnership that includes former Boston jock Ron Robin, who plans to launch an oldies format on the small Outer Cape signal.

April 14, 2003 -

• We're back from Las Vegas - and there's no question what the big story was back home in our absence: the relaunch of NEW YORK's WNEW (102.7) following two months of stunting and several months of pointless meandering before that.
• Unless you've been under a rock for the last week or so, you no doubt know by now that the new nickname is "Blink 102.7" and the format is a mixture of entertainment news, talk and a sort of hot AC-rhythmic CHR hybrid aimed at women ages 18-30, with actor Kiefer Sutherland handling imaging duties and Viacom properties MTV and VH1 contributing plenty of corporate synergy to the mix. And you've probably heard that former WPIX (Channel 11) morning personality Lynda Lopez is doing mornings with her boyfriend Chris Booker...and that the afternoon show will come from Hollywood...and that they're holding an "open call" for a night show...and that they're using AOL Instant Messenger ("blinkline") to take requests.
• So what else can we tell you? Just that we heard Blink for the first time during an early Saturday morning layover at JFK on the way back from the coast, and that absent the live talent (though we're grateful at least for the disappearance of the infomercials that once marked WNEW's weekend lineup) it sounded not much different from the stunting format that had been running since February. Oh - and that pink logo? We're already hearing it called "Barbie Radio" on the message boards...
• Just outside the city limits, there was big action in our absence at the former Big City quadcast, with three of the four "Rumba" 107.1 stations returning to the air with new formats (and, in one case, new calls!) Up in Westchester, WYNY (107.1 Briarcliff Manor) is being LMAd to Pamal, which flipped the calls to WXPK and launched the expected simulcast with top 40 WSPK (104.7 Poughkeepsie) last week. With new imaging as "K104-K107," WXPK (and aren't those calls awfully close to New York's "K-Rock" WXRK?) has been enjoying an unusually good reach into the city with the temporary absence of WWZY (107.1 Long Branch NJ) from the airwaves. (More on Long Branch in a moment...) Out on Long Island's East End, WWXY (107.1 Hampton Bays) returned to the air with a simulcast of Jarad's modern AC WLIR (92.7 Garden City); Jarad will pay $2 million to buy WWXY from Nassau, which paid $43 million for all four "Rumba" stations from Big City just a few months ago.
• From NEW JERSEY comes a new station sale and a station sale on hold, and both involve Millennium Communications. The company has slapped a temporary restraining order on Nassau for its proposed purchase from Mega of WEMG-FM (104.9 Egg Harbor City); Millennium says it violates a noncompete deal that Nassau signed when it sold its Jersey Shore cluster to Millennium last year. Meanwhile, Millennium is selling top 40 WBBO (98.5 Ocean Acres) to Press - and that's not the only station Press is picking up at the Jersey Shore. It's also lined up to be the buyer (from Nassau, no less) of WWZY (107.1 Long Branch), which is silent for the moment. Expect Press to move 107.1 back to its original tower site in Long Branch, reversing the move Big City made a couple of years ago, which improved the 107.1 signal in Brooklyn and Queens at the expense of Monmouth County reception.
• Meanwhile out in northwestern New Jersey, Nassau rolled out the new format on the one piece of the 107.1 quadcast it plans to keep: WWYY (107.1 Belvidere) signed back on as "Lite 107," aiming into the Easton/Bethlehem PA area with a soft AC format.
• You couldn't pass a flat surface out at NAB in Las Vegas without seeing a piece of RHODE ISLAND: a flier advertising the upcoming bankruptcy auction of WALE (990 Greenville). Now that the planned sale of the station to Jerry Evans' Moon Song Broadcasting has fallen through, this "50,000 watt" (by day, anyway, with a very directional signal that goes east to Providence and then over the ocean - and drops to 5,000 even more directional watts after dark) station is hitting the auction block on May 20 in Phoenix. Will it find a buyer? It certainly got plenty of attention; those signs were tacked up everywhere (including the men's room) at the Las Vegas Convention Center and the Hilton nearby.

April 16, 1998-

• One of the best-known callsigns in Rochester radio has been revived on FM. In the 60s and 70s, WBBF (950) ruled the Flower City dial with top-40 music, and now many of those same songs are being played on the "New 99BBF."
• On Monday afternoon, Entercom's oldies station WKLX (98.9), a sister station to WBBF(AM), began calling itself "BBF" -- and, more important, ditched the satellite-delivered oldies format that it's been using in favor of live, local programming. The soon-to-be WBBF-FM is being programmed by Chris Whittingham (formerly with sister station "The River," classic rock WQRV 93.3 Avon), who's also doing middays. Former WKLX morning jock Mike Vickers moves to the 2-7 PM slot, and Ellis B. Feaster returns to Rochester from KBEE (98.7) in Salt Lake City to do mornings. Feaster handled AM drive duties on 98.9 in its WKLX incarnation before leaving for Salt Lake as well. NERW expects the WBBF revival to be just the first in a series of changes at the Entercom stations, which were purchased from Heritage (by way of Sinclair and News Corp.) just a month ago. Rumors are flying about a call change at WBBF(AM) to avoid confusion, although we're told there may not be any truth to the speculation that the new calls will be WEZO, last heard on 93.3 -- and before that on Rochester's AM 990 (later WRMM, WCMF, and now WDCZ), and most memorably for 16 years on 101.3 FM (now WRMM). AM 950 is now local in morning drive, with operations manager Todd Blide spinning the standards. And morning drive at WQRV is being handled by fill-in jocks now that Whittingham is across the hall at BBF-FM. As for Entercom's other Rochester outlet -- well, you don't fix what ain't broke, so expect no changes at top-rated country station WBEE (92.5, and the original WBBF-FM back in the sixties).
• NERW's enjoying the "return" of a station we fondly remember from our younger days -- and now we're just waiting for some savvy radio operator in Buffalo to find a way to resurrect "KB"! (2008 update: Entercom did, five years later, but it didn't stick...)
• Across the border, Sunday is the big day for Toronto's CBL (740) and CBLA (99.1), as the CBC officially moves its Radio One service from AM to FM. The event will be commemorated by an all-day open house at the CBC Broadcast Centre at 250 Front Street West, as well as by an hour-long broadcast at noon. As crushed as we are by the imminent loss of CBC service to upstate New York (the AM transmitter will be turned off for good sometime this fall), NERW can't pass up a good open house, so we'll be up there checking out the scene and rolling tape on the Big Moment.
• On to MASSACHUSETTS, where we have more details on the changes to come at Costa/Eagle's Merrimack Valley stations. An article in the Boston Sunday Globe's North West Weekly section says the English-language programming and WCCM calls will move to Haverhill's 1490 within a few months, possibly as an all-news outlet. Replacing WCCM on 800 in Lawrence will be Spanish-language programming now heard on WNNW (1110) in Salem, N.H. And 1110 will get the Spanish-language tropical music that's currently on 1490 as WHAV. Costa tells Globe freelancer Christine MacDonald that he's now scouting stations in Worcester and Springfield.
• WBPS (890 Dedham) is getting a new owner, as John Douglas spins it to New England Continental Media...AKA Salem Media, the owner of WEZE (590) in Boston and dozens of other religious and conservative talk stations around the country. No word yet on format changes for the leased-time ethnic outlet. This is the second time in recent years that WEZE has had a sister station; Salem ran WPZE on WEZE's old 1260 frequency for a year or so before spinning 1260 to Hibernia and Radio Disney.
• Meantime, Marlboro's WSRO (1470) is being sold by Great Radio to Alexander Langer, the owner of two other Metro West AMs, WRPT (650 Ashland) and WJLT (1060 Natick).