November 17, 2008

Wease Returns, While CBS Cuts

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

*To the strains of Billy Joel's "It's Still Rock & Roll to Me" and a new tune, "The Wease is Back," one of western NEW YORK's best-known radio talents returned to the airwaves Saturday night, testing the waters of a new studio ahead of the real launch this morning.

That would be Rochester's Brother Wease, of course, whose contract dispute with his former station, Entercom's WCMF (96.5), made headlines both here and in the mainstream media a year ago. Wease ended up departing WCMF after a quarter of a century, leaving his former sidekicks behind to start their own morning show - and as of today, after waiting out a non-compete in his WCMF contract, he's over at Clear Channel's rival classic rocker, WFXF (95.1 Honeoye Falls).

In a radio environment where talent costs are often among the first things to be cut by managers trying to make sense of a plummeting economic picture, "The Fox" is hoping its investment in Wease and a new crew of sidekicks, as well as in the contract to carry Bills football, will pay off in ratings and revenues for a station that's had relatively low visibility in town in its five years on the air.

There was nothing low-visibility about WFXF this morning, however - from a bottom-of-the-front page "Welcome back, Wease" ad in the Democrat and Chronicle (paid for by sponsor Salvatore's Pizza, which is advertising a "$9.51 Welcome back, Wease" special) to rolling billboards on the streets of downtown Rochester to the TV crews that jammed into the packed studio at Midtown Plaza, it was hard to miss Wease's return.

That's Clear Channel traffic manager Lisa Becker at right in the photo above - a longtime Wease fan from his WCMF days, she had the honor of introducing Wease as he signed back on the air. Later in the morning, Rochester mayor Bob Duffy was scheduled to drop by, and no doubt one of the topics will be the fate of the building where Clear Channel's studios are currently located.

The radio stations are the last tenants left in the otherwise-vacant mall, which is now owned by the city. While construction work is underway a few blocks away at the new studios at the HSBC Building, where the old CBS Radio studios are being gutted, Wease and company aren't expected to be in their new digs (on the 16th floor, one level down from Wease's old WCMF studios) until February at the earliest.

In the meantime, the Wease crew is using the old WHAM (1180) studio, sharing close quarters around the console instead of the usual lounge setting that they'll enjoy at the new digs.

As for the man himself? Wease was clearly happy to be back behind a mic, and he'll be happier still, we think, when the introductory festivities are over - after just a few minutes this morning, Wease was already complaining about the nonstop flood of "welcome back, we missed you" phone calls he was taking.

And was that Wease's former WCMF colleague, midday jock Dave Kane, we saw hanging out just outside the studio? (Tuesday update: Kane checked in with NERW to say that while there are indeed a few guys around town who look like him, he's never been up at the Clear Channel studios, Monday morning included.)

*While Clear Channel tests the value of a high-profile committment local programming with Wease, other big broadcasters continue to cut back.

In New York City, CBS Radio cut at least four more jobs last week, including Jeff Mazzei, the WCBS-FM (101.1) assistant program director who'd more or less single-handedly kept the oldies format alive on the station's HD2 signal between the 2005 flip to "Jack FM" and the 2007 return to oldies on the main channel. Mazzei, a 23-year veteran of CBS-FM (and of WNBC/WYNY before that), had been voicetracking overnights and the Sunday night countdown show. Also out at CBS in New York are a receptionist at WXRK, a sales assistant at WFAN and at least one veteran engineer.

Meanwhile in Buffalo, longtime WJYE (96.1) afternoon jock Bob "the Godfather" Galli exited last week.

Where are they now? Former WABC program director Phil Boyce has disclosed where he's going next: he's joining Talk Radio Network, where he'll serve as president of programming, overseeing a talent roster that includes Michael Savage, Laura Ingraham and Mancow - but not his WABC protege Sean Hannity, with whom Boyce was widely rumored to be planning to work after departing the Citadel-owned talker. And Vinny Brown, who made his name programming New York City stations including WRKS and WBLS/WLIB, has hired on with Stevie Wonder's station in the LA market. He'll be serving as executive VP at KJLH (102.3 Compton).

Clear Channel is shuffling the schedule at its WYYY (94.5 Syracuse), moving John Tesh's syndicated show from nights to afternoons, where Glenn Hamilton is now on the air.

More Christmas flips: Albany's WKLI (100.9) made the switch at 5 PM on Monday, followed later in the week by Clear Channel's WRNQ (92.1 Poughkeepsie) and WCTW (98.5 Catskill) - and at week's end by the big gun in the Clear Channel "Lite" family, WLTW (106.7 New York), as well as by WMXW (103.3 Vestal) in the Binghamton market and by WTSS (102.5) in Buffalo.

Add an AM station to the list, too: WVTL (1570 Amsterdam) replaced its talk format with Christmas music last week, though its morning show remains on the air.

There's a new noncommercial FM signal coming to eastern Niagara County and the fringes of the Buffalo market, as Lockport Community Television has been granted a construction permit for a 90.5 signal licensed to Rapids, New York. The 250-watt/74' directional facility will use a site about halfway between Amherst and Lockport, where it will be tightly wedged in between the CBC's Crystal Beach, Ontario relay on the same frequency and the as-yet-unbuilt new Holy Family Communications signal on 90.7 in Lancaster.

Speaking of 90.7, the frequency will be the home of a new noncommercial FM signal in Napeague, on Long Island's East End - and that new 6.25 kW/315' DA signal has calls: KCBE. Yes, "KCBE" - and no, we don't know whether that was an FCC glitch or a deliberate request by the Community Bible Church, the licensee of the new signal.

In TV news, there's a big opening coming in front of a green screen in Syracuse: veteran WSYR-TV (Channel 9) chief meteorologist Dave Eichorn's contract isn't being renewed when it's up at year's end, we hear.

One more belated TV note before we move on: when we finally had a chance, long after Election Night, to settle back with our DVR and check out what some of the network coverage had looked like (we were, of course, busy working on local coverage ourselves that long night), we noticed something interesting on Rochester's WHEC - no HD signal from NBC until halfway through Barack Obama's victory speech, awfully late into the night, even at times when there wasn't local SD content being superimposed on the network feed. Were other local affiliates in SD all night, too? Drop us a line and let us know...

And speaking of NBC, the network lost one of its most distinctive voices last week. Howard Reig came to the network in 1952 from General Electric's WGY/WGFM/WRGB in Schenectady, where he had already been a staff announcer for a decade, much of that time as WGY morning host. At NBC, Reig worked for more than half a century in almost every imaginable capacity, anchoring newscasts, announcing sports events, doing local announcing for WNBC-TV, and for almost a quarter of a century, from 1983-2007, introducing the NBC Nightly News. Reig's retirement from full-time duty in 2005 marked the end of the staff announcer era at NBC. He died last Monday at his home in Florida; he was 87.

*The return of veteran MASSACHUSETTS sportscaster Bob Lobel to the radio airwaves turned out to be temporary indeed.

When Lobel came on board as morning co-host on CBS Radio's WODS (103.3) on September 22, station officials hinted that the longtime WBZ-TV personality might be appearing in only a "guest" role - and that's turned out to be the case.

Chris Zito, who recently departed Worcester's WXLO, joined the WODS staff on Wednesday, working alongside Karen Blake from 6-9 AM weekdays. Zito's arrival is hardly a surprise; in Worcester, he worked with Jay Beau Jones, who's now PD at WODS.

With Zito's return, however, came staffing cuts at WODS and its sister CBS Radio stations: at WZLX (100.7), longtime overnight jock "Reverend Al" Cole, is out. News anchor/morning sidekick June Knight is gone at WODS, replaced by updates "from the WBZ newsroom." But the WBZ (1030) newsroom is a few staffers smaller than usual, too: Bob McMahon, a 16-year 'BZ veteran (and before that a veteran of Utica and Syracuse radio and of the old WEEI), is out, as are sports guy Alan Segel, who'd been there more than 20 years, and producer Scot Cooper, who was coming up on two decades there.

(The usual disclosure: your editor used to work with McMahon, Segel and especially Cooper, and was trained by Cooper in the now-arcane arts of cart-bulking and reel-splicing; any cuts in that newsroom inevitably hit pretty hard at this address, and we're hopeful all three can be back at work somewhere soon.)

Out west, the analog TV dial in Springfield is emptying out ahead of next February's transition date. On November 5, public station WGBY turned off its analog channel 57 transmitter as it begins juggling antennas and transmission lines to get ready for its Feb. 17 switch from digital channel 58 to digital channel 22. And on the other side of the Mount Tom tower farm, ABC affiliate WGGB will turn off its analog signal on channel 40 December 1, allowing it to get ready to move its digital signal from channel 55 to channel 40 by the time transition day arrives.

On the North Shore, translator profiteer Radio Assist Ministry gets $22,000 for the license to W243CD (96.5 Gloucester). The buyer, White Mountain Broadcasting tells the FCC it intends to use the translator to relay Calvary's WSMA (90.5 Scituate) - we note that the New Hampshire phone number listed for White Mountain happens to be that of Brian Dodge's WWNH (1340 Madbury), for whatever that might be worth.

Out on Cape Cod, add WKPE (103.9 South Yarmouth) to the Christmas-music list - it flipped November 10, we're told, and when "Cape 104" returns to its regular format after Christmas, there will be some changes, most notably the exit of morning host Steve Binder.

In Worcester, budget cuts have claimed the job of AJ Crozby, who was the night jock at Citadel's WXLO (104.5 Fitchburg) and production director for the cluster there.

*A Providence, RHODE ISLAND FM station is back to full power after losing its antenna to lightning damage.

Thanks to Mike Fitzpatrick of NECRAT.com for this picture ("Exclusive to NERW!," he notes) showing the new three-bay directional ERI at WSNE (93.3 Taunton MA), which replaces the old auxiliary antenna for WJAR (Channel 10) at that station's tower site in Rehoboth, Massachusetts.

*The count of all-Christmas stations in PENNSYLVANIA's largest market now stands at two: WBEB (101.1) made its flip last week, joining Greater Media's WNUW (97.5) in the format.

In Pittsburgh, Clear Channel has promoted Alex Tear to operations manager of its six-station cluster. Tear retains his PD duties at two of the stations, oldies WWSW (94.5) and top-40 WKST-FM (96.1).

There's a new noncommercial station coming to St. Mary's: WRWV will be the calls of Invisible Allies Ministries' signal on 91.1, running 110 watts/610' from the WKBI-FM (93.9) tower. The new station will relay WRXV (89.1 State College).

And on TV, the Keystone State's stations will all be cooperating tonight for a one-minute simulated shutdown of their analog signals, testing viewers' readiness for the real thing come February. The coordinated test will take place at 6:25 PM on every TV station in the state, with one exception: WQLN-TV in Erie is already gone from the analog dial after its transmission line failed this fall.

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*In CANADA, the CRTC has plenty of work on its agenda over the next few months, with a big public hearing scheduled for January 26 in Orillia to consider a slew of new station applications and a few troublesome license renewals.

Perhaps the most troublesome has been Pellpropco's CHSC (1220) in St. Catharines, Ontario, which has been in the CRTC's sights recently amidst accusations that the station had abandoned its service to its city of license on the Niagara Peninsula in favor of serving Italian-speaking listeners in Toronto. The CRTC says there's evidence that CHSC has considerably exceeded the 15% limit for "third-language" (non-English/French) programming. There are also issues with CHSC's required financial statements, missing logger tapes, and even the location of CHSC's main studio. The station lost its old St. Catharines studio in a bankruptcy auction a few months back, and has apparently been operating from a sales office in the Toronto suburb of Woodbridge.

Also on the agenda is the renewal of Quinte Broadcasting's CJBQ (800 Belleville), which may have violated the Canadian-content rules.

Then there are dozens of applications for new stations: seven for 89.1 in Orillia, Ontario, most from regional players such as Larche Communications, Bayshore Broadcasting and Rock 95, as well as from national group Newcap. There's also an application for a low-power information station on 98.5 in Orillia from Jack McGaw's Instant Information Systems.

Over in Bracebridge and Gravenhurst, Ontario, four applicants, including Evanov, Bayshore and Larche, want new signals on 102.3, while McGaw seeks a low-power signal on 101.9 and JOCO Communications has two applications for signals on 101.7.

In Huntsville, Ontario, Muskoka-Parry Sound Broadcasting is applying to boost power on CFBK (105.5), from 5 kW to 43 kW. The company is a subsidiary of Haliburton Broadcasting, which is also on the agenda at the January hearing, when the CRTC is expected to approve its sale to Newcap.

Moving along to eastern Ontario, My Broadcasting hopes to expand its regional "My FM" network into Brighton, with 1.45 kW/482' DA on 100.9.

Out in western Ontario, Five Amigos Broadcasting wants a new station in Wallaceburg, south of Sarnia. The new AC station on 99.1 would run 1 kW/197' DA.

Over in Windsor, the CBC has apparently dropped its plan to install a "nested" low-power FM relay of its Radio One signal, CBE (1550), on 102.3. Instead, it's asking the CRTC for permission to abandon AM entirely in Windsor, replacing the 10 kW AM signal with two FM transmitters, one on 97.5 in Windsor (19 kW/426' DA, with a deep directional null toward Detroit's WKRK 97.1 and WJLB 97.9) and one on 91.5 in Leamington (10.4 kW/193' DA). If CBE's move to FM is granted, it will mean the end of one of only two main CBC Radio One transmitters still remaining on AM between Winnipeg and Newfoundland - and the other, CBI (1140 Sydney NS) has permission to go to FM as well.

Yet there are also a couple of applications for new AMs in this massive Notice of Public Hearing, both in the Toronto area: Kumar Nadarajah wants 1000 watts by day, 175 watts at night on 960 in suburban Markham for an ethnic station, occupying the frequency recently vacated over in Kingston by CFFX; meanwhile, in Toronto's Scarborough neighborhood, Subanasiri Vaithilingam wants 1000 watts by day and 87 watts at night on 1350, also for an ethnic station, using the frequency abandoned in nearby Oshawa when CKDO moved to 1580 a couple of years back.

In the Maritimes, CKBW (94.5 Bridgewater NS) is applying to add a second signal: it wants a country station on 100.7, with 10 kW/488'.

And in a separate proceeding from the January hearing, the CRTC is seeking comments on an application from Newcap to extend the reach of its Prince Edward Island FM signals to the outer ends of the island. If granted, CKQK (105.5 Charlottetown) would add 103.7 in Elmira and 91.1 in St. Edward, while CHTN (100.3 Charlottetown) would be heard on 99.9 in Elmira and 89.9 in St. Edward.

*In Hamilton, the financial struggles at CanWest Global mean big programming cuts at CHCH (Channel 11). The station has cancelled four local talk shows, closed a regional news bureau in Oakville and cut its noon newscast back to half an hour - and there's word that veteran anchors Dan McLean and Connie Smith could lose their jobs as the cuts continue. Also on the chopping block is the morning newscast on Global Ontario, which will be replaced by a simulcast of CHCH's morning show.

*And in Toronto, NERW was on hand as CHUM (1050) listeners turned out in the rain Saturday, some waiting in line for over an hour to shuffle through the halls of the station's venerable 1331 Yonge St. studio building for one last time as the station prepares to move downtown after half a century at its present site.

Voices from CHUM's past such as Bob Laine and Gord James were behind the mikes in the air studio, broadcasting live while the room filled with listeners touring the station all afternoon. CHUM's history was on display as well, as the offices at the south end of the building were transformed into a CHUM Museum for the day, featuring old CHUM Charts and other memorabilia.

The event benefited the CP24/CHUM Christmas Wish charity, which offered two prints showing the CHUM building in earlier days as a gift to donors.

CHUM isn't moving out just yet, by the way - its new home at Richmond and Simcoe Streets won't be ready until early 2009. (And when it does, we hope to be on hand to chronicle the move for you!)

Read - or written - any good books lately? We're compiling a special NERW Bookshelf column for Thanksgiving week, and we're looking for books about radio or TV in our region, or written by radio or TV people. If you've got something to add to our list, let us know!

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