Economy Claims PA's WPAZ

THE 2010 CALENDAR IS HERE - AND IT'S ON SALE!

The brand-new Tower Site Calendar 2010 is now shipping, complete with more than a dozen full-color images of sites from Deer Point in Boise to KYPA in Los Angeles to Mount Mansfield in Vermont.

We're selling them at a pretty good pace this year, which means a January sellout is likely.

And to move them out the door even faster, we're offering a one-day Cyber Monday Sale!

Order before midnight tonight and you'll save $1 on the calendar and $5 on a professional-level NERW subscription, which comes with a free calendar - but don't delay!

(We've got special discounts for bulk orders, too - they make great holiday gifts for your business colleagues or friends...)

Order now at the fybush.com Store!

• PROGRAMMING SERVICES

DO IT RIGHT PRODUCTIONS -- Visit our Web site, doitrightproductions.net, to hear our three syndicated shows, Classic Clips, Country Roots and Gospel Doings, produced by longtime country and bluegrass lovers. We also provide demo and duplicating services. Contact Roland (Bruce) Cutler, PO Box 351, Lyons, NY 14489; or dirp650@verizon.net.

You can have your ad here, for just a few dollars a week! Click here for information on the most economical way to reach tens of thousands of Northeast radio and TV people each week.

December 15, 2008 -

• It's been almost 18 years since a massive ice storm paralyzed us here in the Rochester area, leaving some areas without power for more than two weeks. And it's been just over a decade since an even more massive ice storm struck an area stretching from northern New York up through eastern Ontario and into much of Quebec, knocking power out to some areas for as long as a month. By those standards, the ice storm that hit central MASSACHUSETTS, southern VERMONT and NEW HAMPSHIRE on Friday was relatively minor - but even "relatively" minor is still a big deal for people everywhere from Fitchburg to Lowell to Peterborough to White River Junction, for whom it could still be a while before things are back to normal.
• The good news is that, at least as this column is being written on Sunday night, there are no reports of any downed towers in the region. What the massive power outages are demonstrating, however, is a surprisingly large number of stations apparently lacking working generators at either studio or transmitter sites. Much of the Worcester market was knocked off the air in the storm's first hours, including both news-talk AMs, Clear Channel's WTAG (580) and Carter's WCRN (830). WCRN remained off through Saturday, but WTAG was soon back on the air with nonstop emergency information, and still going strong late Sunday. There have been widespread power outages along much of the Route 2 corridor to the north, with numerous stations off the air everywhere from Athol to Fitchburg to Lowell and Lawrence.
• Across the New Hampshire line, the worst of the outages have been on the state's western edge; there were numerous reports of stations off the air from Peterborough and Keene up through the Upper Valley, where most of the market's stations were still silent on Saturday afternoon. (Notable exceptions were Nassau's WHDQ 106.1 Claremont and Bob Vinikoor's cluster, where WNTK/WUVR in the New London/Hanover area, WCNL in Newport and WCFR in Springfield, Vermont were all on the air through most of the storm and its aftermath with local news and information.)
• On with the rest of the week's news, starting with more big changes in Boston morning radio, where CBS Radio abruptly pulled the plug on WBMX (98.5 Boston) morning man John Lander after his Thursday show. In addition to Lander, who'd been at Mix since 1996, when he replaced Joe Martelle, sidekicks Kelly Malone, Alicia Love and weather guy Mike Ellis are all gone. Who's next for morning drive at the hot AC station? Over at Boston Radio Watch, Mark reports that Karson Tager, late of WHBQ-FM (107.5) in Memphis, will be coming to Boston in January along with his former co-host Kennedy Elsey, who's still at the Memphis station for now - and he says the new "Karson and Kennedy" show will be aiming for a younger demographic than Lander attracted. (Unspoken in that is the assumption that they'll work cheaper, too...)
• On the TV side of things, we note the start of local HD newscasts at WBZ-TV (Channel 4) and sister station WSBK (Channel 38) on Thursday, which we believe leaves only Fox's WFXT (Channel 25) as a major local-news player in Boston without HD. But WFXT has bigger concerns at the moment: after many months fighting problems with its aging analog transmission system, we're hearing that WFXT's analog signal finally gave up the ghost for good last week, leaving only WFXT-DT (RF 31), which is not yet at full power. Interestingly, WFXT had just last month submitted an STA application to the FCC asking for reduced analog power (293 kW visual) through the end of the transition period, due to "recent, partial damage to the licensed antenna."
• Another Bay State analog TV station - albeit one that mainly serves RHODE ISLAND viewers - has gone dark. New Bedford-licensed WLWC (Channel 28), the CW affiliate for the Providence market, turned off its analog transmitter on December 9, leaving WLWC-DT 22 behind.
• A veteran PENNSYLVANIA jock is back on the air: Greater Media has hired Glenn Kalina as the morning man on WNUW (97.5 Burlington NJ), making "Now 97.5" the latest stop in a career that's included WZZD, WCAU-FM, WIFI, WIOQ, WLCE and WMWX. Kalina starts at "Now" on January 5.

December 13, 2004 -

• MASSACHUSETTS - and the nation - lost one of the great ones last week.
• Since 1976, David Brudnoy had entertained, educated and, often, irritated audiences on WHDH (850), WRKO (680) and - starting in 1986 - the 50,000-watt night signal of WBZ (1030 Boston). In 1994, Brudnoy came to the nation's attention when he revealed that he was suffering from AIDS. After a viral infection related to the disease put him in a coma for nine days and kept him off the air for ten weeks, Brudnoy returned to the air with a reduced shift (7-10 PM instead of 7-midnight), a new studio (in the library of his Back Bay home) and a profile raised by appearances on national TV and the publication of his memoirs, Life is Not A Rehearsal.
• Brudnoy's illnesses continued to take him off the air occasionally in recent years, but it quickly became clear that his latest absence, which began on December 1, was a serious one. Last Wednesday, Brudnoy gave an interview to WBZ anchor Gary LaPierre in which he announced that his Merkel cell carcinoma had spread to his liver and kidneys and that he did not expect to live more than a few days. Wednesday night's Brudnoy show, hosted by former WBZ personality and close Brudnoy friend Peter Meade, took the form of an on-air wake, with Brudnoy listening from his room at Massachusetts General Hospital as politicians, authors and average listeners called in to say how much Brudnoy had meant to them. At 6:11 the following night, Brudnoy succumbed to his cancer. He was 64.
• There was other news, in MASSACHUSETTS and elsewhere, ill-equipped as we were to deal with it in the face of the sad news from WBZ. Over at sister station WODS (103.3 Boston), veteran New England programmer Pete Falconi (late of Worcester's WXLO) takes over as music director and midday host, filling the shoes of the departed Sandy Benson.
• In yet another corner of the Infinity Boston cluster, the changing of the guard continued at WBCN (104.1 Boston), where afternoon jock Nik Carter, one of the last remaining veterans of the Oedipus era at the rock station, is out of a job, with his contract not being renewed and no replacement named just yet.
• On any other week, the sudden death of a veteran upstate NEW YORK morning man would have been our lead story, and we're saddened indeed to have to report the passing of WBEE (92.5 Rochester)'s Bill Coffey. Bill started at WBEE in 1988, not long after the station flipped to country, and he held down mornings there until he was forced to return to his native southeastern Pennsylvania to care for his ailing father.
• Three years later, the departure of his successor, Fred Horton (now in Erie, Pennsylvania at WXTA) created an opening at WBEE, and thanks to the modern miracle of ISDN, Bill was once again hosting the "Coffee Club," this time from the comfort of his home in Glenmoore, Pennsylvania. The show worked, though, thanks to local co-host (and WBEE veteran) Terry Clifford and frequent visits to Rochester by Coffey. After a show last Monday that went without a hitch, the staff at WBEE was shocked to get a phone call later in the morning saying that Bill had suffered a heart attack, collapsed and died. He was just 56; he leaves behind his wife, Barbara, and three children.

December 10, 1999 -

• We begin this week's news in western NEW YORK, and we begin with an obituary. John Otto, the talk host credited with pioneering the form in the region, died early Monday morning at Buffalo General Hospital of emphysema.
• Otto's broadcast career began at the old WBNY (1400) in Buffalo at the tender age of 19. After two years in the Navy, Otto spent the rest of his five-decade tenure in Buffalo radio, most of it with WGR (550), where his "Extension 55" and "Night Call" were the city's best-known talk shows in the 1960s and 70s. Otto took a detour to WWKB (1520) for a few years in the mid-80s, then returned to WGR for the rest of his career. For the past year, Otto did his 10PM-1AM shift from his home, as his health deteriorated and he became unable to get to the WGR studios. In 1998, Otto was named to the Buffalo Broadcast Pioneers' Hall of Fame.
• Otto was hospitalized last weekend after suffering a fall at home. As news of his death spread Monday morning, the response was immediate from across the Buffalo media community, exemplified by WBEN's Sandy Beach: "We have lost our teacher." WGR devoted its Monday and Tuesday night shows to remembrances of Otto. John Otto was 70 years old.
• In other news from the Empire State, there's now a format war in Rochester -- in adult standards, of all things! Just like it did in Dallas and Denver this fall, Crawford Broadcasting has dropped the religious format from WDCZ (990) in Rochester, replacing it with a locally-generated (or at least very slickly voice-tracked) standards format as "Legends 990," WLGZ(AM), complete with PAMS jingles. The religion continues on WDCZ-FM (102.7 Webster). WLGZ goes head-to-head with dial neighbor WEZO (950), whose standards format is entirely satellite-delivered, not to mention pre-empted by Spanish nightly from 7-9 PM.
• For those keeping score, this is callsign number six (WNYR, WEZO, WRMM, WCMF, WDCZ, WLGZ) and format number eight for 990 in the twenty years it's been on that frequency. (Boston-area listeners might want to check WLGZ out at night; its directional signal comes in very nicely in and around the Hub!)
• In MASSACHUSETTS, Citadel begins filling the gaps between its New Hampshire cluster (ex-Fuller-Jeffrey) and its Connecticut/Rhode Island stations (ex-Tele-Media and Spring) with a $24.5 million purchase of Montachusett Broadcasting's WXLO (104.5 Fitchburg) and WORC-FM (98.9 Spencer). WXLO's huge signal reaches from southern New Hampshire across central Massachusetts (east as far as Boston) and into Connecticut and Rhode Island. Classic rock WORC-FM is a much more limited signal, serving southern Worcester County and not much else. The sale pretty much completes the mega-grouping of Worcester, with WTAG and WSRS in Clear Channel (ex-Capstar, ex-AMFM) hands and WAAF part of Entercom. (And it's not even the highlight of Citadel's week; that would be the 9-station, 9-figure purchase of Liggett's Michigan clusters...)
• No more Tone-Loc? WBOT (97.7 Brockton) has unveiled its permanent format, and no, it's not "All Dead Air," either. "Wild 9-7-7" made its debut Monday night as "Boston's New Home for Hip-Hop and R&B," taking dead aim at WJMN (94.5) and WILD (1090) with a signal that at least does a decent job of covering the city's black neighborhoods, even if it does leave something to be desired to the north and west. Programming, at least for now, is being directed out of Radio One's WERQ (92.3) in Baltimore.
• Say goodbye to one NEW HAMPSHIRE station: Notre Dame College in Manchester has returned the license of WRND (91.7) to the FCC, and the calls have been deleted. WRND went silent in 1997, and last year began simulcasting public radio WEVO (89.1 Concord). Notre Dame dropped its journalism program this year, and the radio station went away as well.
• We heard CANADA's newest AM station using its calls this week. CINF (690 Montreal) is getting ready for next Tuesday's launch as "Info 690," and the signal both day and night in Rochester sounds an awful lot like that of the old CBF from its Brossard, Quebec transmitter site -- but it's not! A last-minute message from Sheldon Harvey up in Montreal informs us that 690 is diplexing off the CIQC (600) site, while English sister "940 News" (whose calls will in fact be CINW, not the previously-announced CKNN) is diplexing off French-language CKVL (850)'s towers a few miles to the east. Weekday programming on CIQC and CKVL wrapped up with Friday's shows, and weekend programming will conclude Sunday, with Monday being a dark day on all four frequencies before Tuesday's 11 AM launch of Info 690 and 940 News. Simulcasts will reportedly continue on 850 and 600 for up to six months.